Getting there…

The ‘new’ direct flight from Schiphol (Amsterdam) to Bonaire is an enormous improvement on the tedium of the usual hour-long stop in St Martaan or Aruba followed by the uncertainty of the ALM/DCA connection from Curacao. We decided to start the holiday early - as the Bonaire flight doesn’t leave until almost midnight, we took an afternoon flight from Birmingham to Schiphol and, after meeting up with our friends Dave and Liz Skinner who flew in from Manchester, caught the train into central Amsterdam. It was a clear blue afternoon – and after a couple of hour’s sightseeing, a few beers and a great Chinese meal we got back to Schiphol in time to stock up on film at the Duty Free before our departure to Bonaire.

We’d been a bit concerned about the early morning arrival time (about 3.30am), but we cat-napped on the flight and, thanks to a very slick check in procedure at Captain Don’s Habitat, managed to settle in and get a few hours sleep before breakfast and make the orientation at 9.00am. We were all raring to go – and after purchasing our marine park tags were in the water doing our check out dive on the Habitat house reef by 11.00am – all the usual suspects were there – loads of reef fish and morays, sharp tailed eels, plus a couple of large iridescent reef squid swirling in the shallows.





It was really good to get back into the warm blue Caribbean again, and travelling to Bonaire from Europe is definitely getting easier - I understand that KLM will be starting a second daily direct flight in December 2002.


Diving…

During our two week stay we did lots of dives on the Habitat house reef which remains a definite favourite – dusk is a great time to check out the ‘change over’ between the day and night time reef inhabitants. Charlie the tarpon plus several ‘friends’ continue to buzz night divers in the hope that their flash lights will illuminate ‘dinner’, and a pair of scorpion fish together with an entertaining octopus had made the area around the Habitat ‘rope’ their home.





We also encountered Elvis the turtle at ‘Cliff’ on a couple of occasions, and there were three sea horses (a pair of black ones and a large yellow one) plus a tiny red frogfish on the house reef this time. We also observed lots of juvenile fish – including bumblebee boxfish, spotted drums, blue-sequinned yellow tail damsels, smooth trunk fish and tiny trumpet fish hiding in the gorgonions. A huge solitary barracuda also took up residence during the second week of our holiday – he must have been at least five or six feet long and was my dive buddy on at least one memorable twilight dive.






One of the main reasons for our visit to Bonaire at this time was to observe the coral spawning, and, we weren’t disappointed. We did three late (10.00pm) dives on the house reef and observed boulder star and brain coral spawning (egg packages), a three row sea cucumber smoking in the ‘cobra’ position, and brittle stars falling over themselves to capture as many egg packages as they could manage. Many thanks to Ditte Precker for her excellent Coral Spawning presentation which really set the scene.






We had pre-booked two boat dives for 12 of our vacation days, and so dived lots of North, South and Klein sites. It’s difficult to pick out favourites, but Karpata has always been special – and it didn’t disappoint this time - we saw four turtles simultaneously which was amazing. We also got within a couple of feet of an eagle ray at Alice in Wonderland, spotted a harlequin pipe fish at Mi Dushi, and thought there were lots more frogfish and large reef squid everywhere this year. We also saw several cornet fish, including one on Habitat’s house reef. Captain Don’s dive crew were brilliant as usual, which just made the whole experience more enjoyable.






We managed to get a few reasonable photos (I have inherited Brian’s old Sea & Sea Motor Marine II (battered and definitely patched, but functional) – he now uses a Nikonos F80 in an enormous Ikelite housing known as ‘Godzilla’) – as always a big thank you to the dive crew for their assistance (we think they must have been doing some secret weight training to deal with Godzilla) and also to Ernst and Wilco the Habitat Photo Pros for their advice and constructive criticism!

Liz and Dave did a few shore dives, and rated Salt Pier highly. We just did one non-Habitat shore dive - at Small Wall. Many thanks to Jake and Linda for their hospitality and access to the dive site. We had fun at the reef/street cams – have a look at Friday 4th October – we’re the ones with the terrifying Salmon (aka Jaws, who was temporarily donated to the cause by Ernst from Habitat). This was our last dive of the trip, and it was a great one to finish on. The road painting was with water; despite several comments to the contrary.



The rest…

The beginnings of hurricane Lily took a bit of a side swipe during our first week – a brief episode of dramatic thunder, lightening and heavy rain, but the power stayed on at Habitat and nothing deterred most people from making the best of things at the Deco Stop Bar – as Brian says nothing can stand in the way of an Amstel Bright (or two…). Everything was back to normal within a couple of hours and we had perfect weather for the rest of our time in Bonaire.

Captain Don was in great form and we look forward to seeing him on our next trip to Bonaire.

Accommodation wise we stayed in an upstairs Junior Suite at Habitat – these rooms suit us down to the ground as they are big, have a wonderful sunset ocean view over Klein Bonaire, lots of storage space and a fridge, a large balcony (excellent for drying swimsuits and dive gear), and are close to the restaurant (we don’t cook on holiday!), the locker room and the boat/shore ‘docks’. We ate almost all our meals at Rum Runners– we’re seriously into the diving side of things rather than the dining (45 dives in 12 days, racking up more than 50 hours underwater). All the meals were great – and the service generally very quick (those lunchtime turnarounds are incredible!) which meant we could get back into the water as soon as possible.

This trip was to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary and we would like to thank Jack Chalk, Suyin and all the Habitat staff for the great hamper of goodies and dinner voucher, and also Rob of Run Runners for the complimentary dinner – it was all wonderful and made the holiday extra special. Our one culinary excursion was to Cappricios with Jake, Linda, Dave and Liz – a tremendous evening with great food, wine and company – one of many memories that will hopefully sustain us through the dreaded Post Bonaire Depression that has already set in. We know that the only true cure is to book the next trip – and we will be back in 2003.

Until the next time…

Sue & Brian Lowe

Did you arrange it all yourselves? eg flights and accommodation?
How did you get from the airport to Capt Don's?
(am still hoping to get to bonaire (from UK) one day - Kuoni do packages but their brochure only talks about one flight per week from Amsterdam to Bonaire and I know there are more!

Excellent trip report and beautiful photos.

Rita

we use Harlequin Dive Travel who also arrange the transfer between Hotel and the airport. Lea McArthur is our contact there on 01708 850330 and there are now plenty of daily flights

Awesome trip report and pictures!!!!! I really drifted away!!!!!!

Great trip report!

Wow, did you really find all those frogfish? I've only seen a couple, and never found one on my own - that's my next "personal goal" when we're on Bonaire in December.

Happy belated 25th! Today is Geoffrey and my 3rd anniversary, and although fate, terrorists, and the stock market have conspired to keep us from celebrating it on Bonaire for the second time, we will get there in December, which is some consolation.

Jack and Suyin are wonderful - Jack it goes without saying; but Suyin is a new (to me) jewel.

After our last experience booking into Captain Dons, Jack suggested we contact him directly for our next trip.

When I did, he asked Suyin to take care of us, and she* was attentive, understanding and helpful with all my issues and worries, and made this booking so easy and pleasurable that it merits comment here.

Susan

*I'm assuming a she here, and forgive me if I'm wrong, Suyin. My only dealings with you have been email so far - though I plan to say hello, and thankyou, in person, soon!

Brian, excellent pictures, where was the yellow frogfish spotted? We will be there in 38 days.

Very nice, Brian! It was great to see you guys again! That spotted frog fish is very cool. I've never seen one like that!

Jake

PS I consolidated the messages from the duplicate thread over here.

Wow - great photos & nice complete trip report! Thanks for sharing. I especially like the shot of what I think is a slender filefish. Were all the photos done on night dives, or do the close-ups just make it seem dark?

Great report and great pictures. Congradulations on 25 years.

Brian -

Thanks for the outstanding photos. The Angels, both Queen and French, are some of the very best images of those species I've ever seen.

Whenever I read about Europeans making the long, long, long trip to Bonaire it puts our trip from the Southwest in perspective.

The next time we're in transit and feeling as if we've taken up residence on the airplane, we'll remember y'all.

Again, thanks for taking time to prepare and post the inspiring pictures.

Charles Poteet
Dallas

wonderful photos. thanks

Me too! Your photos are excellent.
We also love Captain Don's and miss all the dive crew, bar crew, wait staff, front desk staff, hoousekeeping, etc. Congratulations on a great anniversary trip.

Thanks for your comments

Suyin is a very wonderful lady who has always been very helpful.

The Yellow frogfish was on Klein at Forest. I don't how I posted him twice and Jake thanks for sorting out my previous mispost and your and Linda's hospitality. That spotted froggy was also more green in colour than the yellow in the photo.

The slender filefish was taken in the day the closeness and an F stop of 22 gives the black backround.

The journey to Bonaire is now way better for us Europeans, we now have direct flights from Amsterdam cutting out St Martaan, Curacao airport and ALM/DCA as interruptions on our route. This saves about 6 to 9 hours of travel.

Brian

Indeed it does Brian.. great trip report.. I just love your pics too..

Rita, It is easy to make your own arrangements to get to Bonaire from the UK. We only used an agent the first time we came and I have never felt worried about going it alone since then. Please feel free to e-mail me if you fancy giving it a go and want some moral support.

Happy Anniversary, Brian and Sue! Thanks for the gorgeous slide show, too. Soooo beautiful and peaceful to view. Sounds like you had a fabulous trip with lots of underwater/dive time, too. An anniversary you will never forget, I'm sure. Thanks for the report and the pics....we are all drooling right now! Carole

Brian & Sue,
Happy Anniversary!! Thanks for the great trip report and awesome pictures. I have still to this day not identified a frogfish---a goal I plan to accomplish next trip. Thanks for sharing with all of us with PBD.
Debbie

Thank you ,Brian and Sue...We enjoyed your report!

Brian! Outstanding pictures....my favorite the eel and the goby....wonderful close ups....how much did you have to pay the fish to stay so still! And Frog fish too! Steve will be jealous...can't wait to show him tomorrow...so he can take out his "how to" books! Thanks for sharing.

Beautiful, just beautiful…thanks Brian

Makes me want to start diving right now! What a nice trip report and slide show. :-)
Michelle

Wonderful report and pics. I plan on showing the Frogfish pics to my Mom & Dad. We have spent soooo much time unsucessfully looking for Frog Fish that Mom & Dad are now insisting that they are mythical.

Masha danke for the report and wonderful pictures!

Hi Brian & Sue
Great report and great pictures. I wish I knew you were going. Let me know when your going again. I had fun with you. Im going again in Jan. I cought a Baby Queen trigger in RI. It's doing well. I have 9 salt tanks now in my room. How are the pups. Lea

Here he is again smallier

Congratulations on 25 years.The photos were great. I have tried to photograph the small file fish myself a few times, I love those little guys. What film did you use and did you get them developed on the island?

Hi there Sue & Brian,
I assume with these pictures all up and about that the floor in your home office is now clear of the two feet deep rolls of slide negatives??
It was lovely to see you again in the UK (and yes, Jake has his Pimms!)
Marion.

Hi Marion

Thanks for all your help and Vera has her plug too. The floor is now clear of slides as I have put them in a box :-} It looks like being a very stormy weekend in the UK so I should get a few more scanned in. I may even get on with the webcams as well - Daventry online now that would be a first.

GREAT PHOTOS THANKS FOR SHOWING THEM HERE ----PETE