Bonaire Trip Report ~ Sept 26-Oct 3, 2009

[ScubaDiva]

Day 0-1: Arriving in Bonaire

I wish I could start out with a great story about how smooth our flight was and our room being ready when we got here, BUT I can’t. We arrived at IAH three hours early after driving from Austin. Turns out it is $17/day to park at the airport, so we headed down the street to park in a $6/day lot. We patiently waited for our red eye Continental flight that was to leave at 11:30pm and arrive in Bonaire at approximately 5:18am. Well…everyone boarded the plane, we took off at 11:36pm and we turned the plane around to head back to Houston approximately 20 minutes later because the wing flaps would not retract. Apparently, those are important. 2.5 hours later, we were in the air again. Yea! Now, we were wondering if we would make it on time for the 9:30 am (verbal) orientation (required for Bonaire newbies). We made it on time!

We picked up our rental truck that came with our Den Laman package and headed to the condo. The lady at the front desk told us that our room should be ready at around noon. It wasn’t….but whatever…I’m not going to go into that. I am writing this from my room, so I am a happy scuba diva now.

We checked in at the dive shop and went over to the Sand Dollar for a small buffet breakfast that cost us $27!!! Yikes!!! I was amazed after hearing how cheap it is to eat on Bonaire. Anyway-our tummies were happy, and we were on our way to orientation. For some reason, everyone else on our plane didn’t make it on time, and they rescheduled their orientation for noon, so we had a one-on-two with the lady who led it and learned a lot about the diving as well as the other activities on the island, which was nice.

Waiting for our room and wanting nothing but a shower and a nap, we decided to drive around a bit. We headed North to Karpata and East to Rincon and back through town. Somehow, we ended up near the airport again and back to Den Laman. Jeff tracked our drive on everytrail.com with his BlackBerry because we are huge dorks and like to log all of our activities, so we can never look at them again after telling the story 23 times and getting burnt out on it.

I said I wouldn’t go into the negativity of the room situation, so I’ll just say that we ate lunch at the restaurant at DL and got into our room at 1:30pm. Nappy time!! …after a shower, of course. We took a one hour nap, and then on to the part that you are waiting to hear about….DIVING!

Normally, Jeff and I each take a camera, but neither one of us did for the check-out dive. We dove the house reef, and saw lots of cool guys…2 bright yellow and 1 cool blue trumpet fish, about 5 white trunkfish with black polka dots, a small hawksbill turtle, a HUGE tarpon (known as Charlie) at DL, tons of little macro stuff, including a tiny tiny bright red crab with bright yellow eyeballs and some other teeny guys that I need to look up , get some pics of and get back to you on. Also saw 4 eels (the small, white, spotted ones and 2 black spotted ones…not sure if those are the scientific names). Total dive time was 63 minutes. I so enjoy the freedom of the shore diving experience.

Went to the market after the dive to get our breakfast and lunch for the week and back to the room. Made dinner, used half my bottle of Deep Woods Off killing the 800 tiny bugs (don’t know what they are) that have already attacked the garbage can (now outside) and one half of an entire wall in our room!

Anyway-We don’t really have a plan for tomorrow, but it will most likely entail a minimum of three dives that I will share, so subscribe to the thread and check back! I’ll keep updating it!

Pics of our studio below here...Picasa Web Albums - Michelle - Bonaire Septe...

Jeff, being the Graphic Designer that he is, started a website...return of the 'fro

Dive pics to follow tomorrow when we have our cameras with us!

 

[DiveMaven]

Sounds like a pretty typical first day on Bonaire. Can't wait to read about the rest of your trip. Have a GREAT time!!!

 

[Buddha64]

Well that explains why our plane was two hours late in arriving. We were only delayed an hour though.

The only real complaint I had from our week there were the number of people fishing at the various southern dive sites, 10 on Sunday. The one that really disterbed me was the guy trolling through two or three sites. We saw him twice during the week once was right after we passed his path during a surface swim to the marker, he passed after we did and was not close to us but still disconcerting.

Make sure you go out to dinner at least once during the week, we did not have a bad meal there. I highly recommend Casablanca, excellent food, GREAT service and all for about $20. I wish I could remember the waiters name it starts with an H, He was without a doubt the best on the entire island.

George.

 

[ScubaDiva]

Make sure you go out to dinner at least once during the week, we did not have a bad meal there. I highly recommend Casablanca, excellent food, GREAT service and all for about $20. I wish I could remember the waiters name it starts with an H, He was without a doubt the best on the entire island.

We ate at Casablanca last night. We're pigs, so we spent $100!! They let us bring the rest of the Sangria home in a wine bottle, so our money will be stretched out a little. The mahi with shrimp and grated parmesean lobster sauce was absolutely amazing!!

 

[ScubaDiva]

I woke up in the morning excited as can be thinking it was 8:15 when it was really 7:15 (Jeff had already changed the time on his watch). I sat out on the balcony and had my cereal and realized the actual time because the dive shop wasn’t opening and there wasn’t a sole around…..so I went back to bed. You can’t take nitrox tanks until 8:30 am anyway. We ended up sleeping in a bit to make up for the previous day.

We decided to do the Hilma Hooker as our first dive because we were told she rests at 100 ft (really only 85). We didn’t see much other than the ship itself and all-in-all, we were both disappointed in the dive. After our SI, we planned on doing Angel City (next door), but when we pulled in and parked the truck….two more trucks pulled in with 4 divers in each one, so we eased on down the road to Alice in Wonderland. We have heard and read a lot of hype about this dive, as well as the Hilma Hooker, and again were incredibly disappointed. There were some cool mushroom-shaped coral formations, but other than that…meh. We were starting to wonder why everyone makes such a big deal about the diving in Bonaire….? Have we been traveling too much lately? Have we been spoiled by other destinations? What’s the deal? Let’s stay positive….maybe it’s just not our day.

Moving on…we showered up and went for tapas at La Guernica….yummy nummy. They said if we go to Bamboo (their sister French restaurant) sometime with our receipt, we’ll get 10% off. Score!

We had planned to do a night dive on Bari Reef (behind the Den Laman), so I went to hear what the other divers were saying as they exited the water. I honestly wasn’t in the mood to suit up after being showered and everything, especially since people were saying that they didn’t see much other than large tarpon and a lobster. BUT…I thought…we’ll find more stuff and end the day on a good note.

The dive was awesome! There were TONS of macro guys out! (love me some macro). I had never seen tiny shrimp that jump or swim before. There were several eels (all different breeds), a slipper lobster (always like to find them because they are cool to look at) and 3 HUGE tarpon (around 4 feet long). I have never seen so many brittle stars and those little stick crab guys (name?) in one dive. The brittle stars were cool to watch as they’d slither back into the coral when the light hit them. As we made our way back to the shallows, I was on a mission to find an octopus. As I found another little eel, Jeff came racing over to me frantically and leads me back to find a certain rock. I just knew he had found an octo…I was right!

By the time we were 65 minutes into the dive, we were in 4 feet of water, Jeff had air trapped in his BCD that kept forcing him to the surface, my hair was stuck to my tank valve, and my camera battery was about to die…..so we called it a night. We were so happy that the day ended with a good dive!

Yesterday (day 3), we had 2 good dives…but I’ll have to write more about that later. It’s time to wake up Jeff and head to La Dania’s Loop!

 

[Drewpy]

Diva-Do you have a copy of the "Bonaire Shore Diving Made Easy"..?
If not get a copy..there is a dive waaay up north called Taylor Maid (Made?) It is past Karpata and up around the Oil tanks,you ahve to take a dirt road up and over.Its a bit of a drive on a bumpy road but worth it-I gaurantee no other people and its a great site. Its a bit tricky to find an exit out to the reef but not hard.Its worth the extra effort!
Also try invisibles in the early Am or late afternoon( good spot for rays)..Red Slave is also good-lots of schooling fish.
You might consider a boat dive on the windward side out of Cai..very different and a good chance of seeing some big stuff? There are several operators who go there..that is the only boat dive beside Klein I would recomend.

Have lunch in Rincon at Rose Inn-they make great local food and some really cold beer!

Cafe Havana downtown can be fun..usually playing lots of great jazz.The owners Anton and Pik are great people!

Love the reports..living vicariously through it!

 

[chauncy19]

Yes Taylor Maid is a great dive. Didn't know it was in the book. It is not easy to get to or find but well worth the effort. Best dive I've done but admit have never gone to the windward side. actually I am not the most adventurous diver, anything but. If your comfortable with it its a great dive!

 

[ScubaDiva]

We woke up to a major thunderstorm with lightening that knocked out the electricity on the entire island. We had to throw our cereal away because the bugs get to anything that isn’t in the fridge. We also have a radiant stove, so we couldn’t cook. We were on a mission to find food. Most restaurants were closed due to the electricity issue, so we found the main market in town…Cultimara. That place is AWESOME! We loaded up on fruit and pastries, since we didn’t know when the electricity would be back on. It was back on by the time we returned to Den Laman.

In the afternoon, we decided to do Front Porch to try to find the tugboat. We didn’t find it. The reading we did on it said that it was off the end of an old pier. We saw a bunch of broken up concrete that appeared to be an old pier. We did a surface swim to a buoy (South of what we thought was the old pier), which must have had fire coral (or something similar) on it. My hand bumped it, and it immediately felt like I put my hand on a hot burner. I have a burn on my hand that has been seeping water ever since, so I don’t know what it was if not fire coral. We headed North and exited at Den Laman. (next door)

Anyway-I asked a diver who exited after us if he found the boat. It was way far South of where we went…about 50 meters South of the Southernmost buoy at the site. Hopefully, that will help someone who is looking for it in the future. <br><br>
Here is what we did see on that dive…Large lizard fish (they’re about 9-10 inches long here), blue-ish/purple-ish flounder, tiny black/red/yellow crab (love finding the tiny stuff), brown and yellow striped Pipefish.

After our SI, we headed to Windsock to try to find the two sea horses that I have read about on this forum. No luck with that. We did see more of those very large Lizardfish, a Slipper Lobster that I caught some video of climbing back down into his den, several Flamingo Tongues, a black and white fish that appears to be in the Drum family (similar markings and a top dorsal), but they are much larger than a regular Drumfish. We also saw a Yellow-tailed Damsel (so pretty), a litty teeny brown and yellow striped Pipefish, and in the shallows, a HUGE Stoplight Parrot crossed our path. He had to be old as he was as large as my torso (and I’m 5’4”).

That was yesterday in a nutshell. Did three dives today as well. Will try to write about those tomorrow.

 

[ScubaDiva]

Thanks, Drewpy and Chauncy. I'll have to try to find that book when the dive shop is open tomorrow.

 

[Papa_Bear]

What your used to seeing is Juvenile Drum fish they don't have spots, but the adults do! There are a lot of Adult Drum fish at Bonaire! You saw a Peacock Flounder and the small Red crabs are most likely Decorator crabs. Go north and do Jeff Davis Memorial or Andra I. Tolo, 1000 Steps, and Oil Slick are good as well and you find different diving north!