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Trip Reports: Andrew & Beth's First Snorkeling Adventure
Bonaire Talk: Trip Reports: Archives: Archives 2000 to 2005: Archives - 2002-09-26 to 2003-03-31: Andrew & Beth's First Snorkeling Adventure
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Andrew Cox (New BonaireTalk Poster - Post #1) on Monday, March 24, 2003 - 11:42 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Hello all! Here is my girlfriend and my trip report for 3/2 - 3/8.

Background: My name is Andrew and I'm 24. My girlfriend's name is Beth and she is 23. We went to Bonaire for our first time to have a relaxing snorkeling vacation. I have snorkeled in only 2 different locations before (St. John/Virgin Gorda for a week and just once in Cancun). Beth has only snorkeled once when we were in Cancun for Spring Break (not a great snorkeling outing).

We were both looking for the best possible snorkeling spot in the Caribbean and ended up deciding on Bonaire.

Sunday Night: We arrived on Bonaire at around 5:00pm local time and decided to spend a leisurely evening driving around town with our rented Toyota Yaris (hatchback) and having our first dinner on the island.

We stayed at Ocean View Villas for the week and were immediately impressed with how nice the place was - high vaulted ceilings, indoor and outdoor showers, a nice patio with reclining chairs, a full kitchen area and a living room area with TV. We were also really impressed by the garden right outside of our door. It was really enjoyable to relax outside on the patio chairs at night and look over the garden. Tim, the owner, was great. He picked us up from the airport and immediately made us feel at home. Tim also provided us with an email address for our time at Bonaire and was nice enough to print out and stick in our door the many emails that our moms sent us (Beth's mom must have sent about 3 a day).

We ended up at Rum Runners that night and had some fried calamari for an appetizer (excellent) and a personal thin-crust pizza for each of us. The pizza was an excellent meal to start of the week - our bill came to about $24 and the pizza made great left-overs for lunch the next day.

Monday: Went to the Carib Inn Dive shop to seek out the diving guide book that we'd heard about. Beth decided to buy a $75 shorty wet suit primarily to avoid sun burns while snorkeling. We found the book for $10 (which proved to be most helpful in providing an overview of all the shore dives along with detailed entrances and exits).

Snorkeled at Tori's Reef for our first snorkeling outing. On my first snorkel with the new equipment we bought for the trip, I realized that my snorkel was faulty. Back to the Carib Inn Dive Shop for a new snorkel - got a dry snorkel for $14. Now we're ready to go =)

Tori's Reef had a very easy entry/exit and was a good starting point for us. The snorkeling was pretty good, but not quite as many fish as we had anticipated.

Lunch was the leftover Rum Runner's pizza - good stuff.

Ol' Blue was next up on our list. This site was much more wavy (perhaps because it was in the afternoon) and the snorkeling was deeper than Tori's Reef. That said, it offered large schools of fish and some nice coral formations. The downside was that my mask started fogging up and I started getting paranoid with low visibility and a pretty deep drop-off into the murky depths. This is where I first started getting scared about the possibility of sharks (by far my biggest fear in the world).

Dinner at Coco Palms across the street from Ocean View Villas. Met some nice people that were staying at Ocean View Villas and another nearby place (don't remember the name). I had garlic wahoo and it was possibly the best meal I had on the island - Beth went with the fruit sauce on the wahoo even though she doesn't like fruit sauces and didn't like it too much. Next time she'll remember that she doesn't like the fruit stuff =)

Tuesday: Went to the grocery store to pick up some breakfast and lunch food so we wouldn't have to eat out for every meal.

Took it pretty easy today and just did a morning snorkel at Yellow Hut in the south. The snorkeling was pretty good - saw a squid for the first time, so that was definitely exciting.

Had some PB&Js for lunch and spent the afternoon reading out on our deck chairs. Decided that we didn't need to force the snorkeling in order to have a good time - sometimes we have the feeling that we need to "accomplish" a lot on vacation in order for it to be worth it, but decided to focus on relaxing.

Dinner at Mona Lisa's in the evening - very good food, but a little pricey for us (around $60 total). The service was also a little bit negligent. I had to get up and ask for menus and he pointed the menu out on a large chalk board that was right over a group's table (seems like regular menus might have done a better job).

Wednesday: Went to Klein Bonaire on the water taxi from Divi Flamingo to see what the snorkeling was like out there. About a 20 minute ride out from there and then we got right to snorkeling from No Name Beach. The snorkeling was quite nice here - possibly the best we'd seen yet. There were some very large fish that would just float around us as if we were just a piece of coral. There was a fairly sizeable drop-off not far off of the shore, so that increased my fear of the sharks again.

At this point, I'm thinking that the snorkeling I did in St. John was better because it seemed like there was a lot more shallow snorkeling and I never once felt unsafe (if I can't see the bottom, I tend to get a little paranoid). The water from my memory also seemed to be more clear at St. John & Virgin Gorda and the colors more vivid. Now, this was also almost 10 years ago, so it's possible the colorful coral was also affected by Hurricane Lenny (my memory could also be slightly affected).

Anyway, we were planning to read some on the beach at Klein Bonaire, but it was way too windy to get any reading done so we headed back after 2 hours.

Went to the Internet Cafe in the afternoon to check out Bonaire Talk to see if we were missing something because we were a little underwhelmed with the snorkeling. We jotted down a number of the "must see" snorkeling sites and sought to check a couple of them out Thursday morning.

Dinner at Pasa Bon Pizza was very good - I thought it might've been better pizza than Rum Runner's, but Beth disagreed. Also a reasonable price (somewhere around $22-25), but they don't accept VISA, so be prepared for that.

Dessert at Lover's Ice Cream - good ice cream, but Beth was expecting a quaint little local shop ... it seemed just like any old ice cream chain.

Thursday: Went to Andrea II in the morning. Well, this did it - it renewed my faith in Bonaire snorkeling because it was absolutely wonderful. One of the easiest entry/exits and nice parking to boot. As soon as we got in the water, we saw tons of fish in both directions. A big thing for me was how shallow it was for a long ways out. The water was about 8-15 feet deep for at least 100 feet out. The highlights of this snorkel were some enormous rainbow parrotfish (3 feet or so), lots of rather large trumpetfish and 3 barracuda (about 2.5-3 feet)!

The best part was, I felt completely comfortable the entire time (not afraid of sharks at this place - I think it had to do with the calm water, clarity and how far out the shallows went).

In the afternoon, we drove out to Washington Park, but didn't go through because we didn't have a truck. Here we met the only rude person during our trip - he seemed like it was a personal affront to him because we wanted to go into the park at 2:00pm and didn't have a truck (how were we to know that you needed an *entire* day to "truly experience" the park?). We said, "maybe tomorrow" but decided not to go back because of his rudeness and because of our new favorite snorkeling spot.

I let Beth drive for the first time on the way back and she got a flat tire - ha! Well, we made it to the gas station on the spare tire and noticed that we were 1 of 3 Toyota Yaris' with spare tires ... hmm.

In our new enthusiasm for snorkeling, we decided to be extremely brave and sign up for a night snorkeling trip with Renee on Friday (she guides the Woodwind snorkeling tours from Divi).

Friday: Woke up early to go and get a shorty wet suit for me so I wouldn't get cold in our night snorkel for that night (got the same brand as Beth's for $75).

Went back out to Andrea II because we knew it would be good snorkeling - it was. I tried out my underwater camera here and got some pretty murky pictures ... I'll be leaving that home next time. We saw 2 squid and another barracuda this time. Beth also claims to have seen a 3.5-4 foot fish speed past her, but she couldn't ID it.

After some PB&Js for lunch, we headed out to snorkel off of the Divi Flamingo beach because we figured that's where we'd be doing our night snorkel and wanted to be comfortable with the area. The water was very clear and the entrance from the beach couldn't have been easier. Not as many fish as previous sites, but plenty of bare breasts to see on the shore. We did notice lots of 8-12" ballyhoos on the surface of the water - they were pretty cute with their long alligator-like beaks.

Went on the night snorkel led by Renee ($17 per person). This was definitely the highlight of our trip. We felt completely at ease in the water with Renee leading (we were both a little apprehensive thinking about snorkeling at night). She told us what to expect and all of the different marine life that we would see at night. There ended up being just one other girl along with Beth and myself (total of 4 including Renee). Since we saw so much here, I'll just do a quick list:

- Blooming orange coral (looked like orange feather dusters)
- Sea slug
- Sea cucumber
- Walking Sea Anemone
- Lobsters (about 6)
- Sea Urchins (longer and a grayish color at night)
- Bright red shrimp
- Octopus (very small)
- Blue tang in its "night pajamas" (it has stripes at night)
- Sleeping Spotlight Parrotfish (covered in mucous lying on the bottom)
- Sleeping trumpetfish (vertical)
- Spotted Moray Eel!! (about 3.5')

We were really pumped to see the Moray Eel. I spotted it in a cluster of rocks on the ocean floor - with its mouth moving up and down to move the oxygen past its gills (learned that from Renee). Once I waved the girls over to see it, it darted out of its hiding place and we could see it swim across the sandy bottom (much larger than it seemed when in the small rock cluster).

Final thoughts: Our last 2 days really made up for the mediocre snorkeling of Monday-Wednesday. We both grew much more confident as the week went on and were actually timidly hoping that we might see a small nurse shark. We are definitely considering getting SCUBA certified for our next trip, but have not decided where our destination will be. I think we'll probably end up trying a different island in the Caribbean so we can compare and contrast.

We would definitely recommend Bonaire to avid snorkelers and divers though - just not for people looking for a tropical paradise. St. John & Virgin Gorda seemed to have a nice mix of snorkeling and sandy beaches for the vacationer that is looking for the whole package.

We were happy with every restaurant we tried, but decided that pizza was the way to go (both for our wallets and left-overs for lunch the next day). Peanut Butter & Jelly sandwiches were also key during lunchtime.

We would recommend that the beginner snorkeler start off the week with a trip on the Woodwind with Renee. She made us feel really confident when we were with her, and I think that her advice would have caused me to be less apprehensive when I wasn't with her. Also, it would have been helpful to have her ID fish in the beginning of the week and also recommend her favorite sites. Also, we bought <it> Snorkeling Guide to Marine Life</i> on Thursday. It was a great visual aid for identifying all the marine life that we saw, but it would have been smarter to buy it in the beginning of the week.

Thanks to the advice that we got from BonaireTalk regarding the best snorkel sites and restaurants!

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Ida Christie (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #860) on Tuesday, March 25, 2003 - 10:37 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

Andrew, Over all it sounds like you had a great vacation. Best of luck with your snorking and getting over the fear of sharks. Just remember they will not bother you unless you bother them. If you see one stay calm and try not to make any sudden moves. It will then pass you by.

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Carole Baker (Extraordinary BonaireTalker - Post #2189) on Tuesday, March 25, 2003 - 11:30 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

Sounds like you and Beth had a nice, relaxing vacation and had fun learning about the water creatures with Renee. She is just wonderful, isn't she?! I do hope you both return to Bonaire as divers or snorkelers and experience more and more that she has to offer. Thanks for the wonderful trip report! Carole

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Andrew Cox (New BonaireTalk Poster - Post #2) on Tuesday, March 25, 2003 - 8:51 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Thanks for the kind responses - I know, my fear of sharks is completely irrational. In fact, I had not realized exactly how paranoid I really was. I truly did become much more comfortable in the water as the week went on though.

As long as I'm with someone that's experienced, I feel *much* more comfortable ... so I think I just need to go out and get SCUBA certified and do a shark dive to get my fear out of my system =)

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By James & Margarite Hix (Extraordinary BonaireTalker - Post #1102) on Tuesday, March 25, 2003 - 9:17 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Thanks for the nice report,Andrew! I've been diving many times and have never seen a shark! Hope to see one some day. If you love snorkling, I know you will love diving....try it ....It's great fun!

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Niki Harris (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #719) on Wednesday, March 26, 2003 - 2:37 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

Really great report, with good advice for new snorkelers. To wit: seek out the experts early and often.

Andrew, what I especially like is your fabulously formatted report (bolds and italics) as "Post #1" of your BT career! Nice job, I say. And welcome to the madness. Oh, I just saw your job title... that explains it...

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Mary Lou French (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #154) on Wednesday, March 26, 2003 - 12:43 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Hi Andrew,
I am glad you liked your trip. sounds like you had a good time! Our first two trip to Bonaire were as snorkelers and we loved it! Last two have been as divers and it is just as much fun. You have now been bitten by the Bonaire bug, I hope you go back and enjoy it again soon!
Thanks for a great report!
ML

 


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