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Trip Reports: Stef & Scott's First Bonaire Trip 3/12/03 to 3/19/03
Bonaire Talk: Trip Reports: Archives: Archives 2000 to 2005: Archives - 2003-04-01 to 2004-02-05: Stef & Scott's First Bonaire Trip 3/12/03 to 3/19/03
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Stef Jarrell (BonaireTalker - Post #58) on Thursday, April 3, 2003 - 6:07 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Let me start by saying that we loved our trip to Bonaire, and are already planning a trip again next March! The island landscape is interesting to stunning, the people are friendly, the weather is warm, and the diving... well.. you don't need me to tell you it's spectacular! We have nothing negative to say about our whole trip, except perhaps that the food was a little pricey, but we're living in Washington DC, so it wasn't anything out of the ordinary for us!

With that I will begin the official trip report. This will come in segments as I get my act together to post. I hope you enjoy!

/image {The Official Arrival}

We left our home about 5:30 am for the hour drive to Baltimore International Airport. We choose to fly Air Jamaica due to the almost non-existent lay over in Montego Bay, and the fact that we would arrive mid-afternoon in Bonaire.

We left about 45 minutes late due to "time on the ground" requirements for the crew, but as soon as we took off, they started their complementary beverage service (including wine, champagne or Red Stripe beer) and fed us a pretty darned good breakfast! The in-flight movie was "Behind Enemy Lines" and before we knew it we were in Montego Bay - quite late for our connecting flight to Bonaire.

We fretted slightly about our tardiness, knowing that there were few flights to Bonaire, but the captain of the plane got on the intercom as we landed and asked everyone not going to Bonaire to remain seated, while those of us going got off... so.. down the steps we went, into a waiting golf cart, drove to the next plane, up the steps onto our connecting flight (including our luggage!) and off we went again! Another beverage service, another snack! (no movie this time, though!) I cannot recommend Air Jamaica highly enough.. it was a lovely set of flights!

We arrived in Bonaire about 2:30pm, and were met by Doroty of Buddy Dive... she took the time to give us a quick tour of Kralendijk .. pointing out popular restaurants, as well as the grocery store!


Once at Buddy Dive we were assigned a room very close to the dive shop/dock/restaurant/bar... there didn't seem to be any rooms that were inconveniently placed, but ours was great. We had one bedroom (air conditioned) and a den area with couch, chairs, coffee table.. there was also a kitchenette and kitchen table. Very lovely, clean and spacious accomodations. The floors were tile, so you could drag your wet bcs inside and the bed was comfortable! The only thing a bit unusual is that the lighting was all quite dim.

After we cooled off and changed into more resonable clothing, we collected our twin cab toyota pickup truck from Doroty and Irna at the front desk. We headed into town to the grocery, and spent $50 US on a case of water, and some junk food! I am always so interested in the different types of food different countries have to offer, so I particularly like going grocery shopping! We picked up some snack foods with labels that we didn't recognize and couldn't read! They were great! I eyeballed the chocolates, which are kept in the cooled section of the grocery.. knowing we'd be back for them! The grocery, like many of the business establishements on the island, is basically open air... you just sort of walk through a huge open door and you're inside. Meats and veggies (and chocolate) were kept in an airconditioned room, though.

Since we were not due to have our orientation dive until the next morning, we decided to take advantage of the daylight and drive the island to get our barings. We headed north past Buddys again, and made note of where Jake lived, so we could deposit cheese and Krispie Kreme donuts later in the week.

Past the last bit of housing, the landscape of Bonaire becomes more apparent.. and it's fantastic and often desolate. There are cactus of enormous proportations, down to little barrell cactus all over the rocks. Agave and aloe are everywhere! I think it's safe to say it would be extrememly difficult to cross the island without proper and really really sturdy cactus proof clothing! You have to wonder how the first settlers got anywhere!

The land itself reminds me of someone having taken a melon baller, and taken pits out leaving the sharp edges. And in many of the little holes there are little cactus. The island is not tropically lush, but it is thick with vegetation!

During our afternoon wanderings we also were introduced to the green Lorikeets - at least I think that's what they were... loud little green parrots that fly over quite often.. they are so brilliant against the blue of the sky. We also witnessed a big land hermit crab crossing the road, and thankfully Scott missed him!

After wandering we headed back to Buddys and partook of their Wednesday night Mexican Buffet... it was OK, but will be skipped next year. Eating at a table right over the water, was something wonderful, and hey.. we were in the islands, so who's to complain about the food!

After dinner we watched a turqouise coronet fish swimming around the dock, and fed the three resident kitties of Buddys.. they are Casper (all white), Screamer (an appropriate name - brown tabby) and Caio (Cow in Dutch... black and white)... they were to become our cats away from home for the week!

And off to bed, exhausted, but with dreams of fishes to lull us to sleep....





 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Stef Jarrell (BonaireTalker - Post #59) on Thursday, April 3, 2003 - 6:13 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

here is the image I attempted to attach....

\image {The Official Arrival}

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Stef Jarrell (BonaireTalker - Post #60) on Thursday, April 3, 2003 - 6:15 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

I'm going home... I apparently cannot remember how to post a pix.

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Ginny Stokes (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #495) on Thursday, April 3, 2003 - 6:27 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Thanks for starting your trip report, Stef. It's always fun to hear from newly-returned Bonaire addicts! I think on your picture attempt, you are including a space where there shouldn't be one - no space in front of the curly brackets. Don't give up!

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Carole Baker (Extraordinary BonaireTalker - Post #2226) on Thursday, April 3, 2003 - 6:53 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

So glad you fell in love with Bonaire, Stef...planning trip two, already, too...good news! I guess you figured out you won't need to buy bottled water in the future as Bonaire's water is desalinated and probably more pure than what you can get in a bottle. It tastes so good, too.

Looking forward to additional segments! Carole

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Cheryl Ferguson (BonaireTalker - Post #19) on Thursday, April 3, 2003 - 11:48 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Hey Stef, enjoyed the first installment and am looking forward to the remainder of your trip report ...enjoyed meeting and chatting with you at Gibi's ... I have a great photo of you that I will post once I get my report completed. Cheryl

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Stef Jarrell (BonaireTalker - Post #61) on Friday, April 4, 2003 - 8:38 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

one more attempt at posting the arrival pix!

Official Arrival

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Stef Jarrell (BonaireTalker - Post #62) on Friday, April 4, 2003 - 5:34 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Day Two:

We awoke today not knowing what time it was, and wondering why they were serving breakfast so early? On the flight down the pilot mentioned the time, which was an hour off from what we thought it was supposed to be.. we were right, he was wrong, but we'd already changed out watches.. so now it's an hour later than we thought and we have our orientation and check out dive this morning! Lucky for us we're only about 30 feet from the restaurant!

Breakfast at Buddy's, included in our package, was perfectly acceptable... eggs, omelets, bacon, all types of breads, fresh pineapple (delicious!!!), cereals, hash browns, sausage... the coffee was ok, but I drink decaf, which they made for me daily, and it was instant....

our morning fare

After eating, we walked another 20 feet for our orientation on the Buddy Dive dock. Hagen introduced us to the various facilities at Buddy's.. the best being the drive through tank drop off and pickup, which turned out to be incredibly convenient! We did discover, however, that the first speed bump after the drive through down toward the dock, was what we later named "the tank ejector!"... we only lost one tank to it, but quickly learned our lesson!

Our first dive of the trip was on Buddy's Reef. This was a short dive just to get used to our equipment, and to the marine park. The water averaged 77 F the whole week and we had new 3mm wetsuits, for which we were very thankful! Buddy's Reef has no definitive wall .. the sand just sort of eased into the reef, which was mostly coral, with a scattering of purple tube sponges. On this dive we saw a rather large barracuda.. one of only a handful we would see the whole week. I had trouble with mask fog, which can be so annoying!

After our check out dive, we loaded up our truck, grabbed 4 tanks and headed north to Oil Slick Leap... we did NOT leap, however... the "leap" off the cliff seemed a little too high, and the waves were pounding.. we figured if we didn't leap "just so", we'd end up smashed... so we made our awkward way down the ladder, still trying not to get smashed... I had horrible problems with my foggy mask, and at about 10 feet accidentally hit the inflate button on my BC, instead of the purge.. grrrr... Scott was ready to scrap the dive since I was having such issues, but I finally cleared my mask enough, emptied my bc, and made my descent without further ado...

Oil Slick Leap has some beautiful pillar corals in the shallow water.. I believe that's what they are... tall cylinders covered in what looks almost like beige shag carpet.. they were so healthy.. (the health of the coral all over the island was readily apparent - even in areas obviously damaged by the hurricane of '99)... We also saw some monster parrot fish, and I spied a very cool clam/scallop down in the crack of a coral.. orange "whiskers" waving in the currents..

The exit from Oil Slick was almost as exciting as the entrance, as the waves had picked up substantially by the time we got out.. the only bummer of the dive is that I spied something brilliant orange on the rocks just behind the ladder, but because of the waves I couldn't stick my face close enough to see what it was! I am still wondering.....

So, two dives in and we're starving.... we head up north a little more to the Hill Top Restaurant... we've seen their advertisements in a bunch of tourist brochures, and the view would have been fab, but alas, the kitchen was closed, so we headed back to Kralendijk by way of Rincon. Took a chance in Rincon and stopped at the Rose Hill restaurant, which was a series of tables scattered about under vine covered arbors. The bartender was quick to deliver our drink order, but then we just sat and sat and sat.. finally asked a woman feeding bananas to one of the many caged parrots how to get food, and she indicated that we had to order from the bar ourselves! We ended up having Cabrito (stewed goat), red beans and rice, and fried banana... the meal was lovely, and the atmosphere couldn't have been more tranquil.

After lunch we waffled too long deciding on where to do an afternoon dive, so instead headed back into Kralendijk to do a little exploring. Kralendijk appears to consist of two main roads.. one has a number of brightly colored little shops, and the other is right on the harbor front and has numerous restaurants, as well as the Venezuelan fruit market and Town Pier. Parking always seems to be available and anywhere your truck will fit is usually just fine!!

Downtown Kralendijk

We found some trinkets, visited the fruit market, and then decided to head south to explore the southern dive sites, as well as Lac Bay. Somehow we managed to find the right road, which was not obvious at first, and we were on our way.

I had read about the salt production on the island, but was not prepared for the monumental piles of salt, which gleamed in the sunshine. I would have liked to have had some as a souvenir, but there was none for sale, and we didn't feel like trespassing to get any! The salt evaporation pools are very pink.. I can only think that as the salinity rises, the color changes.. don't know that for sure, but it's a thought.... there were definitely some VERY pink flamingos making themselves at home in the salt pans... much more pinky orange than anything you see in the zoo or at Disney!

saltpiles

southern shore

On the southern end of the island the wind was much more pronounced... constant and blowing hard.. a boon for the windsurfers at Lac Bay, which was out next destination. There were dozens of surfers out and about, as well as several windsurfing with huge kites. They were impressive, and broke the water frequently! We didn't stay too long as dusk was falling and we wanted to make sure we got back to Buddy's in time for our we had a night dive on the Town Pier!

The Town Pier night dive was worth it (Thursday night through Buddy's - sign up at the Activity Shop)... many people disagree, but it's convenient, it's close and there is ALOT of life to see. The only downside is that there are usually alot of other people with you, but if you stay to the back of the crowd, or on the sides, it's pretty wonderful. Novice night divers also say that it's comforting to go with so many other people (and lights)!

We entered the water by way of cement steps to the left of the pier, and swam under the cement sidewalls of the pier. The sidewall is covered with orange cup coral, which I read is the only hard coral that has been brought from the South Pacific (probably by ship), to the Caribbean.. it was abundant, and VERY orange. The pier consists of numerous small pillars, and some really monstrous ones on the very outside.. I liked the smaller pillars, as they were easy to maneuver around, but the huge ones freaked me out a little.. they were simply too imposing, and I knew that on the other side of them was nothing but dark night ocean! We saw several swimming morays, a sharp nosed eel (looked like a snake), a couple sea horses, and an arrow crab walking across the sand (very cool). There were numerous teeny red crabs and one pillar absolutely covered with black brittle stars. I also saw a beautiful jellyfish on the way in... the only one we saw the whole trip. I was also very slightly chilled on this dive.. not enough to lessen the enjoyment... but just a little.

And to finish out a spectacular day, we dined by the sea at the City Cafe.. it was after 10 when we finished up the dive, so we stripped out of our wetsuits, threw on shorts and walked across the street to the cafe. The view from the City Cafe is of the harbor, and it was pleasant to see all the sailboats with their lights on! We both had Grouper with Blue Cheese sauce, which was delicious and filling.. the fish was served on a bed of green beans that were in some sort of marmalade sauce, which neither of us cared for... but the fish was delicious. This was the first of many entrees we would be offered "smothered in cheese"... we love cheese, so didn't mind this at all!

And back to Buddy's to fill out our dive logs, read our book of Bonaire Dive sites, and try to figure out what tomorrow would bring......

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Carole Baker (Extraordinary BonaireTalker - Post #2235) on Friday, April 4, 2003 - 6:20 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Glad to see your arrival pic came thru for you! Enjoying your diaries immensely...keep them coming! Carole

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Gail Currie (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #466) on Friday, April 4, 2003 - 10:38 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Great trip report so far. Keep the info coming. Loved the "tank ejector". We are not staying at Buddy but are diving with them so will remember this.

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Cindy Wilcox (BonaireTalker - Post #44) on Saturday, April 5, 2003 - 12:08 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

Wow Stef. Great report. Enjoying hearing about your stay.

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By James Epley (BonaireTalker - Post #38) on Sunday, April 6, 2003 - 10:21 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

more! more! great reports!

I got quite a chuckle from the "tank ejector".

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Stef Jarrell (BonaireTalker - Post #64) on Monday, April 7, 2003 - 8:33 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Day Three

We were up bright and early today, and right in time for breakfast, now that we know what time it is! I decided to try the cereal today.. delicious, and filling! We did note that the cream for coffee is quite yellow in color... I can only assume that it's real cream, and thus loaded with butterfat, and not just half and half... anyway.. the only missing item from the breakfast bar, and one I had no reason to expect, but hoped for anyway.. is the little cherry bananas that are so popular in the tropics... I was told that the fruit coming over from Venezuela was iffy these days due to the political situation there. There were plenty of regular bananas, and not like I can't get the cherry bananas here.. just something about eating them in the presence of warm breeze and swaying palms (which appear to be mostly shipped in for the purposes of making the various resorts look "tropical")... We, or should I say "I" have gotten in the habit of throwing the last pieces of my toast to the fishes since the restaurant is right over the dock.... I have to be careful not to bonk divers below on the head though.. that would be really embarrassing! But from one floor up, the water is so clear that we can see even the small fishes as they lunch for the crumbs! It's a feeding frenzy!

Today's first dive is to the wreck of the Hilma Hooker... we've again read that some people say it's not worth it, and some do... well.. we do! This is a fairly deep dive, as the wreck is in about 90 foot of water, but it's a big boat, so the top of it is probably only in about 50 feet. We head in over what is pretty typical shoreline... coral crunchies down to the water, and then some types of big flattish rock/coral formations... our standard entrance was to become one in which we would go only in as far as was needed to put our fins on (usually only about a foot or so deep).. put them on, mask on, regulator in, and then dip and look around... much of the shoreline has little pockets where urchins hide, and often little fire coral heads were very close in and shallow.... on the southern end the waves can be enough to knock you down while in full gear and off balance putting on fins, so it's always wise to have some sort of idea on where your hand is going to go if you have to catch yourself... oh.. and did I mention the bristle worms ??..... so anyway... mask on, face in and then we sort of belly flop in the shallow water and the maneuver out between whatever little coral outcroppings there might be! The shallow area is also an excellent place to find interesting critters... we saw a huge coral crab not 5 feet from shore on one dive, and a gigantic puffer, and an octopus.. as well as bunches of peacock flounder...

bristle worm

Back to the actual dive... the Hilma Hooker is a wreck that was sunk (on purpose) between an inner and outer reef... I somehow misread the description of the wreck, and thought that the crows nest was pointing to the shallower reef, so we were surprised when we came up to the mammoth hulk of the bottom of the ship.. it's got quite a presence and from where you come up on it on the reef, it's quite a ways up and over to the "top" side. Very cool, but make sure to remember to bring a flashlight, as there are lost of nooks and crannies worth investigating. Unfortunately the visibility was down to about 40 feet, so the wreck was a bit murky and we didn't bring our flashlights this time (since we didn't know yet). We did see the big tarpon in the hold area, but mostly looked at the little stuff, which is encrusting everything.. lots of wire corals down deep. The bottom of the ship is still pretty bare of encrustation, but there were little bits of coral and sponge taking hold here and there, so I have an idea that in 10 or so years it'll be a reef all of it's own! The reef here is also robust and healthy, and well worth a gander after viewing the wreck!

Did I mention the Pink Bus yet? The Pink Bus is just that.. a converted bus painted bright pink! The bus is stationed daily at one of the southern dive sites.. from 9am to 4:30pm, and is a pretty nifty courtesy. There is usually a sign out in front of the Plaza Resort telling you where it is and where it's going to be the next day. Mark was the one manning the bus for the duration of our stay, and we stopped by every day to chat or hang out for a bit. The Pink Bus offers snacks and sodas for purchase... as well postcards, dive books, and misc dive equipment. They also have light first aid or equipment repair should one require it. Scott half way blew an O ring on one dive, and Mark was there with a whole box of various sizes, along with tools to get the old one out! All as a courtesy! He (or whoever is there) will also watch cameras or other expensive gear while you dive. They also setup a couple tables with some dive magazine and it's nice to finish up a dive, grab a big hunk of ice cold watermelon (1 gilder) and hang out in the sun eating and chatting about what you've just seen. Mark even brought one of his personal critter identification books for us when we wanted to know what something was that we had seen (Black Durgons - I LOVE them!). Thanks Mark.. for the cold watermelon and for being so nice!

pink bus

After our morning dive and hanging out, we headed into Kralendijk to eat at Watta Burger. Scott works for McDonald's Corp in the US, so we had to eat at the nearest island rival! Scott had the bacon cheeseburger, which he said was "decent"... I had the "kroket"... I asked what it was and the girl behind the counter said it was sort of like a meatball... maybe in the very most loose definition.. what it actually was, was a sort of square edged deep fried hotdog length "thing" with a meat goop filling... I bit into it, and it was piping hot, but I was concerned about the "goop"... it was so delicious that I ate the whole thing and THEN commented that I hoped it was actually cooked. Jake confirms that that's the way they are supposed to be. We both had fries as well... some of the choices for fries are "fries with catsup", "fries with mayonnaise" and "fries with peanut sauce".. there were other choices, but I don't remember them. Watta Burger was good and cheap on the cost of food scale. I'd eat the kroket again, despite it's initial appearance!

watta burger

Dive two of the day was at Andrea I.. north of the last section of housing (north of Kralendijk). Entrance into the water was similar to the other shore entrances.. at least I don't make any note of a strange entrance, so I assume it was! We headed south once we hit the reef. We saw bunches of Angel fish on this dive, as well as a few spotted morays! The highlight of the dive, however, was the Hawksbill Turtle we spotted on our way back north.. thankfully Scott pointed it out to me, otherwise I would likely have missed it!

We headed south of town again, for our last dive.. I can only think the wind might have picked up north, as it did sometime in the afternoon... so we decided on Alice in Wonderland! This turned out to be one of my two favorite dive sites of the week. There we SO MANY FISHES!!!! I don't think I've ever experienced fish like that before! The wall here is fairly pronounced down toward 60 feet or so, and you could look north and south and see an absolutely endless school of fish.. brown and blue chromis, mostly (I think). Just forever and ever... and the reef was covered with so many soft and hard corals, as well as sponges it made me feel like I was in my garden.. really stunning!and the FISH!!! We saw one large school of Blue Tangs hugging the coral quite tightly as they do, and there in the middle was a coronet fish.. acting just like one of the school.. it was cute, and I laughed through my regulator (which you can do quite nicely!)

garden

After a fabulous day of diving we headed back to Buddy's for their Rum Punch Party, and for what we thought was going to be a slide presentation of the underwater life. The rum punch was yummy, but the slide presentation was not quite what we expected... the initial slides were of underwater life, but no one was telling us what they were, and then the actual slide presentation was mostly on the amenities there at Buddy's... ah well.. we listened anyway, and Scott was glad, since he learned about the cave diving Buddy's offers.... next year!

And off to the Pirate Steak house for the most humongous steak I've had in a long time! We sat on the balcony overlooking Kerens, and listed to the mariachi band... we had a lovely waitress from Holland who insisted that US steaks were the best (we had hoped for Argentinean, which WE'VE heard are the best) and were the ONLY ones in the whole place! We have found already that restaurants are often quite unpopulated... not that we mind, but it just seems a little strange to us. The steak was most excellent.. we also had baked potato (hard to mess up), and funchi (fried corn meal mush - delicious) and for an appetizer we had stuff jalapenos... the food was excellent, and I can recommend this restaurant, despite it's apparent lack of popularity!

pirate steak house

And there we end day three.. and where to tomorrow???

kitties


 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Cheryl Ferguson (BonaireTalker - Post #20) on Monday, April 7, 2003 - 9:57 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

What-a-go Steph! Am thoroughly enjoying your reports and am looking forward to day 4. Great photos!!

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Gail Currie (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #472) on Tuesday, April 8, 2003 - 2:41 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Keep them coming Steph. They are getting me excited for our upcoming trip.

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Rob (BonaireTalker - Post #22) on Sunday, April 13, 2003 - 11:39 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

Thank you for sharing your days with us. Looking forward to day 4.

love the detail of your days. It is like reading a good book that you don't want to put down.

Iam going to Bonaire this summer for 3 weeks.

Keep them coming.

Rob

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Stef Jarrell (BonaireTalker - Post #66) on Monday, April 14, 2003 - 11:56 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Sorry for the delay.... at long last Day 4 on Bonaire!

Since breakfast is the same as yesterday (and the same as tomorrow!), I’ll skip that and go right into our first dive, which we decided would be 1000 Steps. It’s not really 1000 Steps, but only about 72, which could easily feel like 1000 in the heat of the day in full gear! This is north of town, and on a pretty step cliff face covered with barrel cactus. There is a small building where you park your truck on semi-paved parking (paved with coral pieces). We suited up there and made the walk down the steps to the beach to head leftish once we were on the beach.. about back to where the top of the steps parallel the beach. There is a beautiful sand shoot by which to enter and despite the strong waves, this shoot makes the entry quite easy!

1000 steps

We kept our eyes on the “deep blue” this whole dive, as we had heard that large animals, such as dolphins and whale sharks were sometimes seen in this area. We unfortunately didn’t see anything large, other than a huge red coral crab. I have in my dive log that this was an enjoyable dive with nothing of particular note, except healthy and abundant coral. This fact appears to be true for all the dive sites on Bonaire!

After a 51 minute dive we slowly slogged our way back up the steps and discovered another truck parked next to ours, with a non-diver on the ground sunbathing between our trucks.. that made changing and showering sort of awkward, but we managed. And a note on showering.. we purchase and brought with us two 4 gallon “solar showers” which we found invaluable after our dives. We would fill them with water before we left in the morning and lay them on the roof of the car to heat up while we were diving, and then have a nice HOT shower with which to wash off the salt after each dive.. just keeps you from that crusty salty feel.

After we cleaned up, we headed back down the 72 steps to take some photos... note to self.. “once is hard enough.... second time after an hour dive is a killer!”... but the beach and view are stunning and worth the extra effort.

from 1000 steps

Since we were pretty far north, we decided to drive up past the power plant to the Flamingo Sanctuary... I have to comment again, that the road north of town is so interesting.. we came upon two sizable iguanas on our way, but they scurried out of the way before we could snap off a picture.. I think they were probably sunning themselves in the heat of the blacktop! The crest of the hill when the sanctuary comes into view is wonderful...

sanctuary

We also stopped at a small parking area over looking the sanctuary, and fed pringles to the birds and lizards.. as soon as we started throwing chips over a low coral wall, the lizards just seemed to pour out of the hillside! There were a bazillion of them! Most of the birds that came were timid as birds usually are, but there was this one little yellow fellow who came within 3 inches of my foot several times to get his chips... didn’t really seem to mind that I was there taking pictures of him!

birds

birdslizards

We decided that since it was still early, we’d do another dive before lunch, so headed south of town again. We seem to like to do the north dives in the morning and stay south for the afternoon. We headed south to find the Pink Bus and our friend Mark. He was at Windsock for the day, but recommended we drive just a bit further and dive North Belnam instead.

Nothing dramatic about the entrance to North Belnam, but the dive itself was fabulous, due to the variety of underwater life we saw. On the swim out we saw several peacock flounder in the sand shallows before the reef....we actually have a few pictures of them, but they are so well camouflaged that you can hardly see them! The following picture is of one of these fellows.. you can see his two eyes are dark circles toward the right of the picture.. the fish is smack dab in the middle!

flounder

We also saw a feather starfish, which was one of the most unique things we saw all week (and the only feather star). I thought it was a sea lily at first, but we looked it up and identified it as a feather star... looked sort of like a bunch of black and white moth antenna.... at about 50 feet or so. We also spotted arrow crabs, peppermint shrimp, morays, and a funny scene where a file fish kept trying to eat the coral guarded by a singular damsel fish... she kept popping out and trying to nip the file fish, and he kept changing from solid color to spotted and raising his “file”.. another time I laughed heartily through my regulator!

It’s now roughly 3pm and we’re hungry for lunch.... we’re not sure where we want to go, but decide on Crepes Paradise for a luncheon crepe. CLOSED. We head for another restaurant.. .CLOSED... akkk... just about everywhere to grab a bite to eat is closed between 3 and 5pm..little did we know when we delayed lunch for another dive! We finally ended up right next to our resort at Lion Den and had a burger (Scott) and a tiger shrimp club sandwich (me).. these with fries and two Brights each... $33 US. We’re getting used to the price of meals, and decide that we should start packing more food with us. The food was good, although pricey, but the service was just ok, but not great... guess that’s what we get for trying to eat during the siesta!

We have time for one more dive before dark, so head south again to Angel City. Angel City will overtake Alice in Wonderland as one of our favorite dive sites so far! We popped into the water about 5pm, so things were already starting to get slightly dark.. The entrance was from a coral rubble beach into water with many small coral heads (including fire coral), strong waves and noticeable surge down to about 20 feet. We headed down as quickly as possible to avoid this surge, but its strength, and the twilight hour caused the visibility to be quite low. The reef here is again part of the double reef system. We explored only the closest reef this time, but ventured close to the second reef and could see the absolutely unbelievably huge coral formations there .. it was such as tease as we didn’t have time or light to take a gander at the outer reef on this dive. We did see about a 4 to 5 foot coronet fish.. Simply gigantic!

We cut the dive short at 36 minutes, as dusk was settling in quite quickly.. and I, at least, was pretty tired after the days events.. the waves seems to have picked up and Scott was already out of reach on shore by the time I made my way in to the shallows... there I was in the considerable surge, trying not to stick my hand down on an urchin, yet get my fins off and myself out of the water... one fin off and one fin on, body off balance, and BAM.... into the coral I went.. knee first... to be bruised badly... ah.. the price we pay for such pleasures!

After cleaning up back at the resort, and spending a little happy hour time with fellow divers, we decide to head for the Swiss Chalet for dinner. I’m not sure if I read about this place before we went, or if someone mentioned it while we were there, but we found it (down by the big church in town) and settled ourselves in. Looking over the menu, we decided on the Swiss Cheese fondue for two. We actually wanted to get one cheese fondue, and one other kind of fondue, but was told that the minimum for any fondue was two.... We started the meal with an appetizer of Bonarian Smoked Marlin.. .simply marvelous.. paper thin shaved marlin served with I don’t even remember what.. ..crackers or maybe bread.. only the fish actually stands out in my brain as superb!

The fondue itself was almost embarrassing... it was brought out in a huge caldron.. the “caldron o’ cheese”... bubbling away. Served with chunks of bread and oddly enough, pickles... we were never sure if we were supposed to dip the pickles in the fondue or just eat them plain, so decided on plain. So, here we were with our embarrassingly large caldron of bubbling cheese and the owner comes over and says “ wait a minute... “.. she grabs Scotts fork, and starts scraping it vigorously over the bottom of this bubbling mass, and brings up a fork full of crusty brown cheese from the bottom of the pot... she hands it to Scott as if it were a popsicle and tells him to do that every once in a while, and to enjoy! Crusty cheese.. Who can complain! We finished the ENTIRE pot of cheese and just about all the bread, and thought for sure that we’d both end up with a horrific belly ache at some point during the night.. A testimony to good food is that neither of us did! We both recommend the Swiss chalet, and specifically the Swiss cheese fondue.. it was another wonderful meal!

And back again, to Buddy’s with the desire to fill in dive logs and travel journals, but in reality to only have energy enough to brush teeth and fall into bed... until tomorrow.

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Carole Baker (Extraordinary BonaireTalker - Post #2269) on Tuesday, April 15, 2003 - 12:18 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Wow! What a trip report, Stef! Thanks for the wonderful details and the pics, too. Mmmmm...that cheese fondue sounds great just about now as it is lunchtime for me. Thanks again. Carole

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Gail Currie (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #476) on Wednesday, April 16, 2003 - 9:33 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

Wow what a great report. It's amazing how tired you can get just sort of floating along in the water isn't it. The fish make it appear so easy - NOT. Thanks for bringing these bits of Bonaire to all of us.

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Superturtle (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #194) on Wednesday, April 16, 2003 - 9:46 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

Hi, Stef. Great Report!! It was also great meeting you and Scott at Gibi's.

Great photos as well - with the flounder, their ability to blend in makes you wonder how many you missed seeing, doesn't it??

Bill

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Mary Lou French (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #258) on Wednesday, April 16, 2003 - 12:33 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Excellent report, Stef! I am sorry we didn't get a chance to get together!! We will be there March 2004, maybe a chance to try again? I hope so!
ML

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Josie (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #792) on Wednesday, April 16, 2003 - 8:16 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Stef, next time you're on Bonaire, look for the Lost Penguin right in town. It's open and serves great food from 8 am until closing (which was 8 pm, but they were mentioning they might start closing at 6 pm). They're closed on Tuesdays. It's not at all pricey, food and people there are great, and you can eat when you want!!

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By herman mowery (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #181) on Wednesday, April 16, 2003 - 8:52 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Stef, you are causing a REALLY big case of PBD here.....Now just how many days until I get back to Buddies in July???

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By John and Carol Collins (BonaireTalker - Post #32) on Tuesday, April 22, 2003 - 9:33 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Stef: Just back from a trip to Bend, Oregon (certaintly not Bonaire, although a lovely high desert area) and am catching up on the latest BT. Really enjoyed your descriptive trip report. Bonaire is the greatest isn't it! Carol

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Stef Jarrell (BonaireTalker - Post #67) on Thursday, May 1, 2003 - 7:49 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

Life is so busy and it makes me want to be back on Bonaire, where all we worried about was where to dive next!

Day five dawned (like we would know!!) as beautiful as those before and those after.. warm breezes promising a sunny day! We ate our breakfast at Buddy's and loaded up for the first dive of the day... Pink Bus was at Pink Beach, which we felt was karma, so we headed there!

pinkbeachrock

Pink Beach (south of town) has a slightly higher sand dune that most of the other beaches, which are mostly flat, so you have to essentially climb up a small hill and then down to the water... the entrance to the sea was an easy one, with few obstacles, or coral heads to impede progress into the water. I did accidentally hit a outcropping of fire coral on the way through the shallows, but thankfully with the palm of my hand... left the places it touched tingling for quite a while, but thankfully did not actually sting or blister! That was the first time I've done that, surprisingly, and hopefully the last!

We renamed this dive the "Anemone Sea Lettuce Slug Peacock Flounder" dive.... I was not familiar with Sea Lettuce Slugs before this, but once I saw one, I saw a gazillion! Same for anemones, although I was familiar with them already! The Sea Lettuce Slugs were very cool... they were small, and usually on some plant or coral.. like a slug with a beautiful white curled ribbon coat! I would have loved to have picked one up to investigate further, but I didn't know whether they stung or not.. I don't believe the book said they did, but they probably preferred being left alone anyway! At about 40 feet we saw the most monstrous coronet fish.. he must have been 4 to 5 foot long and big and fat (for being so long and skinny!) We followed him for a while.. with him always just a few feet in front of us.. we finally decided that he was probably annoyed with us following him, so turned and swam away. We also saw multiple peacock flounder.. some very close to shore, and tons of anemones.. some really huge ones too!

anemone

This was our longest dive so far at 59 minutes, and we were ready for a little R&R afterward! Since our friend Mark and the Pink Bus was conveniently there, we grabbed a couple huge slices of watermelon and relaxed in the sun for a while. Mark had other visitors that day, as well as his adorable baby boy, and unfortunately for us, the other visitors all spoke Dutch, so we were left to talk to each other (not speaking or understanding any Dutch). The watermelon was cold and the sun was hot... ahh... perfect!

eatingmelon

Second dive of the day was at Torri's Reef, just a bit north of the salt works. The entrance is super easy, as the salt works carved about a four foot deep channel from the sea over to the flats... you can drive your truck right up to the side of the channel, which has some nice flat "entrance" rocks. No urchins or fire coral... just some little hermit crabs and those other reddish crabs that seem to cling to the sides of things like magic, despite waves (not here, though) attempting to knock them off. How do they do that?

stefattorris

scottattorris

Now there may be people who really like Torri's Reef, but we personally don't recommend it, unless you've been everywhere else and want to try something new. The books all say that it's a long swim out to the reef... they lie.. what they mean is it's a REALLY REALLY REALLY long swim out to the reef... and even longer if you forget to use your compass the first time, which I confess we did. We made our entrance in the channel and just before ducking under, we happened to notice a bunch of flamingos flying overhead... THAT was such a bonus that despite a less than spectacular dive, it was well worth just seeing them flying! (I love flamingos!)

So.. we head under and swim and swim and swim.. and swim... (through heavy surge) and I'm through a third of a tank of air, and we keep motioning to each other that the reef is "that way".. I finally, after swimming for forever, surface (we hadn't made it below about 10 feet) to get our baring and discover that we have swum in a giant half circle, and are right off the beach, but on the other side of the channel from where we parked the truck!! How embarrassing! Down again, and this time we look at our compass and make it to the reef itself... again, after a pretty long swim.

The reef itself apparently took a beating in the hurricane of 1999, since the top portion and the shallows were full of dead coral. There was some life coming back, but it was pretty badly affected. There were large schools of blue and brown chromis, as well as blue tangs.. large schools are always nice to see! We also saw a large coral crab, and some very cute "apartment dwelling" morays! On one very small coral head there were two morays sticking out of different holes, but on another we saw two very young morays sticking out of the same hole!!! They were so cute and funny in there together... maybe more the merrier, or perhaps they really just protect each other! But they were cute!

The swim back to shore was tough due to a pretty strong surge and the fact that we had expended so much energy in our initial attempt to reach the reef!

I apparently got my days mixed up, since today is the actual day we ate at Lion's Den for lunch.. not sure where we ate, IF we ate, the day we found everything closed, when I said we had gone to Lion's Den.. I think we did go that day, but all they had was pizza, which we didn't want.. I can't remember.... But Lion's Den food was good.. I wanted to mention that my shrimp club came with "smoked rashers" and "mary rose"... to translate "bacon and russian dressing"... for those who want to try it out.. not quite as adventurous as it originally sounds!

The third dive of the day was one of the more spectacular dives on the whole trip.. simply because the underwater landscape was unique to the area. Thanks Jake, for letting us dive on Small Wall. We entered through a heavy coral beach, past some of the biggest parrot fish I've ever seen, and out to the web cam, where we hammed around for a while.. then over to the reef.

Small Wall, which is not really all that small, is REALLY a wall.. absolutely vertical and stunning. It bottoms out at about 60 feet and there is a little cavern you can see.. I suppose you could go into if you wanted, but I'm not sure what the point would be. The plate corals were huge and absolutely pristine lining the side of the wall like great big fish scales. There were also tons of wire corals sticking straight out. We swam north to a set of barrels tied together, and looked for a particular set of purple tube sponge, next to which we were supposed to find two sea horses... we looked and looked but never did find them.

entrancetojakes

hammingatwebcam

Small Wall was a beautiful dive.. the coral is gorgeous and pristine... if you get the chance, dive this dive.. you'll really enjoy it.

happydivers

We finished up about 4:30 in the afternoon.. thanked Linda for the dive, since Jake wasn't home, and headed back south to Lac Bay to take more pictures of the windsurfers. My brother is a big windsurfer, so we had to appropriately scout out the amenities for him! On our route we saw a flamingo right along the side of the road in the mangrove area, so took his picture, and then wound up on high ground where there were lots for sale overlooking the eastern side of the island. We picked the lot we would buy (in our dreams) and pondered the view from "our land" ... the eastern shore is really spectacular with its angry ocean and pounding waves! Definitely not the calm side of the island, but a view to behold, and one I'm not sure I would ever tire of.

viewfromourland

We left our land with great longing and headed back to Buddy's to clean up and head to the bar for happy hour... we were often quite late for the standard happy hour, since we always did a pretty late afternoon dive, but there were usually a few people around to chat with about the days adventures, and relax for a bit. Buddy's often has evening meals under the stars... there is Mexican night (which as I mentioned earlier we would not repeat) and barbeque, which looked and smelled good, despite the fact that we didn't participate. I think guests find it very convenient!

baratbuddys

We decided to take the advice of some friends we had met and try Richard's for dinner. There has been alot of talk recently about the poor quality of Richard's but we found it to be quite good. We arrived and were led immediately to a table out on the dock where we ordered drinks and had the menu delivered! They have the evenings menu written on a large chalkboard on a stand and they bring the whole thing right to your table for you to peruse! Some of the prices were exorbitant, but we finally settled on Land and Sea (steak and Caribbean lobster) and Surf and Turf (steak and shrimp), and split the shrimp and lobster. Both meals were delicious, and the only down side of the meal is that our waitress appeared to have gone home, since it took a long time to get our check... after a day of sun and diving, a big meal and a couple glasses of wine we needed the check immediately, before we zonked out on the table!

Of note during dinner was the guy next door, who had a light out by a table on his dock.. after dark he strolled out to the table, opened up a laptop computer and proceeded to work for a while right there on the dock.. with the night stars and the evening breeze... if a site could instill envy, it's that of someone working on their computer at night on a dock over the water in Bonaire... as a network administrator, plunked down in front of my computer screen day in and day out, I can say I'M JEALOUS!!!

And Day 5 ends as lovely as it began... until tomorrow....

 


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