Just returned from one week (2/17-2/24) at Sand Dollar and had a wonderful time. This was our tenth trip to Bonaire and the first time we flew Air Jamaica. From our check-in at JFK in New York City to our return a week later everything was perfect. It use to take us three flights going from NY to Miami to Curacao on American and then connecting to ALM for the last leg, if one flight was delayed you were stuck. Air Jamaica is the way to go to Bonaire.

We have a second floor two bedroom at Sand$. With a complete kitchen we ate all our breakfasts in, most lunches and two dinners. We brought down some frozen steaks packed in-between frozen vegetables in a small cooler. Everything was rock solid when we arrived. On the way to Sand$ we had the cab driver stop at the Cultimara to pick up milk, bread, and some other items. We also discovered the Bonaire warehouse on this trip. It’s also a great place to go food shopping.

We rented a car from ABCarrental. A Toyota Tercel automatic with a/c. We picked up the car at their office located on the grounds of Sand$ and returned it at the airport.

Alan logged his 200th dive on the last day of diving. Joan is close behind at 179. All our dives, except for our trip to the reef cam, were done on Bari reef, the house reef at Sand$. We love Bari reef because you can do it a different way every time. Looking back at our logbooks our last 44 dives (except for the reef cam) have been done on Bari reef.

Our trip to the reef cam, now that was an adventure. We make our way out to the reef cam and just as we get there Alan’s mask strap breaks (we figure that his mask strap was only good for 197 dives). Swim to shore, climb across a coral beach, up a flight a stair (in full scuba gear), get a strap, down a flight of stairs, back across a coral beach, and enter water. “Hey Alan, where is your regulator cover?” Back across a coral beach, up a flight or stairs (in full scuba gear), find regulator cover on floor, back down a flight of stairs, across a coral beach, enter water and swim back out to reef cam, 45 minutes later than our planned visit. It was all worth it because Hazel’s students captured us and posted it on the newsgroup.

The fish life on Bari reef was abundant as usual. We always enjoy coming back to visit our fishy friends and they seemed glad to see us. Entry from the small beach was easy and then just a short swim to the reef.

Dinners: The Saturday night all you can eat barbecue at Den Laman is a must and reasonably priced. As always we returned to Capriccio’s for a great Italian mean. Another great place to go for Italian is Pirata Nello located on top of ZeeZicht. Pirata Nello is operated by the same people who ran Otello, Stella is still host and her husband is still chef. When Otello closed we missed them tremendously and were thrilled to find them. You MUST go and have the Lasagnette lobster, Alan had waited three years for this dish and it was worth the wait. ZeeZicht is also very good and The Pizza Temple at Rum Runners is a great place for pizza and dinner on a budget.

That covers it, a week of diving, eating, and relaxing in Bonaire, a nice escape from the winter back here in the northeast!

Fantastic report Alan & Joan !!We were all following your trip thanks to the cam.Your pic's are great too!Masha danki for sharing with these frozen souls here.

I met Alan and Joan while in Bonaire last week and I MUST say that they look much better in person then in their underwater photo! hee hee All joking aside...Alan & Joan are two of the nicest people and sure helped to make our trip more enjoyable. They really looked out for us last week and even brought me home made cookies on my birthday!! We saw their condo and it is really nice...lots of personal touches. I hope we can go back someday and stay in their unit!

What a fabulous, upbeat report! Thanks, Alan and Joan. Your photos are superb - it was great to see a picture of the world-famous reef cam! I looked at your other pictures as well. Terrific bouyancy! Perhaps you, Sherry and Barry could be the reef cam poster children! Okay, it's official. I am NOT going to be able to wait nine more days!!!

Alan and Joan -

Many thanks for the great trip report w/info. on Sanddollar and Bari Reef, photos included. I'll be down there soon (will April ever come?), can't wait!

hazel, take deep breaths, it doesn't help much but every time someone is too excited, people tell them to do that.

hang in there, it will be worth it. it is us who have a year to wait to go back that are in agony.
you can join our ranks when you get back, in the mean time hope you have a wonderful trip.

Alan and Joan, not a surprise that your report and photos are top notch! We enjoy all the vicarious vacationing we can get! Thanks!

Great report guys. Thanks for the restaurant info both here on the site and via snail mail. Great pictures (although pics in dive gear sure do make us look like aliens - no wonder the fish swim away from us
Where did you enter the water from to do the webcam dive? You're wearing snorkels so I assume there was some surface swimming?

We always wear snorkels on our mask, even for boat diving, just a habit we got into.

Joan - you didn't answer the one question - where did you enter the water from? I'm not sure if one of our boat dives will take us to Small Wall so we're wondering if there is a shore entrance that will allow us to snorkel to the webcam to dive it?? Thanks

Most dive shops will let you request where you want to go. Boat is probably the best way to get there. There is really no direct public access from the shore.

Some dive shops (Photo Tours comes to mind) actually schedule "ReefCam Dive Trips" on their boards now :-)

Jake

You guyz have created a monster (big grin)

There is pretty easy entry just north of the street cam. Drive just past the last condos before the road turns east. Enter there (similar entry to Andrea I & II.

Snorkel south along the shore to the bouys, or dive straight out, then south at the drop off until Small Wall (can't miss it, it's from about 60 feet deep up to 30' and is vertical).

After diving that, heading south, you are about even with the reef cam.

The entry area may be private I guess, but it's not marked as such, and there aren't any fences to cross, etc. I've dove there for years and never had a problem.