vann evans
Contributor
We just HAD to return from Bonaire-I guess that its just a
dream to think about staying there longer!!
Actually, we were there for 3 wonderful weeks--long enough to really
relax, get the feel of Bonaire and actually know what island time is
all about.
We left Raleigh/Durham on Friday, October 30 about 5:30. We took the
overnight Continental flight from Houston. During our 4-hour layover, we
met Robert, a fellow diver at the gate as he was taking video of his troll
doll (Diver Dan) on the Continental desk in front of the Bonaire sign. One
thing led to another and we visited with him until our flight departed. His
amazing videos of dive trips to Fiji and other places kept us glued to his
laptop. He had lots of questions about Bonaire and Sand Dollar where he was
staying, so we were able to help him with info. Finally, our flight left
Houston at 11:30pm. and
arrived in Bonaire about 5am Saturday morning-tough night, but it gets
you there. Everything was on time and all luggage arrived fine. I left
Laura at the airport with the luggage and caught a ride to AB Car
Rental. As always, they were open early, had my reservation and quickly
checked out our famous 4 door white pick-up with tank racks. Its nice
to have such a distinctive car in Bonaire!! But, thats another story
for later.
We loaded our mass of luggage and Roberts into the truck. We always bring
down the maximum-4 large 30 bags, 2
carry-ons and a daypack each. We are bring new stuff down for
our studio condo at Sand Dollar. This year we brought a 19 flat screen tv
as
our newest furnishing. We also brought about 4 large prints and
16x20 frames to assemble on-site so we could hang Lauras fish photos on
the walls. We usually bring a
suitcase full of non-perishable foods as well. Lauras assorted cameras
and camera gear filled a whole carry-on suitcase. We also brought coffee,
dried
fruits and other gifts for local friends . Not many clothes, but a lot
of other, important stuff!
Anyway, we settled into the Sand Dollar about 7am and started unpacking.
We took a little nap and then went over to Bonaire Dive and Adventure
for the 9:30 orientation. Since we had just been there in February, we
were able to do the short re-orientation which only lasted about 30
minutes. Surprisingly, there was a new addition to orientation what to do
if you see a lionfish. Bonaire had just seen its first lionfish the week
of October 24. Stinapa had already implemented a program to identify,
remove and kill them as they are discovered on the reef. It was good to
hear that the marine park and dive shops are taking the Lionfish problem
seriously and have developed such a well
publicized program to defeat them. It is truly impressive that the entire
island is committed to preventing the lionfish from destroying the coral
reef and underwater habitat.
Next we headed off to stock the pantry. We shopped at Cultimara and the
Warehouse-both of which had a great selection of foods. Since Laura is a
vegetarian, we were especially happy to see all of the fresh fruits and
vegetables. Throughout our entire 3 week stay we thought the food
supplies were much better than in the past several years.
As a side note, we have found good supplies at some other places smaller
grocers. La Porteguesa (fresh produce even okra), the Chinese grocery
store across from the water plant,
the Chinese store a couple blocks north of Kooyman on Kaya Corona and More
for Less (east of the church) which offers some organics and a good supply
of fresh meats.
After a light lunch, its time to unpack all of the dive gear and get
things put together. We did our check out dive on Bari Reef and as
always were stunned by the number and diversity of fish we saw. Bonaire
Dive and Adventure is always a great dive facility. It has tanks (Air and
Nitrox), rinse tanks and a shower right on the dock, a gear storage room,
showers, restrooms and
office/retail immediately next to Sand Dollar and a drive-up facility for
shore diving tanks (air and Nitrox), as well as rinse tanks after returning.
Over the next 3 weeks we dove 45 times at many of the marked shore
dives.Some days we did only 2 dives, some days we did 3 dives and one
day I actually did 4 dives. Our favorites were Angel City, Bari Reef,
Witches Hut, Karpata, The Cliff and Something Special. We also really liked
Red Slave twice (no
current or big waves). And, we dove Invisibles, the Rock, 1000 Steps, Oil
Slick, Chachacha (Divi Flamingo)
Eighteen Palms, Buddy Dive reef, Ol Blue, Andrea 1
and 2, Front Porch, Bachelors Beach, Red Beryl North and one drift boat
dive
from Hands Off to the Forest at Klein.
Highlights included a group of 10 squids at Angel City directly under
the mooring. We snorkeled out and dropped down at the mooring and
immediately were surrounded by the squids. They were totally unconcerned
about us and Laura took 20 pictures over about a 10 minute timeframe
with them literally surrounding us and swimming right up to the camera. We
also were able to almost daily
watch a black longsnout seahorse at Bari Reef it grew noticeably larger
during our 3 week visit. When we first found him
he was very small(1 ½) and by the time we left he had grown to a
whopping 2 ½. Laura found another seahorse (Black Longsnout) at Something
Special. We
also saw Ocean trigger fish, several eagle rays, octopus, tiger grouper,
yellow grouper, Porkfish,
many Hawksbill turtles, yellow headed jaw fish, green razorfish, several
spotted scorpion fish, the largest
barracuda ever (5) and huge tarpons (day and night), Snook hanging out at
BDAs pier, a number of eels (spotted moray, chain moray goldentail,
sharptail), Saucereye Snapper, Banded Puffer, Balloonfish and the usual
suspects.
We always tried to dive Bari Reef late in the afternoon and were
constantly amazed at the fish count, the diversity and beautiful corals.
The usual suspects (French angels, queen angels, jacks, wrasses, filefish,
flounders, parrotfish, damsels, etc). were always in motion on
the reefs. One of the highlights was an all day course with Jerry Ligon
at Bonaire Dive and Adventure. It actually is a PADI specialty course
called Fish Identification and Behavior. We did several hours of
classroom work and 2 dives-it changed the way we look and think about
the fish we see. We would highly recommend this course for everyone that
likes fish.
One of the other highlights of the trip was simply being at Sand Dollar.
We purchased a studio there in September 2007. After our first visit to
Bonaire in 1999 to snorkel, we were hooked. When we returned to snorkel in
Feb. 2007, we decided to look for a place to buy. We were lucky to have
found our studio at Sand Dollar. With its proximity to the dive shop, pier
and water, killer view and the improvements we have made, its home away
from home.
Sand Dollar has a lot of new owners and they are all intent on upgrading
the individual condos and the resort in general. We feel like it is so
friendly, relaxing, informal and totally convenient. Every night people
get together at the patio for cocktails and watch the sunset. We met a
lot of nice owners and guests, made some new dive friends and got
re-acquainted with others we had met in the past. We ended up spending a
lot of time with Franklin and Cassandra Neal who live at Sand Dollar
most of the time. They are both heavily involved with REEF and the local
CIEE research station in Bonaire. We volunteered to help Cassandra clean
and monitor sensors at 4 different dive sites-what a great program. We
also got re-acquainted with Donna and Dennis OShaughnessy of New York.
They are also Sand Dollar owners and we spent a lot of time together
diving and playing Rummy Cube too late into the night(or early
morning!!). We cant wait to get back.
We also ended up meeting Bill and Carol Mosel to watch the the World Series on our new TV. Bill had posted here on Scubaboard asking about where to watch the series in Bonaire. I responded and invited him up to our place. As it turned out, we met them when they were also in Jerry Ligon's course. We had several great dives, good meals and fun with them .
Heres the story mentioned earlier about the obvious white 4 door
pick-up truck. We had ridden with Dennis and Donna earlier one day to shore
dive in the South. After lunch, we left them and headed for Cultimara
to pick up some things for dinner that night. When we got back to Sand
Dollar, Donna told us that Dennis had tried to steal our truck---it
seems that they also had gone to Cultimara at the same time (dont know
how we missed seeing them) and they got into our truck by mistake-they all
look alike remember. Anyway, the key didnt fit, the truck wouldnt
start and after some frustration, they finally recognized it was our
truck and not theirs. --they got a lot of ribbing about that episode.
Make sure you know which white pick-up truck really is yours!!
One of the best things for Laura is Fish Eye Photos, located next to
Sand Dollar and Bonaire Dive and Adventure. She took the Underwater
Photographer 2-day PADI course with
Tim Peters in February. That really helped her photography take a step up.
On this trip, she did 2 half day digital photography workshops with
Michael La Fortune, Fish-eyes Videographer. He was a great instructor and
mentor for her. She
has always been a great land photographer, and now her underwater photos
have really jumped up several steps in quality. Being able to take
UW photos is a true highlight for her. She now has good equipment, good
knowledge and lots of practice. I look forward to seeing may more great
photos from Bonaire. She says to recommend Fish Eye Photos without
reservation-either Michael or Tim.
FishEye is also a wonderful equipment resource. Lauras had camera, strobe
and UW housing problems on each trip. Both Tim and Michael are great
troubleshooters and problem solvers. And, they have gear to sell when yours
fails you.
We visited with Bruce Bowkers shop at Carib Inn on several occasions. I
concur with many
other posts saying that he is truly a very special Bonairian. He and Kitty
offered
great advice and service, his prices are reasonable and I was happy with
his products. I left some US currency in his cash register!!
We cant say much about restaurants in Bonaire. We cooked in our condo
every meal except one. We celebrated our 35^th anniversary while there
and ate at Sunset next to Sand Dollar. (Laura wanted to see Fish-Eyes
slideshow/video presentation held at Sunset one night a week again! It is
worth it.) It was very good with great
atmosphere and water views.
Overall it was our best trip to Bonaire. We had a lot of dives, met some
new people, went to new different dive sites, did our first night dive,
had new experiences and generally lived on island time for 3 weeks.
Bonaire has wonderful weather, beautiful people and offers an amazing
sense of diving freedom. We feel extremely lucky to be able to enjoy
its diversity and uniqueness. We hope that we will be back may times..
The worst thing about Bonaire--you have to leave. But after you get back
into the real world then it seems like a dream-- a very good dream.
Vann and Laura Evans
PS When Laura gets all of her pictures finished, she will post a website
that you can access for viewing
dream to think about staying there longer!!
Actually, we were there for 3 wonderful weeks--long enough to really
relax, get the feel of Bonaire and actually know what island time is
all about.
We left Raleigh/Durham on Friday, October 30 about 5:30. We took the
overnight Continental flight from Houston. During our 4-hour layover, we
met Robert, a fellow diver at the gate as he was taking video of his troll
doll (Diver Dan) on the Continental desk in front of the Bonaire sign. One
thing led to another and we visited with him until our flight departed. His
amazing videos of dive trips to Fiji and other places kept us glued to his
laptop. He had lots of questions about Bonaire and Sand Dollar where he was
staying, so we were able to help him with info. Finally, our flight left
Houston at 11:30pm. and
arrived in Bonaire about 5am Saturday morning-tough night, but it gets
you there. Everything was on time and all luggage arrived fine. I left
Laura at the airport with the luggage and caught a ride to AB Car
Rental. As always, they were open early, had my reservation and quickly
checked out our famous 4 door white pick-up with tank racks. Its nice
to have such a distinctive car in Bonaire!! But, thats another story
for later.
We loaded our mass of luggage and Roberts into the truck. We always bring
down the maximum-4 large 30 bags, 2
carry-ons and a daypack each. We are bring new stuff down for
our studio condo at Sand Dollar. This year we brought a 19 flat screen tv
as
our newest furnishing. We also brought about 4 large prints and
16x20 frames to assemble on-site so we could hang Lauras fish photos on
the walls. We usually bring a
suitcase full of non-perishable foods as well. Lauras assorted cameras
and camera gear filled a whole carry-on suitcase. We also brought coffee,
dried
fruits and other gifts for local friends . Not many clothes, but a lot
of other, important stuff!
Anyway, we settled into the Sand Dollar about 7am and started unpacking.
We took a little nap and then went over to Bonaire Dive and Adventure
for the 9:30 orientation. Since we had just been there in February, we
were able to do the short re-orientation which only lasted about 30
minutes. Surprisingly, there was a new addition to orientation what to do
if you see a lionfish. Bonaire had just seen its first lionfish the week
of October 24. Stinapa had already implemented a program to identify,
remove and kill them as they are discovered on the reef. It was good to
hear that the marine park and dive shops are taking the Lionfish problem
seriously and have developed such a well
publicized program to defeat them. It is truly impressive that the entire
island is committed to preventing the lionfish from destroying the coral
reef and underwater habitat.
Next we headed off to stock the pantry. We shopped at Cultimara and the
Warehouse-both of which had a great selection of foods. Since Laura is a
vegetarian, we were especially happy to see all of the fresh fruits and
vegetables. Throughout our entire 3 week stay we thought the food
supplies were much better than in the past several years.
As a side note, we have found good supplies at some other places smaller
grocers. La Porteguesa (fresh produce even okra), the Chinese grocery
store across from the water plant,
the Chinese store a couple blocks north of Kooyman on Kaya Corona and More
for Less (east of the church) which offers some organics and a good supply
of fresh meats.
After a light lunch, its time to unpack all of the dive gear and get
things put together. We did our check out dive on Bari Reef and as
always were stunned by the number and diversity of fish we saw. Bonaire
Dive and Adventure is always a great dive facility. It has tanks (Air and
Nitrox), rinse tanks and a shower right on the dock, a gear storage room,
showers, restrooms and
office/retail immediately next to Sand Dollar and a drive-up facility for
shore diving tanks (air and Nitrox), as well as rinse tanks after returning.
Over the next 3 weeks we dove 45 times at many of the marked shore
dives.Some days we did only 2 dives, some days we did 3 dives and one
day I actually did 4 dives. Our favorites were Angel City, Bari Reef,
Witches Hut, Karpata, The Cliff and Something Special. We also really liked
Red Slave twice (no
current or big waves). And, we dove Invisibles, the Rock, 1000 Steps, Oil
Slick, Chachacha (Divi Flamingo)
Eighteen Palms, Buddy Dive reef, Ol Blue, Andrea 1
and 2, Front Porch, Bachelors Beach, Red Beryl North and one drift boat
dive
from Hands Off to the Forest at Klein.
Highlights included a group of 10 squids at Angel City directly under
the mooring. We snorkeled out and dropped down at the mooring and
immediately were surrounded by the squids. They were totally unconcerned
about us and Laura took 20 pictures over about a 10 minute timeframe
with them literally surrounding us and swimming right up to the camera. We
also were able to almost daily
watch a black longsnout seahorse at Bari Reef it grew noticeably larger
during our 3 week visit. When we first found him
he was very small(1 ½) and by the time we left he had grown to a
whopping 2 ½. Laura found another seahorse (Black Longsnout) at Something
Special. We
also saw Ocean trigger fish, several eagle rays, octopus, tiger grouper,
yellow grouper, Porkfish,
many Hawksbill turtles, yellow headed jaw fish, green razorfish, several
spotted scorpion fish, the largest
barracuda ever (5) and huge tarpons (day and night), Snook hanging out at
BDAs pier, a number of eels (spotted moray, chain moray goldentail,
sharptail), Saucereye Snapper, Banded Puffer, Balloonfish and the usual
suspects.
We always tried to dive Bari Reef late in the afternoon and were
constantly amazed at the fish count, the diversity and beautiful corals.
The usual suspects (French angels, queen angels, jacks, wrasses, filefish,
flounders, parrotfish, damsels, etc). were always in motion on
the reefs. One of the highlights was an all day course with Jerry Ligon
at Bonaire Dive and Adventure. It actually is a PADI specialty course
called Fish Identification and Behavior. We did several hours of
classroom work and 2 dives-it changed the way we look and think about
the fish we see. We would highly recommend this course for everyone that
likes fish.
One of the other highlights of the trip was simply being at Sand Dollar.
We purchased a studio there in September 2007. After our first visit to
Bonaire in 1999 to snorkel, we were hooked. When we returned to snorkel in
Feb. 2007, we decided to look for a place to buy. We were lucky to have
found our studio at Sand Dollar. With its proximity to the dive shop, pier
and water, killer view and the improvements we have made, its home away
from home.
Sand Dollar has a lot of new owners and they are all intent on upgrading
the individual condos and the resort in general. We feel like it is so
friendly, relaxing, informal and totally convenient. Every night people
get together at the patio for cocktails and watch the sunset. We met a
lot of nice owners and guests, made some new dive friends and got
re-acquainted with others we had met in the past. We ended up spending a
lot of time with Franklin and Cassandra Neal who live at Sand Dollar
most of the time. They are both heavily involved with REEF and the local
CIEE research station in Bonaire. We volunteered to help Cassandra clean
and monitor sensors at 4 different dive sites-what a great program. We
also got re-acquainted with Donna and Dennis OShaughnessy of New York.
They are also Sand Dollar owners and we spent a lot of time together
diving and playing Rummy Cube too late into the night(or early
morning!!). We cant wait to get back.
We also ended up meeting Bill and Carol Mosel to watch the the World Series on our new TV. Bill had posted here on Scubaboard asking about where to watch the series in Bonaire. I responded and invited him up to our place. As it turned out, we met them when they were also in Jerry Ligon's course. We had several great dives, good meals and fun with them .
Heres the story mentioned earlier about the obvious white 4 door
pick-up truck. We had ridden with Dennis and Donna earlier one day to shore
dive in the South. After lunch, we left them and headed for Cultimara
to pick up some things for dinner that night. When we got back to Sand
Dollar, Donna told us that Dennis had tried to steal our truck---it
seems that they also had gone to Cultimara at the same time (dont know
how we missed seeing them) and they got into our truck by mistake-they all
look alike remember. Anyway, the key didnt fit, the truck wouldnt
start and after some frustration, they finally recognized it was our
truck and not theirs. --they got a lot of ribbing about that episode.
Make sure you know which white pick-up truck really is yours!!
One of the best things for Laura is Fish Eye Photos, located next to
Sand Dollar and Bonaire Dive and Adventure. She took the Underwater
Photographer 2-day PADI course with
Tim Peters in February. That really helped her photography take a step up.
On this trip, she did 2 half day digital photography workshops with
Michael La Fortune, Fish-eyes Videographer. He was a great instructor and
mentor for her. She
has always been a great land photographer, and now her underwater photos
have really jumped up several steps in quality. Being able to take
UW photos is a true highlight for her. She now has good equipment, good
knowledge and lots of practice. I look forward to seeing may more great
photos from Bonaire. She says to recommend Fish Eye Photos without
reservation-either Michael or Tim.
FishEye is also a wonderful equipment resource. Lauras had camera, strobe
and UW housing problems on each trip. Both Tim and Michael are great
troubleshooters and problem solvers. And, they have gear to sell when yours
fails you.
We visited with Bruce Bowkers shop at Carib Inn on several occasions. I
concur with many
other posts saying that he is truly a very special Bonairian. He and Kitty
offered
great advice and service, his prices are reasonable and I was happy with
his products. I left some US currency in his cash register!!
We cant say much about restaurants in Bonaire. We cooked in our condo
every meal except one. We celebrated our 35^th anniversary while there
and ate at Sunset next to Sand Dollar. (Laura wanted to see Fish-Eyes
slideshow/video presentation held at Sunset one night a week again! It is
worth it.) It was very good with great
atmosphere and water views.
Overall it was our best trip to Bonaire. We had a lot of dives, met some
new people, went to new different dive sites, did our first night dive,
had new experiences and generally lived on island time for 3 weeks.
Bonaire has wonderful weather, beautiful people and offers an amazing
sense of diving freedom. We feel extremely lucky to be able to enjoy
its diversity and uniqueness. We hope that we will be back may times..
The worst thing about Bonaire--you have to leave. But after you get back
into the real world then it seems like a dream-- a very good dream.
Vann and Laura Evans
PS When Laura gets all of her pictures finished, she will post a website
that you can access for viewing
