I spent a lot of time on these boards preparing for our trip to Bonaire earlier this month. I really found the trip reports posted by first-time visitors to be especially useful -- so I thought I'd return the favor and post my impressions of our trip. My partner Louis and I flew to Bonaire on May 1 for a week of diving, after Louis's boss raved about his visit last year. He was right -- the diving was excellent, and we had a great time on the island.
Getting There and Back. We don't have a whole lot of choices here in Minneapolis-St. Paul when it comes to airlines. Northwest could get us as far as San Juan, but we'd have to connect to another carrier there -- which would probably mean overnighting it at the airport. We ended up flying American -- Mpls-Chicago-San Juan-Kralendijk. We got a pretty good deal on Expedia. Bonaire is far, far away from the Upper Midwest -- the trip down took about 15 hours, and we were traveling for a good 20 hours on the way back. No problems with luggage, delays, etc. We spent a lot of time at the airport in San Juan, which was fine, actually.
Accommodations. The "strip" -- Sand Dollar, Buddy Dive, Lion's, and Captain Don's -- was strongly recommended by a couple divers we spoke to. After much debate, Internet research, and second-guessing ourselves, we ended up at the Sand Dollar Condominium Resort -- mostly because the travel agency we used to make arrangements (Caradonna) offered a great dive package at the Sand Dollar for the week we wanted to travel. The Sand Dollar promotional literature explains that, as a condo resort, it's "different." And it is different from the neighboring operations. It's not really a "resort" -- it feels more like vacationing in an apartment complex. They don't have a waterfront bar or restaurant (Mango's -- an independent operation on the grounds -- is on the other side of the condominiums next to the road), and so you miss that kind of vacation party-buzz. Or you don't if that's not your thing. The condo itself was everything we needed it to be -- big, fully functional kitchen, big bathroom, super clean. We were on the ground floor towards the back of one of the buildings -- it would have been nicer to be up a level or two and closer to the ocean. If we go back, I'd request an upper unit. But you could still see the water from our patio, and we were within walking distance of Lover's Ice Cream shop -- unexpectedly good ice cream (the pistachio was really outstanding) in the little strip mall right on the property. I took a walking tour of the other three operations just to compare, and we might try Lion's Dive next time.
The Dive Center. Bonaire Dive and Adventure operates off of the Sand Dollar's new pier. Our package included unlimited shore diving and one boat dive per day. Both Louis and I are just a bit past "beginner" -- we've been certified since 2000, but we don't get more than one or two dive trips in per year -- mostly long weekends in Key Largo. All the divemasters at Bonaire Dive -- Valeria, Henk, Etienne, and Jerry -- were great. Jerry ("the fish guy") leads very interesting naturalist dives -- I'm kind of obsessed with my Humann Reef Fish ID book, and he pointed out a number of critters I never would have seen on my own. I was told that he's an expert on island birds as well. Andre (the owner of Bonaire Dive I believe) was a great resource on island activities.
Weather. Wind and sun, every day. The wind cut the heat (and the bugs -- I didn't notice any at all), but the sun was intense.
Diving and Eating (because that's pretty much all we did). We arrived at the Sand Dollar Thursday night around 8:00 p.m. (rented a truck with Tellerin Rentals -- easy, no problems), and had dinner at Mango's (the "on-site" restaurant). Food was good, but expensive. In general, food and drink is pricey on the island -- which makes sense, since everything has to be shipped in from elsewhere.
Friday. We had our orientation with Andre at Bonaire Dive. I almost expected a quiz and a test of our buoyancy control (hyper about those Marine Park regulations), but Andre spent an hour or so explaining the geography of the island, the reef, where to go, what to see, and how to protect the island's resources when diving. And then you're required to pay a fee and do one dive off the house reef -- in our case, Bari Reef. Easy. Louis and I both brought 3 mm shorties that we used throughout the week; I think water temps were generally in the low eighties. We were comfortable -- but we live in Minnesota, and anything above 40 degrees feels warm to us. Especially in May. I could also imagine wearing a full wetsuit, especially when you're doing multiple dives, day after day. We did a boat dive out on Klein Bonaire later in the morning -- Jerry's Reef. As introductory dives to Bonaire, both were amazing.
That afternoon we headed into town to pick up groceries at Cultimara. We try not to eat out at restaurants while on vacation more than once a day -- too much food. I also think of markets as a cultural attraction themselves -- you get an interesting picture of local life by seeing how people shop, what they eat. On Bonaire, they're not eating a whole lot of fresh produce, at least not from Cultimara. Pretty good bakery, a lot of prepared food from the Netherlands, plenty o' Gouda cheese. And the Dutch have cornered the beer distribution market. We bought enough stuff for breakfasts and grazing during the day, and an expensive case of Heineken. I brought coffee along with us from home (I anticipated the Nescafe issue), but the wrong kind of filter (Melitta) for the Mr. Coffee in our condo. Filters are not to be had on the island, I was told -- so we had to make do with paper towels. After dinner in the condo we walked over to Bongo's Beach Bar. Fun place.
Saturday. We did the 9:00 a.m. boat dive (the boat left at 9, 11, and 2 in the afternoon) to Something Special. Cool scorpionfish, yellowhead jawfish, and a school (field?) of garden eels. That afternoon we packed up a couple of tanks and drove north to Karpata, one of the dives I picked out from Lewbel and Martin's "Diving Bonaire" before the trip. This was my favorite divesite. It felt like we were drifting down the side of a coral Grand Canyon. Exiting the water was a challenge, though -- Louis was tossed like a rag doll up on shore. Quite a bit of wave and surge. We found that many of the northern sites were tough dives on windy days. We drove south through Rincon to Pink Beach for the last dive of the day. Easy entry and exit.
We had dinner at China Nobo, a place I saw advertised locally. It's in a "suburb" of Kralendijk called Nikiboko off the Sorobon road. Great place, funky dining room decked out in Chinese lanterns. We were the only ones there that night and had a great time.
Sunday. We decided to roam with the tanks in the morning this time, and do the boatdive in the afternoon. Headed back north to do 1000 steps -- Louis's favorite dive. Swam with a huge school of scad circling a five foot barracuda. The reef structure was a lot like Karpata, but entry and exit was easier. We figured we didn't have enough time to hang out for our surface interval, dive again, and make it back to the Sand Dollar for the 2:00 boat, so we drove back and dove Bari again. Watched the "Bonaire traffic jam" -- a huge school of creole wrasse that follows the edge of the reef north to south during the day. The boat took us over to Cliff -- one of the shore sites accessible from Captain Don's. A couple people commented about Captain Don's $5 charge to use their pier -- I noticed that the issue has been a topic on these boards as well. It's only five bucks, but they sure are getting their money's worth in terms of bad press. Jerry (BDA's "fish guy") divemastered the trip, and pointed out all kinds of interesting fish -- big spotted eel, cubera snapper, couple of sand divers.
Late Sunday afternoon we drove over to Cai on Lac Bay. There's a bar at the end of the dirt road on the east end of the bay that has live music every Sunday. Great end-of-the-road kind of place, crashing surf on one side, placid bay on the other. Fun mix of Bonaireans and tourists. There's a sign off the Sorobon road -- "Lac Suit" I believe it was called.
Monday. We did the 9 a.m. boatdive (a schedule we stuck with for the rest of the trip) to the Hilma Hooker. Big ol' boat with a couple of lurking tarpons. We had a permit to dive at Salt Pier that afternoon, so we packed up a couple of tanks and drove south for the rest of the day. There are a number of "new" sites between Pink Beach and Red Slave -- at least sites that weren't "official" when my 1998 version of Diving Bonaire was published. We dove Vista Blue, the first site north of Red Slave, and you could really tell that this location sees far fewer divers. The afternoon dive at Salt Pier was beautiful -- it feels like a cathedral when you're floating underneath the pilings with the sun and the shadows. Louis watched a spotted eel in the act of catching and devouring a goatfish, but wasn't quick enough with the camera. We wandered around town that evening, and ate at the City Cafe. Popular place.
Tuesday. The boat took us back out to Klein to the Rock Pile. Visibility was pretty poor, and I was having trouble equalizing, so I can't say this was my favorite. I did see a godzilla-sized lobster, but spent most of the time battling the surge, my sinuses, and my gear. We headed back north to 1000 steps that afternoon -- Louis's choice. We swam with a huge ray out over the reef. I wanted to check out Ol' Blue as well, but after watching the crashing surf for a half hour or so, we bagged the idea. Too rough. Valeria at BDA had recommended Tori's Reef, so we did the loop through Rincon back south of the airport again. It was a bit of a swim to get out to the reef, but it's in great shape, and we saw about five eels. That evening we did a night dive off the pier at Bari reef. It had always been so calm at Bari, so we were surprised at the strength of the current. A little disconcerting at night.
Wednesday. Last dive. The boat took us down south to Angel City, which was interesting because we hadn't been out on any of the double reef sites earlier in the week. We spent a good part of the afternoon hanging out at Jibe City on Sorobon Beach (great castaway kind of place, pretty good food), watching the surfboarders, thinking about the sites we didn't get a chance to dive. A couple we met at the Sand Dollar spent the day driving around Washington Slagbaai Park checking out the north coast sites. They're on my list for our next visit. |
By Andrew Voss (New BonaireTalk Poster - Post #1) on Monday, May 19, 2003 - 12:02 am: 
!