Just a quick write-up of our week in Bonaire, 25 May - 1 June.
Took the Delta flight out of ATL. While it might be more expensive than the red-eyes, the timing is worth it to us. After an uneventful flight, we arrived about 30 minutes ahead of schedule and breezed through immigration and retrieved our luggage. We'd booked the standard package through Den Laman/BDA and had a rental truck through Total. Apparently the folks at the Total desk forgot what time the Delta flight arrived as there was a line and only one person working the desk. It also didn't help that the person at the front of the line was having credit card issues and apparently had never rented a car before! A second person finally showed up to work the desk and we were on our way about an hour after we arrived. Good news was that turned out to be the biggest snafu of the week!
We were a group of three and had a 2 bedroom condo at Den Laman. Two of us had stayed there previously (2008) and it was the first trip for our third. Pleased to report that the condo was just as nice as our previous stay. We were also thrilled about the improvement in the grocery store situation from our previous visit! Quick trips through both Warehouse and Van de Tweel left us quickly well-provisioned for the week. We typically ate breakfast and lunch in and went out for dinner and gelato from Gio's. Only complaint was that the condo only had pots but no pans. So we ended up improvising and just using the broiler pan.
Diving with BDA was easy and we didn't have any issues over the course of the week. Compared to our previous trip, we really appreciated the new procedures for accessing tanks when the shop was closed, allowing for 24/7 diving without much prior planning. (Last trip you had to stash tanks in advance if you wanted to do a night dive.) We opted to do the only shore diving package with the intent of adding a boat dive or two to Klein but never got around to it. We used our old copy of BSDME which we found to be an invaluable resource. Never had any issues with stuff in our truck being bothered while we were diving.
Between the three of us, we did 19, 20, and 21 dives. Water temps were around 80 and visibility was in the 60-70' range. Our fav sites were Karpata, Hilma Hooker, and Salt Pier. Saw numerous free swimming eels this trip and one very photogenic turtle. Also, before the trip, I participated in the REEF Fishinar on Bonaire and found it to be extremely helpful for recognizing exactly what I was seeing. I'd highly recommend getting the archive copy to anyone headed there. Highlight of the trip for me was spotting the manta ray at Karpata. Sadly, the rest of our group missed it.
All in all, we had an excellent time, would recommend Bonaire/Den Laman/BDA, and are now working to figure out where to go next year!
Took the Delta flight out of ATL. While it might be more expensive than the red-eyes, the timing is worth it to us. After an uneventful flight, we arrived about 30 minutes ahead of schedule and breezed through immigration and retrieved our luggage. We'd booked the standard package through Den Laman/BDA and had a rental truck through Total. Apparently the folks at the Total desk forgot what time the Delta flight arrived as there was a line and only one person working the desk. It also didn't help that the person at the front of the line was having credit card issues and apparently had never rented a car before! A second person finally showed up to work the desk and we were on our way about an hour after we arrived. Good news was that turned out to be the biggest snafu of the week!
We were a group of three and had a 2 bedroom condo at Den Laman. Two of us had stayed there previously (2008) and it was the first trip for our third. Pleased to report that the condo was just as nice as our previous stay. We were also thrilled about the improvement in the grocery store situation from our previous visit! Quick trips through both Warehouse and Van de Tweel left us quickly well-provisioned for the week. We typically ate breakfast and lunch in and went out for dinner and gelato from Gio's. Only complaint was that the condo only had pots but no pans. So we ended up improvising and just using the broiler pan.
Diving with BDA was easy and we didn't have any issues over the course of the week. Compared to our previous trip, we really appreciated the new procedures for accessing tanks when the shop was closed, allowing for 24/7 diving without much prior planning. (Last trip you had to stash tanks in advance if you wanted to do a night dive.) We opted to do the only shore diving package with the intent of adding a boat dive or two to Klein but never got around to it. We used our old copy of BSDME which we found to be an invaluable resource. Never had any issues with stuff in our truck being bothered while we were diving.
Between the three of us, we did 19, 20, and 21 dives. Water temps were around 80 and visibility was in the 60-70' range. Our fav sites were Karpata, Hilma Hooker, and Salt Pier. Saw numerous free swimming eels this trip and one very photogenic turtle. Also, before the trip, I participated in the REEF Fishinar on Bonaire and found it to be extremely helpful for recognizing exactly what I was seeing. I'd highly recommend getting the archive copy to anyone headed there. Highlight of the trip for me was spotting the manta ray at Karpata. Sadly, the rest of our group missed it.
All in all, we had an excellent time, would recommend Bonaire/Den Laman/BDA, and are now working to figure out where to go next year!
