Well I figured I better get a dive trip report written up for our visit to Bonaire from April 5th to the 12th. Seeing as that my wife is not a diver I decided to hire a personal guide to go diving with. I will also mention that while I was certified in 1985 I have done under 20 dives and they have been spread way out over the years on vacation so I am very green. I contacted Bas Noij after doing a little research and hired him for a couple of days of diving. Met him at Tropical Divers on Monday and took care of the formality paperwork and such. Ended up getting gear from Tropical Divers as well and I have to say that I like the DIN valve tanks they have. Yes they are steel but they hold more air, which was good for me as I am an air hog! If you have the standard style connections you can still use the DIN style tanks, you just need to install an adaptor fitting into the tank. Hey 500 bar more in the steel tanks is 500 bar more!
My check out dive was at Angel City. Very nice double reef system there and Bas went over the topography of the reef and dive plan before entering the water. This was my first time ever shore diving so he went over how to gear up and where we would be entering. He helped with my gear setup and gave me some good advice as well.
Angel City was a nice dive but I left my camera with my wife on the shore so I could get used to the water again. There is a lot of nice coral structure there and we saw school of Horse Eye Jacks rounding up a bait fish ball, lots of Creole Wrasses, Banded Butterflies along with all the other usual fish you see.

After getting out of the water at Angel City it was time for some lunch. Bas asked what we felt like and suggested maybe a local place. We ended up going to Maiky Snack.

What a great lunch we had. My wife had the fish and Bas and I both had the Goat soup. If you can get a chance to go out to Maiky Snack do it, you won’t be disappointed.

2nd dive for the day after some discussion on what I would like to do was at Cliff. It was an experience walking down the steps with the gear on but it’s a nice dive site also.
Here we saw Tarpon, my first Turtle while diving, Jaw and Dart fish, and a pretty good sized Porcupinefish to name a few.




Another nice aspect of Cliff is the fact that there is a freshwater shower and dunk tanks right there at the dive shop so you can clean up right away.

It was a great day of diving.



Day two of my dive report to be continued in another thread

LOVE It!!! What a great way to make us feel that we're tagging along with you

makes me wish we were THERE though!

Keep it coming Ron.... please!

Hush Up PegiSue... I'm going to do a report, you just wait!

Thanks for the nice comment, I will work on the second part of the dive report and also put together out full trip report in the next few days. After being gone for only a week the work sure piles up at home.
BTW, I wish I was back there also.

Great job Ron. I like the fact that you left the camera behind in order to orient yourself to the underwater world again. I do that on my first dive of every trip. I love the sunset picture and the porcupine fish!!

I bring my camera housing on my first dive of each trip! Checking for leaks! No camera inside... Ron