Our first trip to Bonaire is June 28th-July 4th. I'm looking over Shore Diving Made Easy, lonely planet's Diving & Snorkeling Bonaire, and Franko's Guide Map. I hit information overload pretty quickly.

I'm diving with a DSLR housing, so I'm primarily looking for interesting photos and relatively easy entries / exits. We're staying at Coral Paradise, next door to Captain Don's.

My thought was that we'll work our way alternately north and south, hitting sites marked as Easy. Not that Intermediate or Advanced is out of the question, since we have 90 logged dives each, but why exert ourselves more than we have to? Given the very large number of marked sites.

Given this plan, I suspect we won't make it that far in either direction before the week is up. So, are there more distant sites we should definitely make a point of visiting? I.e. far southern sites such as Atlantis (#57)? I'd love to take some Ray photos, for example.

- Gus

My wife and I dive with a DSLR each. Our usual habit is for me to help Sue into the water wearing her BC and weights once she has her fins on and is in calm water I get the cameras and pass them to Sue. I then go back and put on my BC etc and join her do the dive and then repeat in reverse. If the entry is harder then I will out one camera at a time, or calmer take one out initially. If a jump is needed such as Oil Slick Leap or boat then we always pass the camera down. Regular Shore dives we do from memory are Oil Slick, Andrea I and II, Margate Bay, White Slave, Karpata Habitat house reef.

I hope this helps

Gus,
What lenses are you going to be shooting with? If you are shooting any wide angle at all, be sure to catch the 2nd reef at Invisibles first thing in the morning for the Bonairian bait ball of bogas being pursued by the Horse Eye Jacks. It's a great shot!

I've got a 10-22, 60mm macro, and 100mm macro. I mostly enjoy macro, but I'll certainly check the shot you mention. Define "first thing in the morning?"

- Gus

That'd be in the 8-10am time frame... A respectable hour for man and beast.

Hello Gus-
18 Palms site, the house reef at The Plaza Resort has a very, very easy entry. Nice sandy beach entry with buoy markers at the 10 foot and 20 foot depth. Check it out and enjoy your trip.

Neptune Nick

I definitely recommend the Invisibles (I refer to it as the Incredibles -I've never been disappointed at that site). And it's a fairly easy entry.

If you like macro and are in for some "rubble" diving, check out Front Porch (just north of Eden Beach, and easy entry). No great coral there, but lots of little things in the rubble - yellow headed jaw fish, I saw a mantis shrimp there, scarlet cleaner shrimp, juve queen angels... you get the drift

Buddys dive, I've found black Baratoula(sp), seahorses, frogfish, pipe fish, nudis, juvies of all sorts,crabs on anemones)sp), jawfish, pearlfish with host sea cucumber, 1'long juvie squid, mantis shrimp(watch out for your lens!),,and then there's the other stuff........

Any of the areas of Bari Reef entering from above Capt Don's to Eden Beach. Easy, great photo ops, overall fantastic day and night.

Up north - Oil Slick, 1000 Steps, Karpata, Witches Hut and Candyland north of the oil terminal.

Central - Bari Reef area, Something Special, Yellow Sub

South - Lake, Alice, Hilma Hooker, Angel City, Invisibles, Margate Bay.

To name on a few of the 60+ identified sites along the west side of the island. Too many for any single trip unless that trip is a month or longer - prefer much longer.

Our favorite is Invisibles. Great double reef, and we always see really interesting events there. Eagle rays, and last time...dolphins!

... little tip for all the "Invisible-lovers", by the way I am one of them... if you drive a little bit further to the south, about 100 - 150m after the yellow stone, you can park your car and find something like a tiny little beach... going in there is very easy, no stones or rocks, only sand, and swim straight out. Dive down at the drop-off and go from the first reef directly direction to the second one... you will find a nice big rock there you can go around and come back to the first reef to end your dive. Last time I was there I had a nice nurse shark, turtles and eagle ray and a big group of jacks... really amazing... try it out!

thomas, that site is the one susan porter lists as "the rock" in bsdme. it is an easy entry and a great dive. i think all bonaire dives are great but my favorite would probably be margate bay. can't comment on klein dives because we haven't been out there in almost five years....all shore diving now.

agree on Invisibles for some of the best variety.

I've found some great macro stuff at Bari Reef in front of Sand Dollar. The reef balls in the shallows attract some colorful damsel fish.

Don't know if Plaza is still charging to use their beach and back gate, but if you park by the dive shop and take your gear to the beach, no one will question you.

as long as you dont use their sunbeds or their beach, Plaza cant charge you. The dive-sites are public and they have to let you in. And I never experienced that they wanted to charge me. Buts its amazing what you can find at the dive sites "in town", like Chacha-beach in front of the old Dive-In. There is no need to drive all the way to the south or north, if you dont want to...

Quote [The dive-sites are public and they have to let you in]

Tom: I don't believe that's an accurate statement.

In reality the entire west shore of Bonaire is a dive site (albeit not marked). The public does not have the right to traverse private property to get to a beach or a dive site.

Tori's was my favorite. Stunning fish life and the channel created by Salt Co. is wonderfully easy entry. Andrea I was nice reef but I thought the entry right at the parking area was shear torture. Ankle breaking rocks all over the place. Especially hard for wife carrying camera.

paul, if you enter north of the parking lot by the yellow painted rock it's a little easier. it was hard for my wife too when she carried the camera...she wasn't happy since it's my camera. now she makes me carry my own stuff. (hey, it was good while it lasted)

unfortunately I need to enter pretty close to where I park as I have to carry my 13 yr old's tank first to the water, get her settled as she is not quite strong enough yet to carry the full load with weight belt and all. Then I gotta get myself settled. Needless to say a lot of work right now so I need easy/close spots to the truck. maybe next time she will be strong enough to deal with her own stuff.

We looked at Andrea II but bailed bcs just too far of a walk basically hauling two tanks and 26 lbs of weight.

BTW Gus, Boca Slagbai is VERY easy if you have a desire to snokel/dive in the park.

(Message edited by corybaby on July 4, 2009)

Pat,
we must agree with you on Margate Bay, we did it last year for the first time and it will be a regular, awesome dive!

Can we add fish hut to the list, if you go about 100-150 yards south of fish hut theres a nice beach and easy entry ! plus not a soul around, really peaceful and of course a great dive. we called it south hut...

Gus i realize your probably on your way home now....sorry
let us know how you liked coral paradise, we are staying there in nov...

(Message edited by corybaby on July 4, 2009)