Bonaire, Buddy Dive Resort

Author: Mary Pearson

We just got back on the 21st from about a week in Bonaire. We had great diving - while it's true that it lacks a lot of "charismatic megafauna," the smaller sealife is incredibly dense and varied. We did 19 dives over the 7 days we were there, about half of them shore dives. All of the shore dives were easy entries, no surf at most places, only a little at the sourthern sites we did. The visibility, while we were there, was generally better to the north. Surface swims were typically 100' or so and we were usually parked within 30-50' of the water.

We stayed at Buddy Dive Resort and really enjoyed it. The rooms are pretty basic but very clean and comfortable, and all the staff were gracious, helpful and friendly. We were in a one-bedroom apt - DO NOT even think about a hotel room, we were in one the first night due to a mix-up by our travel agent and they are tiny. The rooms are all convenient to the dive shop and the diving right off the dock is great. We rented a king cab pickup from Buddy's, which was very convenient for the shore diving, and their drive through tank pick-up and drop-off was quick and easy. We followed the oft-repeated recommendation to take no valuables and leave the vehicle unlocked - we did see some broken glass at some parking areas so theft from cars obviously occurs if that rule isn't followed. It wasn't a problem, many of the dive sites are within a 20-30 minute drive of the hotels so you don't need to take cash or other belongings.

Most of our boat dives were at Klein Bonaire, though we did one at Bloodlet, to the north and not accessible from shore, and one at Hilma Hooker, special request by a couple of divers without a rental vehicle. Hilma Hooker doesn't yet have a lot of coral and sponge growth on it but it's interesting to do a wreck dive, I had never done one except on sunken small boats. Visibility varied a bit, we had a some wind and rain while we were there which impacted visibility a bit, but the worst vis was about 75' and we also had up to 100'. Though we saw a few big critters - a couple of turtles, a ray, a 6-8' green moray, a big cobia which looks rather like a shark, and the 5' tarpon that hangs out at the resort - the moderate-sized and macro life is phenomenal. We spent a lot of time perusing our fish and sea creature identification books, figuring out what we had just seen on the dives.

Most of our dives were fairly shallow, around 50-60'against the current (pretty nominal currents on most dives though they did occasionally pick up so it's important to head into the current when you start the dive) and 30' for the return leg. We saw lots of eels, trumpetfish, french and queen angelfish, parrotfish, a blue parrotfish that was a good 2', tangs, wrasses, groupers, barracuda, one frogfish, a juvenile trunkfish literally the size and shape of a pea (that one was truly odd!), on and on. The variety of corals and sponges is endless.

If you're looking for challenging diving, big walls, strong currents, swim-throughs, big critters, etc., Bonaire won't provide those. But if you want to see incredibly rich sea life, it's the place to go. Most of our dives were 50-60 minutes long, since we were relatively shallow, so we had plenty of time to really look for things. We went to almost 100' at Hilma Hooker and close to 90' at Alice in Wonderland, which has a double reef system and a sandy bottom between, where we wanted to see garden eels. We did 5 dives off Buddy's dock, 3 of them at night, and saw an increbile variety right there. The night diving was awesome; we did the Town Pier dive but I don't think I'd recommend it, I'd find another place to see the orange cup corals, which are beautiful. There were a number of divers in the water with us, it's disorienting because we changed direction all the time to avoid other divers and one of the ocean-going tugs started its engines while we were there and the noise is enough to send you right back to shore. But a night dive with the cup corals is a must - they're gorgeous.

The water temp was 78 degrees. I get cold easily so wore a 3 mm farmer john over a dive skin, plus a light hood, adding the 3 mm jacket by the end of the week.

There isn't much to do on Bonaire other than dive but that's okay - the diving is so great you don't have time to do anything else. I plan to go back!