This was my wife's and my sixth Bonaire trip. Our first was our honeymoon in 2009, when shore diving was new to us. We have been returning to Bonaire every couple of years or so as part of a small group of 6-8, and this trip was the first time since our honeymoon that my wife and I have been back to Bonaire by ourselves. We love our friends, but a group trip inevitably means compromises. This time we wanted to focus on the sites we like best and, more generally, do Bonaire our way.
We flew ATL-BON on Sat. July 21, and the return was Sun. July 29, giving us a solid seven days on island. It was pouring down rain when we parked the car at ATL and, not having thought to bring an umbrella, were drenched by the time we arrived at the check-in counter. If the Delta flight arrives on time, there is normally time to get to Dive Friends and do the orientation before they close at 5 pm, but this time Delta was an hour late. Telerin had our truck waiting at the airport short-term parking as usual, and we were on our way in about five minutes. We like Telerin because they accept Amex, allowing us to use the Amex rental insurance. The truck was just as worn as the ones we had rented from Telerin before. We did glance enviously all week at the shiny white AB Car Rental trucks, but Telerin's quote was about $100 less, and the $25 Amex insurance versus the CDW from the rental company tipped the balance to Telerin.
We stayed at Hamlet Oasis. On previous group trips, we had stayed in a couple of the Villas--Nos. 8 and 9, I believe--and liked the location. Our Hamlet Oasis unit was a 1-br "apartment" in the building (No. 27) right next to Dive Friends, which could not have been more convenient. We chose Hamlet Oasis because out of the various options in our price range for a place with a reasonably equipped kitchen--Hamlet Oasis, Den Laman, VRBOs, etc.--Hamlet's balance between price and amenities seemed to suit our needs. Den Laman would have been a step up, I suspect, but Den Laman quoted us about $30 more per night. Our kitchen was minimally equipped--no microwave, no blender, no steak knives, plastic cooking tools, small coffeemaker, a gas stove with no ignitor (and no matches/lighter stocked). We ended up buying a cheap, sharp kitchen knife at Zhung Kong because the crappy knife we found in the drawer would have driven us nuts. We also bought a cheap charcoal grill because there are no grilling facilities at Hamlet Oasis (the Hamlet Villas certainly had grills). On previous trips our group members had brought certain food items that would be expensive or hard to find on Bonaire, and so we brought a couple of huge Costco NY strip steaks, which stayed fairly well frozen in an insulated freezer bag in a checked bag.
As it was too late to check in at Dive Friends, we figured it was a good time to investigate the microbrewery, which opened just after our last trip three years ago. Beers tasted okay--not unlike a lot of homebrew--and that was all right with me. Kudos to the brewer. We loaded up on supplies for the week at Van den Tweel and for dinner cooked pork curry and rice. Kicking back with some cold Amstels on our patio made it all good. Ahh, we were in Bonaire. We were pooped and got a good night's sleep.
Sunday morning, by 7:45 we were all breakfasted (eggs, sausage, toast), enjoying our last cup of coffee on the patio, and ready to walk the 50 feet over to Dive Friends for check-in as soon as DF opened at 8:00 am when we saw four AB trucks roll up to DF and 14 people walk in. This group of early birds (which I doubt DF appreciated) took an hour to get checked in, rent gear, and clear out to The Cliff for their weight check dive. By the time we had checked in and returned from our weight check dive, the group had returned and were in the process of analyzing and loading 28 tanks onto their four trucks. Another hour. They seemed to be from somewhere other than the US or the Netherlands--our best guess from their speech was Romania, but who knows. They were polite enough, but 28 tanks! Oh well. This was the first time in all our trips we had to wait for tanks.
After this late start, we put our plans to head up north for the day on hold and just wanted to get in the water, somewhere requiring no thinking. We like to ease into these trips anyway. So we decided on the ever-dependable Bachelor's Beach. But in our haste to get out and dive, we arrived and found we had forgotten some item of gear and had to return to our place. After picking up the missing item, it was approaching mid-day. What to do? We had already wasted a bunch of time, so what the heck: A favorite lunch place that we hadn't had a chance to hit in several trips is Maiky Snack, which is only open on the weekends. After eating our fill of goat stew and funchi, which we dosed with plenty of pika, we didn't feel up to heavy exertion, so we did a double dip at Bachelor's Beach, the first dive heading north and back, and second dive heading south and back. Found a seahorse. We managed to exchange tanks at DF before they closed at 5 pm. Using a dive op that offered tanks 24-hours, which the DF Den Laman location does, would be nice. The rush to exchange tanks discouraged us from doing a night dive.
The weather, by the way, was windy--more windy than I recall from our previous trips, which had all been in the November-December time frame. At a steady 14-18 kts, we could hardly keep things from blowing off the table. We were told it had been raining lately. We experienced only a couple of brief drizzles all week, but several partly cloudy days. Air temp and water temp were both 81F (by my Shearwater's thermometer). From what I have heard, late July through early November are the best months for Bonaire. I guess late July was late this year.
Monday we got an early start, determined to get four dives in. We also wanted to hit a site or two that we had never done. With the group, we had people of various skill levels and motivations, and for various reasons were never enthusiastic about hitting the more challenging sites. We had Red Slave in mind as a prime site we had never dived, so we decided to try to do a couple of those sites down south. The wind was whipping as we surveyed Red Slave from the shore. We struggled with the current. I don't think we will ever do this dive again. We are content to join the ranks of other divers who feel the challenging sites down south are not worth the effort in view of the great many other sites that are easier, closer to town, and offer essentially just as good a dive on average. Sure, you never know what you will see--that's true on any dive--and we could have happened across something that would have formed our opinion of the southern sites forever. But as it was, we saw nothing we haven't seen elsewhere. We had a short-ish dive because, diving against a strong current on the way out, we were very conservative and did not want to overshoot our exit on the way back, flying with the current.
We then went to Margate Bay, which is another site we had never dived, but it looked like it would be a repeat of Red Slave--whipping wind, stiff current. "What's the point?" we said to each other. Just so we can say we've done it? This is when we decided we were going to do this trip our way, and we headed back up to do our number one favorite Bonaire dive: Salt Pier. Great dive! Two octopuses just hanging out together on a rock. (I hope to get that GoPro footage downloaded and edited in, I dunno, a few months. I hate that part.)
The "problem" with planning a day of dives way down south (or way up north) is that these dives can be tiring; after doing the first one, you may not want to do the next you had planned. We had started this trip with the goal of being more organized than on previous trips. Instead of going up and down the coast haphazardly, we had planned to target certain segments and that way avoid spending too much time relocating. We wanted to do at least four dives a day. But we just weren't up to it--at least not today. We ate sandwiches we had brought in a cooler bag, then did an easy afternoon closer to home of Bari Reef and Something Special, hoping to find a frogfish. No luck, though. We changed tanks at Dive Friends before they closed at 5 pm. We considered a night dive, but we decided four was enough. Besides, we wanted to grill those steaks.
Vis was not great all week, likely from the rain they had had.
Tuesday, we headed a little north and dived Oil Slick Leap and Weber's Joy/Witch's Hut in the morning, ate sandwiches back at Hamlet Oasis, then met up with Bas Tol for an east side shore dive, which is something that has been on our radar for years. Bas had commitments in the mornings that week and was only available for an afternoon dive. He said his usual first-timer's east side site, Cai, was not conducive to diving Tuesday, so we went to Boka Spelonk. What an unusual Bonaire dive! Seagrass carpets. The sight of waves crashing overhead. Loads of lobsters. Fish not commonly seen on the west side: Bas likes to show the Mutton Hamlets and High Hats. A small sea cave (the "spelonk"?). The entry/exit was tricky, but Bas showed us how to do it, right down to where to place each foot and time the waves. We had an absolute blast. Can't wait to dive the east side again.
Dinner at La Terrazza capped off a great day. We had only two dine-out nights planned, and this was one of them. The concept is fun: the owner, from Cinque Terre, Italy, and his Dutch wife cook whatever they feel like that night and bring you a succession of Italian-influenced small plates/courses, paired with wine if you choose.
(continued in part II)
We flew ATL-BON on Sat. July 21, and the return was Sun. July 29, giving us a solid seven days on island. It was pouring down rain when we parked the car at ATL and, not having thought to bring an umbrella, were drenched by the time we arrived at the check-in counter. If the Delta flight arrives on time, there is normally time to get to Dive Friends and do the orientation before they close at 5 pm, but this time Delta was an hour late. Telerin had our truck waiting at the airport short-term parking as usual, and we were on our way in about five minutes. We like Telerin because they accept Amex, allowing us to use the Amex rental insurance. The truck was just as worn as the ones we had rented from Telerin before. We did glance enviously all week at the shiny white AB Car Rental trucks, but Telerin's quote was about $100 less, and the $25 Amex insurance versus the CDW from the rental company tipped the balance to Telerin.
We stayed at Hamlet Oasis. On previous group trips, we had stayed in a couple of the Villas--Nos. 8 and 9, I believe--and liked the location. Our Hamlet Oasis unit was a 1-br "apartment" in the building (No. 27) right next to Dive Friends, which could not have been more convenient. We chose Hamlet Oasis because out of the various options in our price range for a place with a reasonably equipped kitchen--Hamlet Oasis, Den Laman, VRBOs, etc.--Hamlet's balance between price and amenities seemed to suit our needs. Den Laman would have been a step up, I suspect, but Den Laman quoted us about $30 more per night. Our kitchen was minimally equipped--no microwave, no blender, no steak knives, plastic cooking tools, small coffeemaker, a gas stove with no ignitor (and no matches/lighter stocked). We ended up buying a cheap, sharp kitchen knife at Zhung Kong because the crappy knife we found in the drawer would have driven us nuts. We also bought a cheap charcoal grill because there are no grilling facilities at Hamlet Oasis (the Hamlet Villas certainly had grills). On previous trips our group members had brought certain food items that would be expensive or hard to find on Bonaire, and so we brought a couple of huge Costco NY strip steaks, which stayed fairly well frozen in an insulated freezer bag in a checked bag.
As it was too late to check in at Dive Friends, we figured it was a good time to investigate the microbrewery, which opened just after our last trip three years ago. Beers tasted okay--not unlike a lot of homebrew--and that was all right with me. Kudos to the brewer. We loaded up on supplies for the week at Van den Tweel and for dinner cooked pork curry and rice. Kicking back with some cold Amstels on our patio made it all good. Ahh, we were in Bonaire. We were pooped and got a good night's sleep.
Sunday morning, by 7:45 we were all breakfasted (eggs, sausage, toast), enjoying our last cup of coffee on the patio, and ready to walk the 50 feet over to Dive Friends for check-in as soon as DF opened at 8:00 am when we saw four AB trucks roll up to DF and 14 people walk in. This group of early birds (which I doubt DF appreciated) took an hour to get checked in, rent gear, and clear out to The Cliff for their weight check dive. By the time we had checked in and returned from our weight check dive, the group had returned and were in the process of analyzing and loading 28 tanks onto their four trucks. Another hour. They seemed to be from somewhere other than the US or the Netherlands--our best guess from their speech was Romania, but who knows. They were polite enough, but 28 tanks! Oh well. This was the first time in all our trips we had to wait for tanks.
After this late start, we put our plans to head up north for the day on hold and just wanted to get in the water, somewhere requiring no thinking. We like to ease into these trips anyway. So we decided on the ever-dependable Bachelor's Beach. But in our haste to get out and dive, we arrived and found we had forgotten some item of gear and had to return to our place. After picking up the missing item, it was approaching mid-day. What to do? We had already wasted a bunch of time, so what the heck: A favorite lunch place that we hadn't had a chance to hit in several trips is Maiky Snack, which is only open on the weekends. After eating our fill of goat stew and funchi, which we dosed with plenty of pika, we didn't feel up to heavy exertion, so we did a double dip at Bachelor's Beach, the first dive heading north and back, and second dive heading south and back. Found a seahorse. We managed to exchange tanks at DF before they closed at 5 pm. Using a dive op that offered tanks 24-hours, which the DF Den Laman location does, would be nice. The rush to exchange tanks discouraged us from doing a night dive.
The weather, by the way, was windy--more windy than I recall from our previous trips, which had all been in the November-December time frame. At a steady 14-18 kts, we could hardly keep things from blowing off the table. We were told it had been raining lately. We experienced only a couple of brief drizzles all week, but several partly cloudy days. Air temp and water temp were both 81F (by my Shearwater's thermometer). From what I have heard, late July through early November are the best months for Bonaire. I guess late July was late this year.
Monday we got an early start, determined to get four dives in. We also wanted to hit a site or two that we had never done. With the group, we had people of various skill levels and motivations, and for various reasons were never enthusiastic about hitting the more challenging sites. We had Red Slave in mind as a prime site we had never dived, so we decided to try to do a couple of those sites down south. The wind was whipping as we surveyed Red Slave from the shore. We struggled with the current. I don't think we will ever do this dive again. We are content to join the ranks of other divers who feel the challenging sites down south are not worth the effort in view of the great many other sites that are easier, closer to town, and offer essentially just as good a dive on average. Sure, you never know what you will see--that's true on any dive--and we could have happened across something that would have formed our opinion of the southern sites forever. But as it was, we saw nothing we haven't seen elsewhere. We had a short-ish dive because, diving against a strong current on the way out, we were very conservative and did not want to overshoot our exit on the way back, flying with the current.
We then went to Margate Bay, which is another site we had never dived, but it looked like it would be a repeat of Red Slave--whipping wind, stiff current. "What's the point?" we said to each other. Just so we can say we've done it? This is when we decided we were going to do this trip our way, and we headed back up to do our number one favorite Bonaire dive: Salt Pier. Great dive! Two octopuses just hanging out together on a rock. (I hope to get that GoPro footage downloaded and edited in, I dunno, a few months. I hate that part.)
The "problem" with planning a day of dives way down south (or way up north) is that these dives can be tiring; after doing the first one, you may not want to do the next you had planned. We had started this trip with the goal of being more organized than on previous trips. Instead of going up and down the coast haphazardly, we had planned to target certain segments and that way avoid spending too much time relocating. We wanted to do at least four dives a day. But we just weren't up to it--at least not today. We ate sandwiches we had brought in a cooler bag, then did an easy afternoon closer to home of Bari Reef and Something Special, hoping to find a frogfish. No luck, though. We changed tanks at Dive Friends before they closed at 5 pm. We considered a night dive, but we decided four was enough. Besides, we wanted to grill those steaks.
Vis was not great all week, likely from the rain they had had.
Tuesday, we headed a little north and dived Oil Slick Leap and Weber's Joy/Witch's Hut in the morning, ate sandwiches back at Hamlet Oasis, then met up with Bas Tol for an east side shore dive, which is something that has been on our radar for years. Bas had commitments in the mornings that week and was only available for an afternoon dive. He said his usual first-timer's east side site, Cai, was not conducive to diving Tuesday, so we went to Boka Spelonk. What an unusual Bonaire dive! Seagrass carpets. The sight of waves crashing overhead. Loads of lobsters. Fish not commonly seen on the west side: Bas likes to show the Mutton Hamlets and High Hats. A small sea cave (the "spelonk"?). The entry/exit was tricky, but Bas showed us how to do it, right down to where to place each foot and time the waves. We had an absolute blast. Can't wait to dive the east side again.
Dinner at La Terrazza capped off a great day. We had only two dine-out nights planned, and this was one of them. The concept is fun: the owner, from Cinque Terre, Italy, and his Dutch wife cook whatever they feel like that night and bring you a succession of Italian-influenced small plates/courses, paired with wine if you choose.
(continued in part II)
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