The Travel
Not much to say here. Bonaire is a long way from Spokane Washington any way you do it. We spent the night in San Juan on the way there and that was a good thing. It broke up the trip and they have a great beach to play on. When we arrived at the Bonaire airport our ride was waiting for us so we got to Buddy Dive very quickly.
The Facilities
Everyone was very happy with Buddy Dive. The room was a 3 bedroom even though we only paid for a 2 bedroom. The extra room was nice for our empty dive bags and stuff. We had an ocean view from the living room and one bedroom. It was very clean and the maid came every day to mop, change the towels and sheets. She also did the dishes which was a nice surprise.
The grounds were beautiful and well kept. Both pools were clean and ready for us 24 hours a day. Parking was close to the room and you could pull up in front of the door for loading and unloading.
Buddy Dive has a great drive through air station. Maybe they all have this but it was very nice. Just pull up and take out the used tanks and put in full ones, no hauling tanks around or up and down stairs. They also have tanks on the dock for shore dives at Buddy Reef. Again, no stairs, just put it on and giant stride....[:]q
They have 2 new boats so the boat diving was very easy with the open stern you just step off the back. They provided fruit and water on each dive. The dive shop was always willing to help us plan outside activities such as a sail boat cruise.
The Diving
We bought a package that included 6 boat dives and 6 days of unlimited air and a 4 door truck to get to the sites. I felt this was a good combo and would do it again. The 6 boat dives could be done any time we wanted if a boat was going out and had room, you did not need to do one a day. This was a good way to get to Klein and enjoy the diving over there. The dive site on each boat trip was determined by the divers. This is a good way to do it but it also means that if you are on the boat with another group and they all want to go somewhere, that is where you go.
What constitutes a reef? I’m not sure on this. We dove from Buddy’s dock a few times and went both north and south. We most likely did Buddy reef and the two one each side from our hotel. It all seemed like the same reef to me even though you could say we did 5 reefs from that one spot. It only took 5 minutes to swim to the sunken boat a captain Dons. Whether it was one reef or five it was a great place to swim. We saw almost everything there is to see on these dives. It was hard to count the number of fish species that were under Buddy’s dock. There is a large Tarpon that hangs around the dock at night and two eels that live under the pilings. It was a great place for a night dive as well.
We did the town pier on our third night. The dive shop goes every Tuesday at 7PM and you can go with them for $15. For $25 you can do a private with a dive master from the shop and go any night you want. We chose the private and requested to go later after the crowds had left. We met the dive master at 8PM on Wednesday night at the drive through fill station to get our air and a dive briefing. The plan was to be in the water at 8:30. When we got to the pier the tug boats had just gotten the order to leave so we ended up waiting until 9:00 to get in. This ended up great because by the time we got in the water we were the only people diving. There were seven of us including the dive master. I felt this was still too many people to have all crammed together. The dive master was new and told us to all stay together, for some people that means within touching distance. I swam a couple of pilings over and had a very nice dive. It is a great site and I was surprised there is as much stuff growing when you consider all of the divers that do the site. I highly recommend the private and going as late as possible.
On Klein we saw both Turtles and Sea Horses. On one trip there were only three of us on the boat and we went to the dive master’s favorite spot (Jerry’s Reef). When we got there they said the current was too strong and we would need to go somewhere else. We talked them into a drift dive with a live boat and that ended up being the best boat dive of the trip. We saw and swam with three turtles and covered a lot of ground. We never got to the back side of Klein, maybe next time...
The Hilma Hooker was a decent dive. We are use to diving huge 400+ foot Navy battle ships in Canada so most other wrecks tend to be less dramatic. It was my girlfriend’s first wreck though and she had fun doing a little penetrating. The fact that it is not in deep water allowed us to explore the ship, and then spend some time on the reef as well.
The wild dive… We went to the park to do a couple of dives and to do the tourist thing. We chose dive site 1, Boca Bartol. This was a very tough entry and exit. The waves were high and the girls decided not to go. It was too rough to snorkel out to the wall and we don’t do surface swims anyway. The wall was not much different then most of the others and it was not really worth the effort. I would not do it again, although it was an adventure getting back to shore. You needed to surface every minute or so to reset your compass because the current would throw you off course. After that the girls said no more dives in the park.
Our favorite site. The site that we liked the most was Oil Slick Leap. It is on the map but there is no yellow rock on the road side to point it out. One of the dive masters suggested it and told us where to go. You giant stride off a wall that is 4 to 6 feet high and then go to the left even if it is with the current. Everyone really enjoyed this dive and we did it a couple of times. It seemed to have better vis then most and was very pristine. We also saw the biggest Green Morey I have ever seen. There were two, a male and a female I assume because one was much bigger. I saw the female first and she was the biggest I’d seen until I saw the male (HUGE!). I was attacked by a fish when we were getting out at the latter. It had picked the flat rock next to the latter as a home and when I was getting out it attacked…!!! It was a small fish maybe 5” red and black with a large head tapering off to a small tale. At first I was not sure what it was because my head was out of the water as I was holding the latter to take my fins off. When I got to the truck I noticed I was bleeding in two spots from the vicious attack...
Deco Day
Our flight was at 6AM Sunday morning so on Saturday I did an early dive on Buddy’s Reef and then set my gear out to dry. We had breakfast and then went into town to rent a scooter for the day. I chose to rent one from the Harley shop because I figured he would have them in the best running condition. We rented a 100cc that Tammy and I shared and we did a tour of the south end of the island. It cost $32 and $3 for gas (Premium only) and we had fun. We took it to town and did some shopping for tee shirts and such and then went back to the hotel to pack. After packing we went out to dinner and walked along the water front enjoying our last night. We were supposed to go to a BT get together but couldn’t find it. It would have been fun to meet some of you and chat about our trip. Maybe next time. We went to bed early anyway because the taxi was picking us up at 3:45...YUCK!
The Food
We ate both in and out. We tried new things and enjoyed most. There was nothing bad but nothing spectacular either. The meal that I enjoyed the most was some pork in peanut sauce we got at the store in the frozen section. We cooked it with sticky rice and it was a good meal. We think it was pork, the package was in Dutch so who knows. No one seemed to like the donkey balls but you never know until you try.
The End
For those of you that managed to make it this far.
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By Mark James (BonaireTalker - Post #30) on Wednesday, June 4, 2003 - 1:22 pm: 
