We just arrive back home last night. Whew! It'll take me a day or two to catch up on my rest after a wonderful time down in Bonaire.

Here's my initial report. My impressions, the good and the bad.

DAY 1
My wife, my three children (ages 16, 14, and 11), and I left at 6:40 am flying with American Airlines from Tulsa International. After a hour or so layover in Dallas, the next stop was in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Unfortunately, we had about a three hour layover there ... and we were in the American Eagle section of the airport. They have a limited food court ... but at least my kids had a little time to try to get some of their school work out of the way.

Anyway ..... The flight down to Bonaire was in an American Eagle 60 or so passenger *prop* plane, so it was pretty noisy. The flight at least had a planned snack (other than peanuts or pretzels). The snack was what was supposed to be a turkey breast sandwich. I read the list of ingredients and this "sandwich" had 1 gram of protein ... which means whatever turkey breast meat or cheese it was supposed to have is virtually non-existent. The snack bag of Doritos had more protein than this "sandwich". Oh well ... enough about the flight down there. We finally arrive at Flamingo Airport at around 8:40 pm.

By the time we retrieved our bags, caught a cab, check into Plaza Resort, it was around 10 pm. We stayed in a 2 bedroom ocean front villa. It was very clean, large, and had a full kitchen. The larger of the two bedrooms had two queen size beds ... the smaller beroom had two single beds.

We were pretty hungry so we decided to check out and see what some of the restaurants at the Plaza Resort had available. It was pretty quiet around the resort grounds and after a try at the Tipsy Seagul (the kitchen had already closed), we made our way down to the Banana Tree. The kitchen there was also closed, but they did offer to let us pick from their salad menu. BTW, you have to have their coffee. It is simply wonderful. END OF DAY 1.

DAY 2
After a quick breakfast in our room, after which was time for the initial orientation at Toucan Diving and purchase of the $10 Marine Park Fee for the kids and myself. For medical reasons, my wife is limited to snorkeling.

For our checkout dive to figure out our bouyancy, we were instructed to go over to the beach area by the pool.

First a little background .... We were just certified this past September and really haven't dove since. I was able to get one dive in a few weekends later with another guy, but it wasn't a great dive. The lakes here in Oklahoma aren't all that great for diving (some people here disagree) and have maybe 10 ft. of visability if we are lucky ... and besides an occasional perch or bass, there isn't all that much to look at. And since the kids started school and had other activities going on ... diving has taken a backseat. One of the reasons I wanted to go to Bonaire was for them to really appreciate what good diving has to offer. We did sit down again and watch the PADI Open Water course video tapes for a refresher about a week ago.

Back to the checkout dive. I didn't know what to expect. I kinda envisioned a Divemaster going out with us and watching us, maybe pointing out something of interest to us ... and then giving us the go ahead to dive at our pleasure.

Not quite what happened .... They did drive our equipment down to the beach area (along with a few extra weights if needed) and helped my children get all their equipment situated and on .... we were instructed to head on in and let them know if we needed them for anything.

Gulp! Actually, I really didn't mind .. but I was still a little nervous. We hit the water and head out for the 18th Palm buoy. After our Oklahoma experiences, we were amazed at the clarity of water and abundance of fish in the water. Everywhere you look there is something to see. Brain coral here, sponge there, parrot fish here, long skinny fish there, pretty yellow fish, etc., etc., etc. (I really need to learn fish names). We ended up going down to around 40 ft. for for around 25-30 minutes. Our buoyancy was OK.

We gather up our gear and head back to the hotel room to meet up with my wife for lunch. We had lined up a 4 door pickup through AB Rentals and it wasn't going to be ready until 2:30 pm. My older daughter, my son, and I decide to get in another dive at the 18th Palm while we were waiting.

After that dive, we get cleaned up and are picked up by AB Rentals with the rental pickup. Nice and clean ... manual transmission. The pickup bed has a wooden rack designed for holding air tanks. Perfect for our needs.

We decide to head into town so that we can buy a few groceries. We got some basic directions and a street name or two from the lady at AB Rentals. I think if you are a local and familiar with the streets here, you can find things pretty easy. But for us tourists, Bonaire needs much more detailed maps of the downtown Kralendijk area than what you find in those little tourist brochures. Did alot of driving trying to find a good well stocked grocery store. Our driving adventure did take us through quite a few places off the beaten path and we ended up seeing quite a bit of Kralendijk. It was helpful for us as we where able to spot some of the places we knew we would be visiting later.

Then it was back to the Plaza Resort. I forgot to mention this .... Iguanas are to be found everywhere. This was real treat for my 11 year old son! We noticed the hotel sets out fruit for them ...and since we bought some in town, we decided to share a little with them by the back patio to our villa. Big and small iguanas all start showing up. They must have sensative noses.

For my wife's birthday on Valentines Day (I'm able to kill two birds with one stone), I had reservations at Capriccios. We had a real feast .. .the food and wine were wonderful. My wife said the chocolate dessert she had was probably the best dessert she's ever had. I had the Valentine's Day special which was a sampling of three kinds of pie with scoops of ice cream. Can't say enough good things about Capriccios.

After a few meals in Bonaire, we've become acquainted to the pace at restaurants. We weren't in much of a hurry .... but don't expect to get our in much less than an hour and a half. The restaurants here aren't concerned about having nearly as much turnover of customers per table as they do here in the United States.

At Capriccios, we were there about two hours.
END OF DAY TWO

... to be continued.

Great So Far.

DAY 3 - SATURDAY

After a busy day the previous couple of days, my wife and kids sleep in. Since I usually wake up early, after fixing some coffee and a breakfast for myself, I head over to Toucan Diving to find out about the boat dives which were part of the four day dive package I bought. Over there, I find out that with dive packages, they automatically sign people up for the 8:30 am boat dives unless the people tell them otherwise. Since it was already a littel after 9 o'clock, I ask them to switch today's and Sunday's boat dive to the 1:30 pm dive. Since we would be leaving early Tuesday, I keep Monday's dive early since it is generally recommended that you don't dive for 12 to 18 hours prior to flying.

I browse around the dive shop, pick up a handy little book on the shore dives on Bonaire. If you are diving in Bonaire, this little yellow book is a must-have.

I head back to the room and find my wife and kids are starting to get up. After they are showered and ready, my wife wants to go over to the dive shop and buy a mask, snorkel and fin set for herself when she snorkels. By the time we get over there and out, it's already 11:00 am. I was kind of wanting to get in morning dive, but since food service was so slow, it would be questionable whether we would be able to dive and eat lunch and be ready to go for our 1:30 boat dive.

So instead we grab some hotdogs at the Tipsy Seagul bar and just take in some sun on the beach.

Although the hotel says no nude or topless sunbathing ... there were certainly plenty of the later. Large and small breasts galore (this must be a European thing).

Then time came for our dive. The boat takes us all over to Andrea I. This was a pleasant dive site, lots of pretty fish, coral and sponges. We dove to around 40 to 50 feet or so. Bottom time was roughly 35-40 minutes. I would have liked to stay down a little more, but my son had a small tank and he was using his tank up quicker than I.

After the dive, we get cleaned up and head back into Kralendijk to do a little shopping, to be followed up by dinner. We pick up a few t-shirts and other odds and ends, we decide to eat at Rendez Vous Restaurant. You know for what is supposed to be the busy season for Bonaire, there were much few tourists than what I expected. We show up at Rendez Vous at around 5 to 5:30 pm and there was no one else in the restaurant. I didn't at first see any waiters, so we figure they might not be open yet. Finally, the waitress sees us and asked if we had reservations. "No .... do we need one?" She finds us a table that said has a reserved sign on it and we are seated. The food was very good , I'd recommend it ... although we enjoyed Capriccios better. After leaving the restaurant, we look in some of the windows to the shops that are now closed. We are looking for some local art to take home with us. One shop owner unlocks his door for us and we find some art that is somewhat like what we are looking for .. but we were looking for something a little larger than what he had. He gives us the business card for a local artist at "Yellow House". It's too late to go there, so we head back to the hotel. END OF DAY THREE

DAY 4 - SUNDAY

Being the faithful Catholics we try to be ... we get up and ready to go to Mass for the 9 am service. San Bernardo Church looked like a nice choice ... The inside of the Church was fairly simple for a Cathedral. It has a nice crucifix behind the altar, a large round stained glass window, a lovely shrine dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, and all the Stations of the Cross you'd expect to find in a Church. The pews where simple unpadded wooded benches with kneelers. They had little individual pads hanging in the front of the seat in front of you .... so you could kneel on something a little softer should you choose to do so.

Mass was in Papiamentu language which meant we really didn't understand the words they were saying ... but since we are quite familiar with the Mass, we knew what happening and which prayers the priest and everyone was saying. We do our best to give English responses in the appropriate places. "And also with you." "We lift them up to the Lord." "I confess to almighty God and to you my brothers and sisters ....". And so on. The singing from the congregation was quite good.

After Mass, a group of ladies I assume was the Women's Altar Society were selling some food in front of the Church to raise money. We bought these little pastry things. Some were filled with cheese and some with ground beef. Not quite sure what they are called, but they were very good. They were also selling some fruit cups, some sweet pancakes with raisins, and what looked like cocoa.

In front of the Church there is an unusual statue of Saint Bernard (I assume it was him). It looked like he had his hand chopped off and he holding a skull. I'll have to find out what his story is.

We decide to do a little siteseeing and head out for the salt mountains, slave huts, lighthouse and the other various sites to see on that strecth of road. By the time we get back to the hotel .. again, we don't have much to do much before our boat dive.

My eldest daughter decided to skip this one. She missed out on what I thought was the best dive we went on. The boat took us out to Klein Bonaire to a dive spot called Joann's Sunchi (Kiss). I didn't stick with the dive master and my son, being a Jr. Open Water diver isn't supposed to quite as deep as the rest of the people, so we do our own thing. The abundance and size of the coral and fish variety was mind staggering. Two thumbs up in my book. My son is good for about 30 -40 minutes of diving and then he is ready to head up ... so most my dives are fairly short.

After we get back to the boat, we keep waiting and waiting for all the other people to come back. Most the people took the full hour for their dive .... but they came up with the dive master a little far from the boat. One man, overweight and out of shape, was really struggling for breath from his swim back to the boat. He decides he's going to stick to shore dives.

We headed back to the room so that we could immediately leave and head out for a shore dive elsewhere on the island.

We decide to dive at "Margate Bay". After missing out on our earlier dive, my older daughter makes this one. Another great dive .... almost as good as our dive at Joann's Sunchi. We still have yet to see a turtle ... we do spot our first stingray and eel.

Snorkeling there is very good (I don't know why the little yellow book just rates it as "Good" as opposed to "Excellent". There is alot of coral in close to shore and the sea life was quite abundant in the shallows. My wife loved it.

After diving, we head back to the room to get cleaned up for dinner. This time we settle upon the City Cafe. It smelled really good as we walked past it the night before. We had an excellent meal .. a little elss expensive than the previous two nights. The desserts were good and the coffee was nice and strong the way we like it. END OF DAY FOUR

... to be continued

Nice report, looking forward to the rest of the story.

I'm also enjoying your report...keep it up!

post deleted

(Message edited by beckmn1 on February 20, 2003)

DAY 5

This is our final day for diving and since we'll be leaving early the next day, we have to do whatever diving we will do in the morning. We are signed up for the morning boat dive, so I wake the kids up .... but only my eldest daughter decides to go. The others are just too tired from all the activities we've been doing.

The boat dive went to Klein Bonaire again ... this time to a dive site called "Rock Pile" ... presumably named after some of the rock graffiti on the shore. My daughter and I descend down to around 70 feet or so, but after 20 minutes, she signals that she isn't feeling too well. She had some congestion in her throat and decides to end it early. That leaves me without a dive partner, so I spend the next 20-25 minutes fairly close to the boat. It was a good dive ... but I still enjoyed "Joann's Sunchi" better.

After we get back to the room, as everyone is pretty tired, we decide to just go snorkeling at several of the dive sites in Southern Bonaire. We used the yellow book to try to pick some of the better snorkeling sites. The first one we stop at is an unmarked site called "Yellow Hut".

After we get out of the car and start putting on our wetsuits and gear, it turns out my son forgot to put his stuff in the gear bag. My wife volunteers to go back to the room, let him use her gear in the meanwhile. Anyway .. while she's gone, the kids and I head out. The wind is a little heavier than usual, so the surf is up. The shallows are relatively cloudy due to the sand being stirred up ... and by the time we get out far enough to get past the breaking waves, it's too deep for decent snorkeling. My son gets poked by a sea urchin in his attempt to get past the breaking waves. So we have to abandon this dive and wait for my wife to return.

About 30 minutes later, my wife has returned and we drive down northward looking for a site that isn't so rough. This time we stop at a dive site called "Toris Reef". It looks relatively calm here. This turned out to be a very good snorkeling spot. There are quite a few rock ledges in the water which attracts a good variety of fish in the shallows.

After we get through here, we head back to the Plaza Resort to lay out by the beach for awhile. My son, not the one to want to just sit still, decides he'll continue his snorkeling there.

After a couple hours, we get cleaned up and head back to town to get some last minute shopping done. We decide to try to see what the artists who live in "Yellow House" have in the way of art work in their home. The gates are locked, but after being greeted by their dogs, they come out an let us in. They say they are getting ready for an art show next week but kindly give us a tour of their home and various forms of art. Most of their artwork, sort of a folk or primitive type art incorporates pieces of driftwood, coconuts, or boards that have washed upon the shore. They have dolls with coconut heads, paintings with frames made from the boards they have found, a table made from pieces of driftwood, and other various forms of similar art. We are looking for a beach type scene ... which they didn't have available at the present time. They direct us back to the store, "Jewel of Bonaire" (I think that was the name), for some scenes they did of Klein Bonaire. The various scenes of the island are shown at different times of the day. We head back to the store and pick out one of the paintings along with a block of wood they have painted that resembles their home. Both will work in our home.

We make a stop in another shop to pick up some t-shirts and then decide to eat dinner again at City Cafe. We had another good meal there. My youngest daughter wasn't overly pleased with her selection though. She picked some Beef Tenderloin selection from the list of appetizers. When they brought it out, it was some very thinly sliced *raw* beef tenderloin with some vegetable garnish in the middle of the plate. Raw beef isn't her cup of tea, so I give up my baked potato for her to eat. After dinner, we make a stop over at the Cappucino Bar accross the street and then head back to our room. We need to pack and get ready to leave early the next day. I settle up our room account, and return our extra key. I had to put up a 50 guilder deposit for this extra key! I presume it's supposed to cover the cost of rekeying a door if a key gets lost.

I'm used to the hotels here in the States where you get those key cards to get in your room ... The hotels in the US stopped using regular keys with your room number written on it a long time ago. I think the lawsuit by the actress Connie Francis after her motel rape influenced the hotel and motel industry to install deadbolts, viewing ports, key cards, and improved lighting.

Oh well .... enough about that subject.END OF DAY 5

DAY 6
Our flight leaves at 7 am which means we need to be at the airport an hour and half to two hours ahead of time .... which also means we need to wake up an hour or so before that. We get our wake-up call for 4 am. Everyone gets their showers and we have have the pickup loaded and ready to go a little after 5 am. We head over to the airport and I drop off everyone and help unload bags. I still need to hed over to AB Rentals accross the parking lot to return the pickup. I show up and although the lights are on, no one is in their little office. I then see the lady who works there try to get the door opened ... but it looks like she's locked herself out. She finally comes out from around back to talk to me. She asks me if I prepaid. I tell her I didn't and without saying anything else she does a quick inspection of the pickup for damage and then she drives off.

Hmmm ... OK, what do now? I don't want to hold up my wife and kids over at the airport. Do I just leave knowing that AB Rentals already has my credit card information ... or wait for the lady to show back up. I decide to wait for awhile. My wife handles all the luggage inspection while I'm trying to settle up with the car rental.

About 20 minutes later, the car rental lady drives back up in our rental pickup and this time she has another set of keys to get into the office. She gets us checked out, I pay the bill and walk back over to the airport. After customs rummages through all our stuff, we are ready to board. The plane leaves on time and we set off for home.

Overall, this was a great vacation. I'd go again in a heartbeat.

After rereading my posts ... please forgive my numerous typos! Hopefully, you can still get the gist of what I was trying to relate.

Nice report! As far as using key cards on Bonaire - I suspect a big part of it is that our power is flaky, which would likely leave people stuck outside of their rooms when the occasional power outage or serious spike or typical brownout occurred :-)

Jake

Sounds as tho you and your family will be returning to Bonaire again, someday, right Martin? Wonderful trip report. Bonaire is a very special place, indeed. Carole

Re: Key card entry system....The manufacturers have just now come out with a system for "outside entrances" that actually work. You insert the plastic keycard from the bottom pointing up. Rain, wind, dust, snow, etc. wreck havoc on the electronic systems. And where there are electrical problems (Bonaire, and my area) there are still issues. :-)

Martin, enjoyed your very detail trip report. Yes, we also like Joann's Sunci.

Martin,
I really enjoyed your report typos and all.
Ida

Great report! Thanks for sharing!

On the key card thing, there are companies that have key cards and lock systems that don't require batteries, front desk equipment, wiring or a computer.

For example, there are key cards that have a series of holes punched into them. A picture of one ... http://www.vingcard.com/vertical/page?id=424

"When a guest card is lost, the lock may be re-coded in seconds by inserting the new code card into a special coding unit in the lock."

It's just a little pet peeve of mine. Besides being on the hook for a potential 50 guilders, I don't like carrying around a metal key that has my room number printed on it. To me, it's like an open invitation for a thief.

We enjoyed Tori's reef this past trip, big ball of bait fish up against the doorway(?), where you get in before heading out to sea. We snorkled around, rounding up the fishies for a good long time, easy entrance, nice snorkle.

Martin, excellent job. Very detailed and a great story. Thanks for taking the time to write this.

Thanks for sharing your Bonaire vacation with us. Looks as if you enjoyed it as much as we always do. Great trip report. Carol Collins

Oh ... one thing I forgot to mention.

On our last full day on Bonaire, we had read that we might go up to the lighthouse as that is a common place to see the flamingos. We drove up there and saw nothing.

But later, while we were returning from snorkeling, we saw a flock of flamingos near the shoreline to the west. This flock, I'd guess there were 30 or so flamingos, then flew towards the road. We pulled the pickup over so we could watch them fly past us.

They came within about 50-100 feet of us as they flew to the other side of the road. Quite a beautiful site! Definitely made up for our lack of seeing any turtles.

I bet that was nice. We never got close to any. We took pictures and when we would show them to our friends we would say see there and point to the flamingos. You could barely see them. LOL.

That's funny Ida, I had the same issues with my pictures. I made captions for them and it said, "Yes, there REALLY are flamingos in this picture". My friends didn't believe me either. Just looked like little dots.

Martin, enjoyed reading about your trip! We're making our first trip to Bonaire next month to snorkel. Like your wife, I am restricted to snorkeling because of medical reasons. My husband and our 15 yr. old son are snorkelers also. We're traveling from Denver with a connection through Miami and then have to overnight in San Juan. We don't depart from San Juan until the NEXT evening on the only flight of the day into Bonaire. We're flying on American and did have trouble with them cancelling part of our original trip (we were supposed to get there in 1 day). We ended up rebooking with them, but have to leave Denver Sat.9:45AM and don't arrive in Bonaire until 8:45PM Sun. The excellent snorkeling should make it all worthwhile! Thank you for the tips on snorkeling/diving sites, restaurants, etc.

Seeing the flamingoes flying overhead is definitely a breathtaking treat. I will never forget the first time we experienced this down between the lighthouse and the salt flats. Just beautiful. I'm glad your family was able to see this. Carole

Tanja, You'll love the snorkeling. Plenty to see without having to go too deep. When you are there, you might look for the yellow book I referred to which gives a little information about the various dive and snorkeling spots around Bonaire. It was very useful for us.

I liked your trip report - Thank-you!

Tanja,
Due to flight time changes, we will also have to overnight from Denver, but we're staying in Miami. I wish we would have stayed in San Juan! It's a long travel day back, though. Took us 19 hours to return last year (with no delays but includes driving time after arriving in Denver.) The trip is definitely worth it. Have a great time in Bonaire. Be sure to take Martin's advice and pick up the yellow book and all the other tourist propaganda! :-) And keep reading Bonaire Talk for all kinds of useful information. Be sure to go to the street cam.

Great report, Martin!!

This is the first time I have been online to bonairetalk. Thanks for the great recount of your trip Martin. I am looking forward to my first scuba trip outside Canada in late March / beginning April. After reading about the various adventures others have had I am even more anxious to get away from all this snow and into the warmth of Bonaire.

Martin,
Thanks for the wonderful report. My wife and I are getting ready for our first trip to Bonaire and these trip reports are very helpful to us.

ScottJ

Scott...What a wonderful vacation you and your wife have to look forward to. Bet you go back again and again. Bonaire is so unique. You don't find many destinations that lure its visitors back year after year. The water is warm and blue, the diving exceptional, the people are friendly and the restaurants are exceptional. It takes more then one trip to really "experience" Bonaire. Carol Collins

Tanja - it's probably too late for this trip - you didn't mention when you are going - but we have travelled Denver to Bonaire before (2 yrs ago) and have done the Delta at 12:40a to Atlanta/Miami then DCA direct to Bonaire and arrive around 4pm. I believe the best way now is the same red eye but then Montego - again arriving around 3pm or so. This year's trip end of April our friends are doing this from Denver (we are now situated in Tampa so are flying direct from Miami) - definiately makes for a shorter flying time.