First time in Bonaire - Advise/Recommendations Appreciated

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aconerly2788

Registered
Messages
48
Reaction score
6
Location
United States
# of dives
100 - 199
Hi,

I will be traveling to Bonaire with my brother and sister-in-law Aug 29 thru Sept 6. They have been once for a short period of time. This will be my first time. I would appreciate any insight you guys have that would perhaps enhance our experience. We will be staying in a 2 br house very close to Dive Friends Yellow Submarine. We plan on renting a pickup and doing the 6 days unlimited air package. We also plan on making a UV night dive at some point, which I heard was fantastic! Let me know of any good/bad experiences any of you have had. Also, we will be looking for other things to do for the 1 or 2 days we will not be diving, so if you have any recommendations as far as things to do besides diving, let me know. Any other recommendations would be appreciated (restaurants, night lift, favorite dive sites, sites to avoid). One question in particular that I have is on the thefts that occur while diving. I have seen a few posts that say this is sometimes an issue. Should we be somehow securing our spare tanks in the pickup and how safe would it be to leave a change of clothes,shoes ect on the beach while diving. Again, any insight will be greatly appreciated and I look forward to hearing from you guys.

PS - If you have any good stories in particular that you wish to share, I would love to hear them:D
 
Also, we will be looking for other things to do for the 1 or 2 days we will not be diving, so if you have any recommendations as far as things to do besides diving, let me know. Any other recommendations would be appreciated (restaurants, night lift, favorite dive sites, sites to avoid). One question in particular that I have is on the thefts that occur while diving. I have seen a few posts that say this is sometimes an issue. Should we be somehow securing our spare tanks in the pickup and how safe would it be to leave a change of clothes,shoes ect on the beach while diving.

1.) Up north is Washington-Slagbaai Park. Keep the receipt you get when you buy your marine park tag for diving, as this will let you avoid paying to enter the park. Scenic rock walls, mountainous area, waves crashing into vertical shoreline, arid cacti & thorny scrub vegetation, it's a nice drive though at least once.

2.) Everyone must visit the Donkey Sanctuary once in their lives.

3.) Thieves normally don't bother the spare tanks in the back of the truck bed.

4.) Leave your doors unlocked & windows down, so if thieves come by they can search the truck, establish nothing of value is present & move on without breaking your windows. Leave nothing of value in the truck. If you leave it, make your peace with the possibility it will be gone when you get back. This doesn't have to be a big deal unless you make it one. On rare occasion I hear of someone finding the battery stolen or gas siphoned; that's a bigger problem but seems less common.

5.) Take your truck key with you in a secure waterproof case. Also useful for holding a little money, etc...

6.) Truck will be stick shift unless you arrange otherwise in advance & pay extra.

7.) Get thick-soled scuba boots. The hard iron-shore is rough, even jagged, in places, and walking over it while geared up & weighted on land can hurt your feet.

8.) I use SeaSoft Sunrays; fine scuba 'boots' that work fine as shoes for going into town if I feel the need to hit a grocery store while out & about. I don't suggest leaving shoes, good clothes, etc...on shore.

Richard.
 
Spend sometime on this forum, there is a ton of great information. But I will add a few things that I have not read here yet...

1. First thing to do when you get your truck: go to a market or general store and buy THREE styrofoam coolers. One for ice, one for keeping beverages cold, and one for keeping your food cold (cheese & mustard). Also buy a length of thin rope to secure your coolers to the bed of your truck and for tying the lid on while driving. Also buy each person a nice glass, this is for being classy with your iced beverages during SIs.
2. Theft is not as much of an issue as people think, just don't leave things in you vehicle that you couldn't live without (wallets, passports, camera housings, etc...) I left my cell phone hidden in my unlockd truck every day, was not an issue. No one steals tanks, if they do you won't be responsible.
3. You CAN dive Salt Pier as much and whenever you want (as long as there is not a ship), there is no rule about going with a guide, 95% of the people that dive their do not have a guide.
4. Food: thee are these wonderful little cafes/liquor store/restaurants all over the island run by Asians. This is your best chance at delicious local cuisine (think conch chowder at midnight), it is also affordable.
5. Take all the tanks you need for the day, the shops will tell you there is a limit of 2 per diver at a time, but they don't expect this. My wife and i took out 5 each every day and they were glad we did.
6. Go North! There are awesome sites to the North, take the dirt roads and explore, stop and dive wherever you want, if a site isn't listed in the book it probably means it hasn't been dove 35 times a day for however many years.
7! Check your NITROX tanks!!!!!!We found that with customers putting tanks back themselves sometimes the empties were in the fullies sections, and that sometimes a green tank with the word NITROX on it was in fact a 21% O2 NITROX. Or even worse we tested one to 39%O2, not so cool for the Hilma Hooker.Hilma Hooker Image, Bonaire - National Geographic Photo of the Day

Have fun, there is nowhere in the world like Bonaire, it is truly the diviest place on earth.

P.S. The East Shore is no joke, take a look and realize why it's not ok to dive there without a guide on anything less than a glass day, you could die from the break on the spearlike shore. And windsurfing is fun, don't let those supercool kitesurfers convince you it's only for old fogies...

8. Buy a pair of cheap sunglasses, you can leave them in your truck while diving or put them in your pocket while under water (like me). The you don't burn out your eyeballs while kicking out and in.
 
A trick I learned on Bonaire (after flubbing around on severtal shore entries). Watch the waves and count. Usually there will be a pattern of increasing wave height with several much smaller waves following the largest. Once you figure out the pattern you wait for the largest and then enter as it's receeding. Quickly go out far enough to float (chest high) and put your fins on.

For the best sandwich ever try Between Two Buns. Other than that I can't recommend places to eat. I stay at Coco Palm Garden (apartment with full kitchen) and cook for myself.

Soon as you get there buy a couple of 1 or 2 liter bottles of water. Remove the top drink a little and put the rest in the freezer without the top (water expands). Bring it along and you will have ice water to drink after each dive. A 2 liter usually lasts me for 3-4 dives.

One final tip. Get Bonaire Shore Diving Made Easy (Bonaire Shore Diving Made Easy, BSDME, Author Susan Porter) and look it over to decide what sites you most want to dive. I would recommend Yellow Submarine and Tori's Reef as having the easiest entry/exit and Angel City for the double reef. Invisibles was the site I most enjoyed to the south (BTW dive south early before the wind picks up - makes entries much easier). Mid island I loved Cliff (use the stone wall for entry and the pipe to navigate - the mini-wall is to the left). To the north Tolo was my favorite.
 
Thanks, these are great tips! Kharon, my brother has a similar book called Dive Guide Bonaire. It is 203 Pages and he says it includes directions to each site, entry recommendations, and maps of each dive site as well as a write up on each. Can't wait to get my hands on the book (he lives in Florida and is supposed to be bringing it next time he is in town).

Keep the recommendations coming, very helpful! Thanks again!
 
There are almost an infinite number of excellent threads on Bonaire and dive sites. And there are almost as many useful tips and tricks. If you have specific questions that would help the us focus our response to your needs.
 
I echo the above, and wanted to let you know we used Dive Guide Bonaire instead of BSDME and loved it. It was very helpful for parking, water entry/exit, and what kind of topography to expect (which is pretty similar for many of the dive sites but still nice to know). Try to do Salt Pier on a day with a very calm surface. You do not need a guide, you just cannot dive when a boat is in. We went in the afternoon when there were waves and the visibility was quite poor, but it was still a neat and very eerie dive with how dark it was. Our favorite dive was 1000 Steps both because of the beauty top-side, a friendly turtle that swam around me for a while, and the biggest parrot fish I've ever seen. I know you can't guarantee the same marine life to be there, but it was an excellent dive overall. I personally am not a huge fan of wrecks but my husband is, and neither of us liked the Hilmer Hooker much. We did see the biggest eel and biggest barracuda of our lives on this dive, though, making it exceptionally memorable outside of the wreck portion. We did Buddy's house reef over to La Machaca for a dusk dive to see the reef change over and saw at least two dozen eels out of the reef, moving around. I love eels so I really dug it. Buddy's is exceptionally easy getting in and out which took some of the stress of a dusk/night dive out of the equation (the night dives aren't something I like very much because I'm a ninny). We brought old flip flops with us and cheap sunglasses, and only had things in the truck under the seat that we didn't mind if we lost. I wish we had done more northern sites and more of the farther south dive sites than we did. We also did a couple boat dives out at Klein Bonaire and I think the biggest up-side is having a good dive instructor to point out things you might not otherwise see. One of ours pointed out seahorses, a lettuce slug, a frog fish, and some flamingo tongue snails all on one dive. One of the days the instructors weren't interested in doing anything on the dive but leading the pack in the right direction, so it's hit or miss. I wore a full 3mm because I am clumsy and was pretty sure I'd wipe out and skin my knee (I did wipe out, but no knee-skins thanks to the suit!). My husband wore a 1mm shortie and was a little cold by the third dive of the day.

I had the best meal of the week at It Rains Fishes (mahi with a saffron sauce), but it is a little pricey. The lionfish sandwich at Cactus Blue is worth getting there before he opens up and waiting in line. Neither of us liked Joe's Grillhouse. We did a couple lunches at Karel's over the water and the food was good, but small portions, expensive, and lunch takes ~2 hours. I'd recommend making most of your lunches to bring with in the truck because we didnt' really find any quick lunch places aside from Cactus Blue (if you aren't waiting for the lionfish).

The donkey sanctuary is a lot of fun but make sure you either bring or buy some carrots/snacks there. Feeding them was 90% of the fun. We went up to Rincon, which was a beautiful drive, and visited the distillery (don't go when a cruise ship is in town, it's too crowded) but it is a long trip and will eat up half a day. The Asian markets are awesome! We also did a drive around the south/east ends of the island which is worth doing to see the salt flats, windmills, eastern shore, and flamingos after one of our more southern dives.
 
Dive the park. Get there early. Bring 3-4 tanks per person, water, and lunch. Make a day of it.
 
Yep. Next time I'm on Bonaire I'm going to grab up a copy of Dive Guide Bonaire. Sounds like a great resource. Unfortunately I can't find anyplace to get it online. Seems Dive Friends Bonaire is the only source and they don't ship because of the mail problems.
 
Look into diving the east side bonaireeastcoastdiving.com. It's a completely different experience than shore diving the lee side.

For non-diving days...we enjoyed the mangrove kayak tour in Lac Bay and the cave snorkeling w/ Bonphoto.

Hope you enjoy your trip!
 

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