Questions on Upcoming Bonaire Trip

[bfisher]

If you decide to do that, go with Buddy. Their drive-thru tank swap facility is much easier than getting new tanks from Capt. Don's and I think their house reef is a bit easier to access as well.

As for SUV vs. truck, it's all about transparency. The trick in Bonaire is to not leave anything in the truck and if it's an open truck bed with windows rolled down in the cab, it's obvious to any thief that you're following the "rules" and they'll move onto the next truck, or SUV. The only benefit to an SUV would be to secure stuff inside the locked cargo area and that's a big no-no in Bonaire since you'd likely not only get your stuff stolen, but be responsible for the broken window as well.

Good point here to leave the windows down because most times the full coverage insurance doesn't cover broken glass. Also, I've done 9 trips to Bonaire in the last 6 years. My vehicle has only been bothered once and that was a night dive at Bari ree--nothing stolen as there was nothing to steal. A couple times I had an SUV and prefer a truck. The SUV is a PITA for more than two divers. As for the prerental checkup I find it helpful to take pictures of any damage to the truck/SUV. Most of the SUV's have a lock on the spare tire. For a truck I'd recommend a cable lock. Spare tires seem to have a way of disappearing and it's something you don't check all the time---a $250 charge.

I'd also recommend Buddy's for tanks. It's just too convenient and worth a few bucks more. Their house reef is usually a good dive, very easy. Straight ahead out of the tank-pickup area there is a "street" you can drive right down to the dive shop and unload your gear. Sometimes there is parking spaces open. If not you drive back to the parking area (250') and park there. Carry your gear down the steps onto the dock, suit up, and jump in or go down the steps.

From what I've read/heard Capt. Don charges outsiders to use their access point to their house reef. It's not so hard to go in at Buddy's and swim north, but no need to. The reefs are all similar. Just south of Buddy's at the traffic circle turn right to access Bari Reef. Real easy entry and a good reef, especially at night. Do the deeper parts of the reef and finish up in the concrete rubble a few yards northin 15' to 4' of water (lots of critters at night) for one of those 1 1/2 to 2 hour dives.

 

[jcroy66]

SUV vs Pickup:
Procedure with a pickup:
Most pickups have a tank rack in the bed (if yours doesn't, ask for one!). So you can carry 4 tanks in the bed, without them rolling around or anything. Throw all your gear in the bed too. Cameras and dive lights stay in the cab with you while driving. Every pickup we saw had an extended cab (i.e. back seat). So we put our cameras on the back seat, covered by a t-shirt or towel to keep the sun off them. Get to your dive site, park so that the bed of the truck faces the water. Lower the tailgate, grab a full tank from the tank rack, gear up on the tailgate (be a little cautious in case the tailgate drops as the fasteners can be rusty). Walk into the water. Super easy.

Oh, and the pickups had a hook on the C-pillar that could be raised up so you could hang a solar shower (I *love* using the solar shower for a nice warm fresh water rinse after a dive). You can find them for about $7 in the camping section at your local Wal-mart.

With an SUV:
In general, the SUVs just have less space for gear. And the biggest part for me was that there was no easy flat spot for gearing up (i.e. no tailgate). You could gear up in the hatch or backseat, but both options were considerably less convenient and "sturdy" than using the pickup's tailgate. In general, the SUV results in more carrying of gear and such. Just not as convenient. And no hook for the solar shower. Holding a couple gallons (20-40 pounds) of water above your dive buddy's head after each dive means more muscle soreness, which can result in less dives during the week. And we all know THAT isn't acceptable!

And as others have mentioned, whatever you get, make sure you leave all the windows open, doors unlocked, glove box unlocked, and nothing in the vehicle that you would be too upset about losing. We typically left towels (from the resort), T-shirts, sunscreen, hats, sandals, a couple bottles of water, the shore diving book, free maps of the island, and the solar shower. Yeah, they could get stolen. So don't bring the nice embroidered T-shirt, bring a ratty one that has already seen a decade of wear. Etc.

This trip was also our first time having an Otter box to carry stuff underwater with us. That was handy. Previous trips, we'd put the car and room key and credit card in a pocket, and stuff some cash in the camera housing. Which means you have to open the housing to get at the cash, and potentially introduce humidity (on the rare occasion that Bonaire has humidity!) into your housing. And your keys and credit card got wet (not that that matters much). So this time, we stuck our C-cards (which double as photo ID), our marine park permits, cash, credit card, and keys in the Otter box which clipped to a BC. It stayed sealed and dry for our 40+ dives. I wouldn't necessarily stick my iPhone in it though, that just seems like asking for trouble.

Hope this helps. Sorry for the delay in answering! We just got back ourselves from Bonaire 2 weeks ago (got a pickup this time!), and I haven't had a chance to get online until now.

 

[DazedAndConfuzed]

Nobody bothers with the tanks?

Also, if you leave everything open, can you still stash some things in some secret place like in the fusebox or under the seats? Do they still come to the car and search everywhere for things even though the window is open and everything is unlocked?

 

[boat sju]

Lwang,

There are no secret spots. But what do you really need with you so desperately anyway? Honestly, the only thing I worried about losing was my flip-flops. (And that was just out of principle because most of the time I just wore my boots around anyway.) I'd throw one under the extra tanks and one under the truck.

Personally, I never saw any indication that anyone went through our truck at all. Maybe they were very neat if they did.

Also, we never had anyone tell us they wouldn't take wet paper money.

 

[DazedAndConfuzed]

All the talk of breaking into cars, don't know if it is happening all over the place or not. It might be like people taking about being warned of all the pickpocketing and robberies if they are going to NYC.

Since I don't have a fridge in my hotel, I was thinking of putting water in a SS thermos, but we just might have to put up with drinking hot water.

I also might have to drive the truck in my booties and wetsuit so I leave nothing behind.

 

[amw5g]

Is the procedure generally the same for in-town travel: windows open, everything out? Silly question, I'm sure. But trying to think about whether we need to drop stuff on the condo before heading out for a meal. Would be nice to go straight from site to restaurant, but I could see how all the equipment could get tempting, even in town.

 

[jcroy66]

No one bothers with the tanks.

I don't know if a thermos would get bothered. Probably not, but who knows.

We had 4 one-liter bottles of water. We'd keep them in the freezer. Take 2 with us to morning dives. After the first dive, they were half-melted. Fully-melted after the 2nd. So we had cold water after both dives. Come back, get more tanks, refill the water bottles and the solar shower, change batteries in the cameras, and eat lunch. Throw the refilled bottles of water in the freezer, grab the 2 that are already frozen, go out for afternoon dives. Repeat.

Last year at Plaza, we didn't even have a working fridge, much less a working freezer. And Plaza only had running water a few hours a day (their desalination equipment broke the 2nd day we were there). I ended up just drinking a ton more water at lunch and dinner every day. But it was much nicer this year to be back at a place with a full size (and working) fridge and freezer (and running water).

 

[jcroy66]

Actually, town was the place I generally was least likely to leave stuff in the vehicle. Some restaurants have parking right next to the restaurant, so your vehicle was still in sight. Those we would go to straight from a dive (drying off and putting on a T-shirt first!) For instance, El Fogon Latino (great food and very cheap) and Plazita Limena. Most other restaurants in town do not have parking of their own, so you would be parking out of sight of the restaurant. Those we only did for dinner (i.e. after dropping off our gear). A few places out of town have parking not necesarily "in sight", but close enough that I didn't worry about it (we just took the cameras and dive computers with us). For instance, Rose Inn (in Rincon) and Sunset Grill (Hato, next to Sand Dollar).

Honestly, other than the "leave your windows down and doors unlocked", I use the same rules in Bonaire that I do in Cleveland - don't leave valuables in your car unattended. Pretty simple.

 

[koksie]

Hi all,

I live on Curacao and travel to Bonaire weekly for my job, I have been diving there for some years now. Here are my 2 cents:

1. Go with Buddy. I have been diving with Yellow Submarine (boat dives at Klein Bonaire) and was content with their service. This was three years ago. However, last January two of my friends did some dives with them and were far less impressed. Stuck-up young dive masters, a not too warm welcome and a too business-like atmosphere for their taste were among their criticisms. I did serveral dives with Buddy's shop at Bonaire Ocean Front Appartments (they are at the boulevard, with the little swimming pool, next to It Rains Fishes) and Rob Verschoor there is a very nice guy. Rented equipment from him 2 years in a row. Hearthily recommended.
I have no personal experience with Wannadive, but one of my colleagues was a regular customer. Atmosphere was nice she said, but she had several equipment failures underwater which were treated indifferently. She was a steady client for over a year, but they would not reserve gear for her, so she was quite disappointed in the end.

2. AB Carrental is the biggest on Bonaire. They mostly rent Landwind SUV's (based on the design plans of the old Opel Frontera and Isuzu Trooper). For diving a Totyota Hi-lux is easier and they also rent those. At all divesites always leave your doors and windows open and take no valuables with you at all, unless you can take them with you underwater. If your car is broken into and the glass is smashed, you pay for a new window. All car rental agencies on the island advise to keep the windows all the way down, thieves are not bothering to try to open the door. When the windows are up, they think the doors are locked and will break the glass. Even things that to you and me might look useless, are stolen. From one of my colleagues his logbook and drivers license were stolen, my old swimshort and verrrry old beachtowel (think 10+ years!) were stolen from the clothes line at our appartment. I never heard of tanks being stolen tough.
My colleague got the logbook and drivers license back tough. The reason the thieves took it, was that it was in a closed bag, so they took it, somewhere else examined the contents, decided it was worthless for them and threw it away. So, if you have bags with you, keep them open in the way that every one can see there is nothing of value in them.


3. Shoredives. For Klein Bonaire and the west coast you have no option, that's boat dives only, but for the rest shore diving is definitely the way to go.Same as here on Curacao, although distances are way smaller on Bonaire.

4. Crime, apart from the theft from cars and clothes lines, is almost non-existing. Kralendijk is a very friendly town, geared towards tourists who are basically the only means of income on the island. The town still has that slow Caribbean leisurely village pace, while good restaurants and better stores are continuing to appear. My fav restaurants are It Rains Fishes, La Guernica (Tapas), Blue Mekong (Thai food in a one menu per evening format, but very tasty and they take into account if you don't eat pork, fish or whatever ingredient you don't like) and City Cafe for dinner, Deli Delicious and Boudoir for lunch.
Curacao has much more crime and also more of the mugging and robbery type. However, with 10x the number of inhabitants of Bonaire and a more diversified economy, such is to be expected. Curacao is still very safe compared to, say, Kingston Jamaica. Traffic here is still far more dangerous than crime. Of course, since it is a small community, crime stories tend to spread quickly, but in reality the figures are not bad at all.
I find the people on Bonaire to be far more friendly than the ones on Curacao. On Curacao the atmosphere against Dutch people is somewhat worse than on Bonaire, but as American tourists you will have no problems at all on either island. Service may not be up to the standards you are used to and some waitresses may have a bad mood now and then, but that is considered normal here an not at all specifically aimed at tourists, be they Dutch or American. So compared to Bonaire, Curacao is not as friendly to Dutch people, but 99% of tourists will never notice this. Furtheremore people on Curacao are used to Americans due to the cruise ships that dock here, the US Airforce FOL here and the various military personnel that regularly visit the island for exercises with the Dutch Marines and once a year with French and British troops as well.

All I can say is: enjoy Bonaire and her diving, I'm sure you are going to love it! Let us know how you enjoyed it and if you have more questions, don't hesitate to ask!

 

[diverdavef]

Thanks for all the replies and discussion. The restaurant suggestions will be much appreciated as well.

What about with regards to purchasing the CDW insurance or the "Full Coverage" insurance or no insurance at all.
I guess the CDW would not cover the broken glass from a break-in if someone forgot to leave the windows
down. I read someone's experience here with a stolen spare tire. One company that I contacted, said they only
rent their vehicles with their purchased insurance. The others say that it is optional. What are your experiences??

Thank you...