Bonaire - Plaza Resort w/DNY June 25 - July 02, 2011

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The hospital treated the broken ankle by applying a caste after determining it was broken, but then released Mary without pain meds, or even a set of crutches, both of which she had to go to a retail operation to acquire the following day. It was not exactly the standard American E room type of service we are used to.

Luckily there were some usable meds available threw her friends :wink: , that got her threw the night, and several friends to help her hobble till crutches became available.
 
Some friends and I are headed to bonaire in a week and a half. This will be my first dive trip out of the US and I am very excited. Do you have any tips for packing for the travel? I was planning on taking a BP/wing. Am contemplating taking a canister light for night diving, but worried about its weight and what security will do when they see it on the xray. What is the best plan for finances there? US cash, credit cards, travelers checks?

I really enjoyed your trip report!!

Cheers, Walt

Walt.. There's an old saying.."take half the stuff you think you're going to need & twice the amount of money".
Seriously, it pays to travel light in the clothing & scuba dept. With respect to dive light, I've always found you see much more with smaller lights as oppose to the big light canons some divers use. U/W; smaller is better.
Finances..leave the travelers checks at home. Use cash & credit cards. Most ATMs will offer cash if you need more.
We leave Fri and as usual can't wait to return. :D:D
 
The hospital treated the broken ankle by applying a caste after determining it was broken, but then released Mary without pain meds, or even a set of crutches, both of which she had to go to a retail operation to acquire the following day. It was not exactly the standard American E room type of service we are used to.

Luckily there were some usable meds available threw her friends :wink: , that got her threw the night, and several friends to help her hobble till crutches became available.
J also got a cast. Unfortunately, by the time we got back home, the fractured bones had separated to the point where she needed ORIF surgery and now has six screws and a strip of metal holding her ankle together (which surprisingly rarely gets picked up by airport metal detectors).

What's with the lack of pain meds on the island? We didn't have any go-to buddies with supplies, so she had to suffer through the rest of the week (and the extra day delay caused by Hurricane Ike) on ibuprofen and rum punch. We went through a lot of rum. Talking to some residents that week, apparently they don't give pain meds for anything - not when a limb is crushed between a boat and a dock, not when someone falls off a mini-cliff and shatters a knee. For an island owned by a country that attracts drug vacationers because of the easy availability, it's astounding that one can't get pain meds for a really legitimate purpose like a spiral ankle fracture. (Got in to see an ortho surgeon the day after we arrived back home and he immediately prescribed a bottle of 100 percocets to keep her happy until and after the surgery.)

Fortunately the doc warned me that the medical supply store was closing and had me run over to get crutches while he was doing the cast. Unfortunately they were the European kind without the underarm support and it took J a while before she could use them without falling and hurting herself more. We were staying on the second floor of Den Laman and getting her up and down the stairs without an elevator wasn't going to happen. Ending up moving into a ground floor room at Capt. Don's for the rest of the week, got her to the room on a utility cart from the restaurant the first night. The next day I went back to Nos Arkon (I can't believe I still remember the name of the medical supply store, but I had a lot of dealings with them that trip) and rented a wheelchair for the rest of the week. Then we had fun finding out how difficult it is to get around on a wheelchair on a island without the ADA. Back in the States, with handicapped parking, ramps galore, automatic doors, etc., what a difference! (The ladies at Nos Arkon were very cool, even let us drop the wheelchair off at the airport instead of the day before we flew out.)

Looking on the bright side, we got to meet a lot of people on the island as her cast was quite the conversation piece. Chatted with Ned DeLoach at Cactus Blue one night, I got to play volleyball with the Capt. Don's staff and Moogie and bought Moogie a drink on his birthday after he gave her and the cast a mention in one of his songs. Best of all, on the way back home (diverted through Newark because of Hurricane Ike), we got bumped to the front of the mile-long security line after emerging from Customs/Immigration. We also found out how they manage to get a disabled passenger up the stairs into the plane at the Bonaire airport (it involves two very large guys and a wheelchair/sled contraption). Not my favorite trip to Bonaire and certainly not hers, but it will be remembered for life.

Wait a sec... Re-reading your post I saw that you did get pain meds the following day? How? We asked the doc and he recommended ibuprofen. Perhaps he was mad that he had to come in on his day off?
 
J also got a cast. Unfortunately, by the time we got back home, the fractured bones had separated to the point where she needed ORIF surgery and now has six screws and a strip of metal holding her ankle together (which surprisingly rarely gets picked up by airport metal detectors).

What's with the lack of pain meds on the island? We didn't have any go-to buddies with supplies, so she had to suffer through the rest of the week (and the extra day delay caused by Hurricane Ike) on ibuprofen and rum punch. We went through a lot of rum. Talking to some residents that week, apparently they don't give pain meds for anything - not when a limb is crushed between a boat and a dock, not when someone falls off a mini-cliff and shatters a knee. For an island owned by a country that attracts drug vacationers because of the easy availability, it's astounding that one can't get pain meds for a really legitimate purpose like a spiral ankle fracture. (Got in to see an ortho surgeon the day after we arrived back home and he immediately prescribed a bottle of 100 percocets to keep her happy until and after the surgery.)

Fortunately the doc warned me that the medical supply store was closing and had me run over to get crutches while he was doing the cast. Unfortunately they were the European kind without the underarm support and it took J a while before she could use them without falling and hurting herself more. We were staying on the second floor of Den Laman and getting her up and down the stairs without an elevator wasn't going to happen. Ending up moving into a ground floor room at Capt. Don's for the rest of the week, got her to the room on a utility cart from the restaurant the first night. The next day I went back to Nos Arkon (I can't believe I still remember the name of the medical supply store, but I had a lot of dealings with them that trip) and rented a wheelchair for the rest of the week. Then we had fun finding out how difficult it is to get around on a wheelchair on a island without the ADA. Back in the States, with handicapped parking, ramps galore, automatic doors, etc., what a difference! (The ladies at Nos Arkon were very cool, even let us drop the wheelchair off at the airport instead of the day before we flew out.)

Looking on the bright side, we got to meet a lot of people on the island as her cast was quite the conversation piece. Chatted with Ned DeLoach at Cactus Blue one night, I got to play volleyball with the Capt. Don's staff and Moogie and bought Moogie a drink on his birthday after he gave her and the cast a mention in one of his songs. Best of all, on the way back home (diverted through Newark because of Hurricane Ike), we got bumped to the front of the mile-long security line after emerging from Customs/Immigration. We also found out how they manage to get a disabled passenger up the stairs into the plane at the Bonaire airport (it involves two very large guys and a wheelchair/sled contraption). Not my favorite trip to Bonaire and certainly not hers, but it will be remembered for life.

Wait a sec... Re-reading your post I saw that you did get pain meds the following day? How? We asked the doc and he recommended ibuprofen. Perhaps he was mad that he had to come in on his day off?

I could have been mistaken. It is possible that the only pain meds she was able to get came from friends :wink:. I will have to ask. I thought that she had gotten painkillers from the main pharmacy downtown.
 
Hi all,
My wife and I head off to Bonair on August 26th. We are regular warm water divers, so we don't plan on bringing anything other than a shred shirt and a skin... I assume the water temp will be close to 84? Let me know what you recommend. KEN
 
Depends on how cold sensitive you are. I'm chubby & I wear swim trunks & a t-shirt. Only hassle is once in awhile some tiny stinging organism may zap me, somewhat like a bee sting, but not as bad. And not significant on most dives. And of course, on night dives mosquitoes can be rough on shore.

My lean buddy wears a 3 mm skin suit to prevent rashes & such presumably due to some sort of unseen organisms; I don't seem to have that problem so far. Except the time surge washed me into some fire coral on an exit, but I could see that, and pain, not so much rash, was the main issue.

Richard.
 
Definitely had the mystery sting in Bonaire before... right in the face.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/

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