Finally,I have a chance to write about my trip. This was my first trip to Bonaire during the coral spawn.
We arrived on the CO redeye from Houston cleared immigration right away and waited and waited and waited some more for the luggage to start spinning. I know, it's island time. I just wanted to get the luggage and our truck.
We arrived at Den Laman to find Amina's smiling face waiting for us to check in. As always, our condo was perfect. A quick nap and registration at the dive shop. The ladies at BDA remembered me and greeted me with a very warm "welcome back". Almost felt like Norm from Cheers. The orientation was brief as 85% of us had been there in the past year.
Off to the check out dive at Bari. I headed straight for the barrels as this was the home of one of the froggies in Jan. I'm tired but excited, got my camera in hand and my first pictures are going to be of that frog fish. My dive buddy is rattling at me to come back. I'm somewhat annoyed as I was on a mission. I turned back and she was pointing and eyes wide open, still annoyed I gesture with my hands, WHAT? There it was sitting nicely on a sponge 20 feet below me, a white pinkish longlure frog fish. Not the green one that I had my sights set on, but this one we didn't know about, a true discovery. Last trip we were either given directions or locations to see them but never spotted one on our own. The redeye was taking it's toll, I cut the dive short as my legs were cramping from being over tired. Off to the Cultimara and another nap.
We hired Bas Noij to take us on dives I wouldn't have done otherwise. The first place he took us was La Dania's Leap and we drifted to Karpata. We saw several turtles on this dive. We had lunch at Rose's Inn in Rincon. The food was very good. That afternoon he received our permit and off to the salt pier we went. While gearing up my power inflator/octo began free flowing. Since there was four of us I went without a power inflator or octo. I wasn't about to miss out on this dive. What a great dive, I've never been there before. On our way back in, I look back and see a green moray free swimming right in front our others in our group, I grabbed Bas by the leg and turned back. The eel had swam up and into a large open barrel type structure under the conveyors. Low on air, I quickly snapped a couple of pictures and headed back in. Bas suggested I hurry and get my inflator/octo over to Bruce at Carib Inn before he closes. I did just that. I have read many times here before what a class act he runs, and boy I was not disappointed. He stopped what he was doing 15 minutes before closing an dove right in and fixed my problems. I tried to pay him, but he told me he doesn't charge for adjustments. I kept trying and finally gave up. Don't find service like that just anywhere.
We did a couple of night dives at Bari to see the spawning. I have never seen so much activity on a night dive before. Creatures out everywhere. I also noticed for the first time some long worm like creatures coming out of the coral and would retract before I could get a picture. Not sure what that was.
The next afternoon we met Bas again, this time we were on a seahorse quest, and he delivered. As I mentioned in a different post, that was my 100th dive. What a great milestone that was. At the end of that dive Bas spied a goldspotted eel. He video tapped it for me to see as I had already surfaced. He commented that he had never seen one before in Bonaire. We were going to do the night UV dive, but a storm was moving in and the wind was swirling around making some wicked conditions. Instead we had a few Brights with Bas and watched the slide show at Sunset/Den Laman that Michael from Fish Eye Photo puts on. It was like name that creature night. The UV dive had to be postponed.
We were able to do the UV dive the next night. WOW, what a spectacular dive that was. As others have said, words cannot describe the splendor of that dive. Corals that I've seen on virtually every dive that I find boring and simply part of the landscape became glittering lights dancing, much like the lights of a Vegas marquee. We even saw the head of some type of sand eel. The scorpion fish are a deep crimson red. I can't wait to do that one again. Thank you Bas!!
Through Bas we met an american woman living in Bonaire. We invited her to join and she dove with us a couple of tanks a day for the rest of the trip. It was nice to have another pair of eyes spotting things to photograph. We even found our very own goldspotted eel on the pipe at Bari one evening.
We cooked our own breakfast and most lunches in the condo. We did eat out a few times:
Pasa Bon Pizza
Casablanca
Bobbejans
Sunset Grill
Rose Inn
Patagonia
We had a wonderful trip despite my equipment problems. 23 beautiful dives during the week. I'm already looking in the next trip. Next one will have to be two weeks. One is just not enough!!
I want to thank all of you here at BonaireTalk. I've been reading the boards for the past 2 years and have gained invaluable knowledge. Everything from ordering the mixed grill to the Karpata shortcut, stuff you just don't get from Frommers.
Pictures can be found at shutterfly there are just too many to post here. Click on a thumbnail and start a slideshow. |
By Phras (BonaireTalker - Post #30) on Saturday, October 4, 2008 - 11:36 pm: 
