Bonaire 2024
The first evening at dinner after arrival on Bonaire
My favorite place in the world to go scuba diving is Bonaire. The diving is excellent. The conditions are mild and many sites can be reached from shore. Since you don't need a boat, you can go whenever you want. You just dive with your friends and family rather than with a bunch of strangers on a crowded dive boat. I will admit that I've gotten spoiled diving on Bonaire.
Scuba diving is not an activity you can do solo. At least, it's not an activiy that you should do solo. So while I am doing more and more solo hiking as I get older, that doesn't work for diving. So whenever I plan a dive trip, almost always to Bonaire these days, I invite family and maybe friends to go along. This year I organized a trip to Bonaire for December. Mickey and Allie, and Tim and Yanet were able to go. So was our friend Mary Beth. Shannon and Jimmy couldn't go because the kids are still too young, but other than them it was a really good turnout. I was looking forward to the trip, for the diving and for the chance to spend time with family. Since we are scattered all over the country we rarely get together.
A queen angelfish cruises the reef
We were staying at the Sand Dollar Condominium Resort. It's located, along with several other dive resorts, about a mile and half from the center of Kralendijk. Sandy and I had reserved a one bedroom apartment. Mary Beth had her own condo. Tim and Yanet, and Mickey and Allie, shared a two bedroom unit. It was the only one that had problems, as the hot water did not work when we arrived. It took a day and a half to get it fixed. Fortunately those guys were pretty relaxed about it since they were in the water every day anyway. They didn't let the maintainance problem ruin their vacation.
Since their place had the most people, it was the place to be most evenings after we finished dinner and diving. We ended up on their patio for drinks and conversation. The patios at Sand Dollar are screened so we could hang out there without any worries about mosquitoes. Our evening discussions were good because we hadn't met Yanet before this. It was an opportunity to really get to know her. Yanet and Allie turned out to be great buddies by the time the trip was over. Being married to brothers, I guess that they could compare notes and share info.
Me and Tim on a dive
Even though this was primarily a dive trip, we had different objectives within the group. Sandy pretty much retired from diving a few years ago, so she was just along for the tropical vacation. Although there really aren't any nice beaches along the stretch of coast where we were staying, I think Bonaire is still a pleasant place to visit. Most mornings Sandy took long walks. She would go out to the main road and walk about a half mile south. At that point she could cut over a block or so to the water. There is road and walkway there that follows the shoreline for another three miles, all the way to central Kralendijk. A couple of days we didn't do early dives so I went along with her. There was a good bakery about half way to town where we could pick up pastries to take back for breakfast. Unfortunately, Sandy wasn't feeling well for part of the week so she really didn't get to enjoy the trip as much as she should have.
A four foot tarpon comes by to check us out
Allie isn't a diver so she stayed on shore much of the time, although she did do a lot snorkleing too. Once or twice when I looked up during a dive I saw her on the surface looking down at us. Sh was probably thinking, "My, what strange fish they have on Bonaire!"
Mary Beth was doing a PADI referral, completing her open water certification dives with Scuba Elite. Since they weren't based at the resort, she was diving with them rather than us for the first couple of days. Once she got her C card she dove with the group for the rest of the week.
Tim, Yanet, Mickey and I started out with shore dives on Bari Reef, the house reef of Sand Dollar and nearby Buddy Dive Resort. It's rated as one of the best dive sites in the Carribean for diversity of fish life. No matter how many times you dive it, my experience has been that you always see something new and different each time.
A honeycomb trunkfish - not exactly built for speed
From the dock, it's only a short swim to the dropoff and the start of the reef. There are benches along the entire length of the dock for gear setup so there is always plenty of space to get ready before a dive. Unfortunately there's no shade, so it's not a good place to spend your surface interval while waiting to go back in the water. There's a supply of full air tanks right on the dock, as well as a spot to dropoff used tanks after a dive. Equipment rinse tanks are right there as well.
The dive shop that we used, Dive Friends, is located just off the Sand Dollar property. It's a bit of a nuisance because the gear storage lockers are there, which is at least 200 feet from where you gear up. They have a couple of wheel barrows that you can use for moving your gear instead of having to carry it all. Since Tim is a big, strong guy he ended up doing a lot of the hauling. Once we were geared up though, it was just a giant stride off the dock and a short swim to the reef.
Sea anemone
When we reached the start of the reef, we would pause for a moment to see if there was any current. Usually it was from the north so we would swim into it to start, along Bari Reef towards Buddy Dive Resort. Once or twice the current was from the south, and then we went that direction towards the dive site known as Front Porch. It's the house reef of Chogogo Resort. They got in trouble a few years ago when they opened because they brought in sand and illegaly dumped it to make a beach on their property. The first storm that came along washed all the sand out to sea and deposited it on the reef, killing most of it. I can attest from swimming over that section that most of it is indeed dead. It's very sad. Years ago, on our very first trips to Bonaire, we stayed at the old Sunset Beach Resort which used to be on that site. We dove there many times and it was a beautiful reef. When Chogogo was first built, Sandy and I were excited because it looked like a fancy new resort option on Bonaire. After what they did to the reef, there is no way we would give them any business by staying there, or even eating there. If the palce goes under it would serve them right. The reef probably won't recover for 50-100 yearrs.
Yanet strikes a pose at Salt Pier
We did try a variation on the house reef one morning. Instead of entering the water at the dock, we hauled our gear to the other end of the Sand Dollar property, where there was a stairway leading down a short cliff into the water. This would let us explore a different section of the reef. Unfortunately when we were descending, I couldn't clear my ears. I had to abort and go back while the others continued the dive. Tim followed me back to the exit stairs just to make sure that the old man made it, but I think I could have managed by myself. It's always good to look out for your dive buddies though.
We did sign up for two days of boat dives. We didn't use Dive Friends, even though their boat picked up right at our dock. Instead we went with DivOcean. They are a small dive shop close to the airport. We used them on our trip in 2018 when we were at the Plaza Resort and the dive shop there wouldn't take us. We really liked them so we thought we would go with them again, even though we had to drive to get there. They only take six divers, so besides us it was only the divemaster and one other diver. The first day we did two dives on Klein Bonaire, a small uninhabited island about a mile from Bonaire. Both dives were excellent. One difference on Klein Bonaire is that there is a lot of soft corals in the shallows. That's not as common on the dive sites on Bonaire.
A pair of banded butterfly fish
We had scheduled another boat dive two days later, but decided to cancel and do a shore dive instead. I called DivOcean and gave them some lame excuse. We wanted to do Salt Pier, a site quite a way south of Kralendijk. Tim, Mickey and I all agree it's one of our favorite dives on Bonaire. I decided to sit this one out since I had some trouble with the entry when we did it on our last trip. I was ok to stay on shore by myself, but Mickey realized when we got there that he had forgotten his mask. So Tim and Yanet did the dive and I had someone to talk to while I waited.
Salt Pier is a popular site and there were a lot of vehicles parked there. Mickey and I were walking along the water when we passed a truck where two divers were gearing up to go in. All of a sudden I heard a voice. "Hey, I thought you guys were sick." What? Oh, oh. It was the DivOcean divemaster from the other day. It was his day off and he was diving with a friend. "Cough, cough. Yes. That's why we aren't diving. Cough, cough." Good thing he didn't catch us gearing up. It was embarrassing enough as it was.
Soft corals off Klein Bonaire
Tim was anxious to do different shore dive sites but I was able to talk him into doing the rest of our dives on the Sand Dollar house reef. It was just so simple and convenient. And there was no sandy mess in the truck afterwards. We did a lot of good dives on Bari Reef.
We even did a couple of night dives. As always on night dives on Bonaire, we had multiple tarpon swimming close beside us. A lot of stuff comes out at night so the tarpon like to hunt in our dive lights.
On one dive we saw something really weird. We were in the sandy shallows, and Tim spotted a stingray on the bottom about ten feet away. When he turned toward it the stingray came at him and stopped just short of where he was, staring him down. I've never seen a ray do anything like that. I've been on dives where you feed the stingrays. They literally climb all over you like little puppies trying to get treats. They are never aggressive. Our best theory was that it had a nest in the sand that it was guarding and it was trying to scare Tim away. We took the hint and swam away.
A rock beauty
We weren't always diving. We took time out to do some shopping. The best find was at the large Dive Friends store near Chogogo resort. They had just received a shipment of a new line of women's dive gear from Spacefish Army. Very colorful, all the ladies in our group bought some, even the ones who weren't diving. It was cool enough that they thought they could use it for snorkling, workouts, even just walks. It was definitely a hit. By the end of the week they were all wearing it.
Most of the time we ate nearby, either at Breezes 'n Bites, at Sand Dollar, or Blennie's, next door at Buddy Dive. Sometimes we ranged farther afield. One night we ate at Pasa Bon Pizza. The pizza was good but man, was the service slow. It was surprising since we were almost the only ones in the place. We also tried a new Italian restaurant near the resort, Pizza Mare Bonaire. It was really good. It's definitely on the list for the next time we return to Bonaire. Finally, we had to have dinner at Karel's Beach Bar. Right in the town center, it's built over the water on a dock that provides a spectacular view of the sunset. The food and service is inconsistent though. Still, it's been there forever and is a Bonaire institution. You have to eat there once on any visit to Bonaire.
We're cleaned up and ready for dinner
Late in the week we did suffer a casualty. Mickey developed a bad ear infection. It was quite painful and he ended up going to the local clinic. They gave him some antibiotics and he was feeling better the next day. He was done diving though, so he and Allie rented a car and spent a day touring the northern part of the island. They drove to Rincon, Bonaire's second largest town. It's inland and not very touristy. They did visit a distillery there that made cactus liqueurs, and bought some to take home. They also ate at a small restaurant and tried some local seafood dishes that sounded gross to me.
Tim and Yanet, and Mickey and Allie left a day before the rest of us. I drove them to the airport and was really sad to see them go. It had been a lot of fun doing so much stuff togeher. That night Mickey texted that his ear didn't bother him on the flight home, which was good news. Fortunately the antibiotics worked fast.
A flamboyance of flamingos
Sandy and I and Mary Beth had one more day before we left. It was our no fly day, since you have to stop diving 24 hours before flying to avoid decompression sickness. We toured around the southern tip of the island. There are large salt flats there that are home a lot of flamingos. I've been there before and usually you only see them as tiny pink dots way off in the distance. Lots of pink dots, but still just dots. This time there were a lot of them close to the road. We got to see them up close and take pictures and videos.
Finally it was our turn to fly home. In spite of the fact that Sandy and Mickey were under the weather for part of the time, it was still a great trip. I had a lot of fun and it was good hanging out with everyone. I really enjoyed the diving. I think I am going to call everybody and see what the soonest is that anyone can get away for another dive trip.
NOTE: Tim has a GoPro, so he took a lot of photos and videos underwater. All the underwater shots I have included were taken by him. I'll also put links below to some short videos.
Trunkfish out looking for food
Tarpn and stingray on a night dive
School of blue chromis, and a divemaster, on Klein Bonaire
Frnench angelfish on Salt Pier
A large school of smallmouth grunts on Salt Pier
Closeup of an octopus on a night dive
Steve, Tim, Yanet selfie at the bottom of the reef - 100 feet
