Trip Report Bonaire
Dates 8/25-9/16/08
Location Bonaire
Hotel/Resort Tropicana apartments. Note this is what Europeans describe as "self-catering". It was full one-bedroom apt with stove, microwave, coffeepot, frig, A/C in bedroom only, screens on the windows but due to location within the complex not much breeze. Basic furniture but served our needs entirely. They had a rinse basin and a clothesline on premises for washing and drying gear..
Dive Shop- Dive Friends @yellowsub (primary) other dive friends locations (secondary). They had lots of tanks and pickup/drop off couldn't have been easier. Their O2 analyzer was often a bit touchy and I saw nothing in the manner of the employees that made me think using them for boat dives or any reason other than picking up tanks would be a good idea. The yellow sub location was very close to our apt.
Number of Dives 49 total. 5 night dives. A couple of drift dives ( not much current usually).
Air Mixture Enriched Air (Nitrox) 32%. Note divefriends limits you to 3 Nitrox tanks per day but not sure how or if that is enforced.
Avg Length of Dive 75 minutes
Avg Max Depth of Dive 76 feet
Water Temp (Avg) 85F. We used 3/2 full wetsuits for protection and because of the number of dives. Saw plenty of divers w/out wetsuits.
Visibility 60-90 feet.
Notes and Comments We only did shore dives. We did most of the west coast sites. We did not get a chance to dive the east coast. We did do two tanks in the Washington Park in the north of the island and thought they were some of the best dives we did thats saying a lot because overall we were very happy with the quality of diving.
We did five night dives and the tarpon were a nuisance on most of them. The first few times a 4 foot tarpon buzzes you on a night dive its a rush, after that, it just gets old. Although on our hilma hooker night dive, as we approached the shallows there were thousands of juvenile fish and the tarpon were pretty successful hunting using our flashlights as an aid that was pretty cool.
Other than the Washington park dives, we found no correlation between remote access and quality of dives. Some of our favorite dives were the assorted house reefs that are easy access and right in/next to town. Some of our other favorites were dives on the extreme southern end of the island. Basically- dont do yourself a disservice and think its a bad dive just cause you gear up right on the street midtown. The whole west side of the island is a divesite! In the south there are more of the double reef sites, in the north more of the quasi wall sites. It makes for a nice contrast we don't have a clearcut favorite.
Lots of fish, lots of invertebrates, lots of crustaceans, lots of eagle rays, lots of turtles, some southern stingrays. Coral and sponges were plentiful.
All in all a great dive location with easy, plentiful, and high quality diving.
Can't comment on the restaurants for them most part we cooked our own food. The one pizza we purchased was pretty bad (Pasa Bon Pizza). Shopped at Cultimara and the Warehouse warehouse is generally better, with better prices but the bakery was better at Cultimara. We bought fruit next to the pier from the guy from Venezuela and from the stores nothing great and fairly expensive. Gas was approximately 7 USD/gallon but it's a small island. AB Carrental was suburb, would definitely rent from them again.
In summary- would certainly use tropicana apts and AB Carrental again. I would probably try a different dive shop next time. To me, the island, topside is nothing special. It's certainly an easy location topside most folks speak English and you can use USD if you prefer. The shore diving is very good and very easy to set your own schedule.
We would return to dive Bonaire again.
If anyone knows what this is in the first pic, let me know
Eel
Tube Sponge
Cleaner Shrimp
Lobster
Nudi
Crab
Coral
Cowrie
Dates 8/25-9/16/08
Location Bonaire
Hotel/Resort Tropicana apartments. Note this is what Europeans describe as "self-catering". It was full one-bedroom apt with stove, microwave, coffeepot, frig, A/C in bedroom only, screens on the windows but due to location within the complex not much breeze. Basic furniture but served our needs entirely. They had a rinse basin and a clothesline on premises for washing and drying gear..
Dive Shop- Dive Friends @yellowsub (primary) other dive friends locations (secondary). They had lots of tanks and pickup/drop off couldn't have been easier. Their O2 analyzer was often a bit touchy and I saw nothing in the manner of the employees that made me think using them for boat dives or any reason other than picking up tanks would be a good idea. The yellow sub location was very close to our apt.
Number of Dives 49 total. 5 night dives. A couple of drift dives ( not much current usually).
Air Mixture Enriched Air (Nitrox) 32%. Note divefriends limits you to 3 Nitrox tanks per day but not sure how or if that is enforced.
Avg Length of Dive 75 minutes
Avg Max Depth of Dive 76 feet
Water Temp (Avg) 85F. We used 3/2 full wetsuits for protection and because of the number of dives. Saw plenty of divers w/out wetsuits.
Visibility 60-90 feet.
Notes and Comments We only did shore dives. We did most of the west coast sites. We did not get a chance to dive the east coast. We did do two tanks in the Washington Park in the north of the island and thought they were some of the best dives we did thats saying a lot because overall we were very happy with the quality of diving.
We did five night dives and the tarpon were a nuisance on most of them. The first few times a 4 foot tarpon buzzes you on a night dive its a rush, after that, it just gets old. Although on our hilma hooker night dive, as we approached the shallows there were thousands of juvenile fish and the tarpon were pretty successful hunting using our flashlights as an aid that was pretty cool.
Other than the Washington park dives, we found no correlation between remote access and quality of dives. Some of our favorite dives were the assorted house reefs that are easy access and right in/next to town. Some of our other favorites were dives on the extreme southern end of the island. Basically- dont do yourself a disservice and think its a bad dive just cause you gear up right on the street midtown. The whole west side of the island is a divesite! In the south there are more of the double reef sites, in the north more of the quasi wall sites. It makes for a nice contrast we don't have a clearcut favorite.
Lots of fish, lots of invertebrates, lots of crustaceans, lots of eagle rays, lots of turtles, some southern stingrays. Coral and sponges were plentiful.
All in all a great dive location with easy, plentiful, and high quality diving.
Can't comment on the restaurants for them most part we cooked our own food. The one pizza we purchased was pretty bad (Pasa Bon Pizza). Shopped at Cultimara and the Warehouse warehouse is generally better, with better prices but the bakery was better at Cultimara. We bought fruit next to the pier from the guy from Venezuela and from the stores nothing great and fairly expensive. Gas was approximately 7 USD/gallon but it's a small island. AB Carrental was suburb, would definitely rent from them again.
In summary- would certainly use tropicana apts and AB Carrental again. I would probably try a different dive shop next time. To me, the island, topside is nothing special. It's certainly an easy location topside most folks speak English and you can use USD if you prefer. The shore diving is very good and very easy to set your own schedule.
We would return to dive Bonaire again.
If anyone knows what this is in the first pic, let me know
Eel
Tube Sponge
Cleaner Shrimp
Lobster
Nudi
Crab
Coral
Cowrie
