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Bonaire, 1999
Author: Samson Sommer
A group of 9 of us went to Bonaire for 8 days/7 nights and the following covers our experiences:
THE GOOD: 1. Caradonna Caribbean Tours: We worked with Kim and she was outstanding to handle the logistics for us. Made some excellent suggestions (such as going direct from either Miami or Atlanta and avoid connecting in Curacao and leaving enough time at Miami to help ensure that the luggage could make the connection) to offset the ALM problems. I would recommend Kim and Caradonna highly - phone 1-800-328-2288. 2. Buddys Dive Resort: We have stayed at Sand Dollar previously and Buddys was great. They met us at the airport at 9:30pm and then waited an 1 1/2 hours for us to get our luggage. We had apartments: 2 bedroom and 3 bedroom and they were very nice, well maintained, full kitchen, and 3 bathrooms in each. We had breakfast included and they did a great job with the food - you could have eggs to order, french toast, bacon, sausage, mutiple juices, ceral - hot and cold, 4-5 different breads, and so forth. Buddys also includes either a stretched pickup or van and they were in excellent shape. I will cover diving in another report in a few days. Overall, we couldn't have been happier with Buddys- the staff was excellent, accomodations very good, and the prices were $100 to $300 cheaper for anything that was comparable. 3. Dive Master: 10 out of 10 for Murphyn. He was the most friendly and worked hard to find us seahorses (did so on 3 out of 6 boat dives) and was great at giving us insight on the shore dives. 4. Food: We ate at Richards twice and it was excellent. The view of the sunset was great from their outdoors tables. We also got a laugh (and then were extremely grateful) when the owner met us at the door and suggested we use insect repellent to ward off the hungry mosquitos. Word to the wise take repellant. We also ate at the Green Parrot twice since it was right next door to Buddys and we could walk. Watch out though you can get hooked on buying the many, many, many different caribbean cocktails in order to get the real cute marine animals and birds. The drinks can also sneak up on you before you know it. We also ate at the City Cafe and it was OK to good depending on what you ordered. 5. Local attractions: On Sunday we went to the local party from 4:00 to 7:00 at Cai on Lac Bay. We thought we were never going to get there but finally did. There are two bars there and you can eat the local food, drink beer, and dance. It was great fun to mix with the locals. We also went to Rincon and visited the gift ship which sells crafts that are made by mentally challenged people. They were glad to visit with us and we wound up buying alot of gifts. 6. Buying groceries: If you fix your food make sure you go to the Cultimara (supermarket -sort of) and not the little local markets - they are much more expensive. 7. Suunto Vyper dive computer: I had just bought the Vyper for this trip and it was a great computer. Good readout, excellent user manual, and full of features (e.g. it has a bookmark feature that lets you capture all data at any point of the dive where you might want to know time, depth, temp, etc.)
The Bad: 1. Air: I am amazed that ALM can continue to make money. As noted earlier, we checked into flights direct to Bonaire from either Miami or Atlanta to avoid connections. We went into Miami and purposely increased our connection time to ensure the luggage made it. At the last minute we decided to check the bags to Miami and then pick them up and recheck with ALM just to help ensure they got there. In the end, all of our bags made it but we had to wait for 1 1/2 hours for our luggage. The plane was continuing on to Curacao and was only going to be on the ground a short time. They must have mixed up the bags and had to unload some of the Curacao bags to get to our luggage. When we went to confirm our flights from Bonaire back to Miami two of our party had some problem with getting ALM to confirm because of something about the spelling of their names. They spent 1 1/2 hours on the phone getting put on hold mutiple times and then finally went out to the airport and then were told there was no problem. The flight from Bonaire to Miami was an hour plus late leaving but we had allowed for extra time in Miami so we didn't have a problem. So while we were lucky many others were not: we talked with people on 4 different days that had either lost luggage or had their plane cancelled. 2. Food: I hate to say this since many people had recommended "The Rendezvous" was terrible. The shrimp bisque was really poor and the fish was almost unrecognizable. There was 6 of us that ate there and the consensus was way over priced for lousy food.
The Ugly: 1. Medical problems: One of our original group of 10 got up at 5:00 AM on the morning we were leaving with a severe ear infection and had to back out of the trip. However, since it was a medical condition and verified by a doctor he wound up getting about 80% of his money back from the airlines and Buddys - this was without having any trip insurance. So I guess this is ugly and bad. One of the party fell down the stairs at the condo on the very last day of the trip and cracked two ribs. Boy what a bummer. However, it was after the last dive so I guess this is also ugly but good. No I was not drinking.
Earlier in the week I reported on the non-diving part of our trip - the good, the bad, and the ugly. This report covered the non-diving part of our trip to Bonaire 8/4/99 to 8/11/99. My apologies but a small part of this will duplicate a couple of items (ALM and Murphyn - speaking of good that would be Murphyn and the UGLY/BAD WOULD BE ALM).
Air to Bonaire: I must admit that we only had a couple of problems with ALM on our trip. We had heard of so many problems with ALM that we went to the extreme to take them out of the equation: 1. we packed regulators, masks, bathing suits, and a change of clothing in our carry-on just in case we lost our luggage. We planned on flying from either Miami or Atlanta direct to Bonaire and not connecting through Curacao (it seems a high number of people have trouble making connections and getting their luggage when they go via Curacao). We couldn't go via Atlanta because they only have a direct flight on Saturdays and they were booked through October so it was via Miami which has a Wed and Sat direct flight. We also checked our luggage from Houston to Miami and picked it up in Miami to avoid the luggage handlers in Miami. Finally we passed up on a shorter connection in Miami and picked one that had a 3 1/2 hour layover just to make sure we could make the connections.
As it turned out, we only had a couple of problems: it took over 1 1/2 hours for our luggage to come off the plane in Bonaire. Apparently they had the Curacao and Bonaire luggage mixed up and it took forever to separate it. On the return flight we were over an 1 1/2 hours late getting off but since we had plenty of time in Miami it was not a problem. Without a doubt we were lucky, there were at least three days that people had their flights canceled and had to stay over. CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT IT TAKES ALL THAT MUCH PLANNING, EFFORT, AND CAUTION JUST TO MAKE SURE YOUR DIVE GEAR GETS THERE.
Ok enough about ALM but if you want your dive gear to be there you need to take the right precautions.
DIVE INFORMATION:*******************
Buddys Dive Resort:
BEST THINGS ABOUT BUDDYS: Overall background: We were interested in mostly shore diving but wanted to do at least 6 boats dives at places you couldn't get to via shore. We also did not want to haul tanks from the docks to the cars. In the past we stayed at Sand Dollar which required us to bring the tanks from the dock to the steps (twelve or so), load them on a cart and then pull the cart up to the parking lot and then load the tanks (reverse this when you bring the tanks back). I REALLY liked Buddys dive through for picking up the tanks for shore diving. They have two lanes now with full tanks stacked up by the curb. You can also check out Nitrox there too. A quick check on the PSI and into the pickup (also provided by Buddys in the rates).
BEST DIVING THINGS ABOUT BUDDYS: 1. The drive through tank pickup. 2. Murphyn..... Murphyn (this is the way we were told he spelled his name) is an outstanding dive master. He was excellent at finding things on our dives. He found a YELLOW seahorse (10" long - OK it was only 5" but you how Texans measure things) and the next day found us two 5-6" long seahorses that we exactly the same color as the stalk of the soft coral (beige and dark brown). 3. The reef off of Buddys is an excellent night dive. 4. The dive facilities are excellent. They have excellent rinse facilities, multiple ladders into the water, and good storage facilites. 5. Given our experience levels, the staff never tried to control the dive profiles. They also were liberal on dive times within realsonable limits.
NOT THE WORST BUT COULD BE IMPROVED DIVING THINGS ABOUT BUDDYS: 1. The boat situation could be better. They had two days where one of their boats was out of commission. They scrambled and brought in a replacement but it ran much later than the original schedule (perhaps they had to bring it in from another shop when it was freed up - don't know). They run large boats - we had 16 people on a couple of days but that was the exception. Most of the time we had 8 to 10 so it was no big deal. However, it might be tiresome if you had to go through that on every dive. Since they never had far to go the large number of people didn't bother us. 2. The mandatory check-out dive: OK Iknow it is a good idea with new or inexperienced divers but we had to wait until 10:00 the first morning to go through the orientation and then gear up and hit the water (this was a waste of time since they never paid any attention to us at all). The least experienced in our group has 50 dives and some 400 or so. Since we wanted to go out early that morning we wound up losing 1/2 of a day. OK enough. 3. They did NOT offer any boat night dives. Sand Dollar offered boat night dives to Klein B. last time we were there but Buddys didn't which surprised and disappointed me.
Bonaire Dives: General: Lots of small to medium fish on all dives. Why, as is reported by everyone that goes to Bonaire, you don't see many large fish I don't know (that is with the exception of the tarpons). To my knowledge, there are no swim throughs anywhere on Bonaire like there are most everywhere else in the Caribbean. There were very few turtles but lots of eels (large green, golden chain, and spotted morays), lots of squids, stone fish, puffer fish, filefish, angelfish (queen, french, and gray), barracuda, large schools of blue chormis, and creole wrasse. To keep this a little shorter (I know I am too late), I will only cover unique things on the dives below...............
Boat Dives: 1. Rappel 103' - 66min: This site is a pretty good run up to the North and some boats crews will try to talk you out of it but Buddys had no problem. You tie up about 30 yards from the bluffs so when you have any wind it can be rough. Rappel is a deep wall dive but not like most walls - it has layer after layer of toadstool like coral that decends at an angle. It is really a beautiful dive. We saw many many spotted drum that were the 7-8" long. Without question we saw more large spotted drum in Bonaire than anywhere else we have been over the years. 2. Sampler-Klein 74' - 68min: Murphyn found us a beautiful yellow seahorse at 68' that was hiding under coral. It was hanging onto hard coral with no soft coral around. 3. Carls Hill-Klein 70' - 51min: We were standing on the dock waiting to go out to Klein when we saw about 20 dolphins in the channel. We quickly jumped on the boat and went to catch them. We spent 45 minutes chasing them back and forth, they would get in front of the boat then cut off to the side and then jump out of the water. It was great. Murphyn showed us two seahorses 5-7" that were hiding in the soft coral. I couldn't believe that he found them. This was a great dive until I found that my brand new Suunto Vyper was not reading depths correctly. Apparently, I had not activated it on the surface (it is susposed to self-activate). It is back at Sea Quest now being checked out. 4. Lenoras Reef 107' - 54min: Hit multiple thermoclines - thought this was unusual. Saw two puffer fish that were 16" or more - they were huge. No this was not a Texas count - couple from Minnesota saw them too. I saw an organge file fish that I had never seen before but others said they were common. 5. Small Wall 67' - 60min: Saw 4 large squid in a row that just hung out over us. It turned out that the one in front was actually two and they were being romantically inclined. Perhaps the others behind the front two were just waiting their turn. 6. Yellow Man-Klein 81' - 58min: Nothing unusual.
Shore Dives: 1. Buddys Dive Resort 91' - 51min: Couple of Tarpon (not Charlie) about 3-4' long. 2. Buddys Dive Resort 52' - 59min: 3 Golden Chain morays and 3 stone fish. 3. Hilma Hooker 99' - 36min: This is a wreck dive and if you have never done the Hooker it is worth it one time. Kind of like the Blue Hole in Belize OK to do it once but that's about it. 4. Ol' Blue 55' - 64min: Saw the biggest green moray I have ever seen. It was bigger than anything I have seen in 20 trips to Cozumel or anywhere else. 5. Buddys Dive Resort/Night dive 52' - 60min: Several slipper lobsters, lots of big puffers, and 3 tarpons (Charlie the 7' was one of them). Charlie was like a pet dog and followed us out and back. On the way back I was shining my light on Charlie and got the light out in front of him and it spooked up a small white fish. Charlie zoomed in on it and it was gone in one gulp. It dawned on me that he would chase my light wherever I would shine it. I really got a kick leading him back and forth as he looked for these small white fish. He would not go after anyting else. 6. Angel City 61' - 48min: Normal stuff. 7. Buddys Dive Resort/Night dive 55' - 50min: Large Green Moray free swiming - pretty sight at night. Saw slipper lobster, several squid, and 3 Tarpon (not Charlie). These 3 would do just like Charlie and track the lights looking for those small white fish. The white fish were about 4-5" long - anyone have an idea what they were - the Tarpon sure favored them. The NEATEST thing about the dive was finding an Octopus whose body was about 12 - 16" across. We had mutiple lights on him for the longest time and he never moved. Finally one of the divers got a little close for him and he moved to get away. When he moved he had to release the small (12") eel that he was holding underneath him that he was have just caught for his supper. I am sure he was POed with us but the eel was happy.
I am sorry this is so long. I hate writing but since I have benefited so much from others willing to take the time to document their trips I felt obliged to write this. Hopefully it will be helpful to others that might want to go to Bonaire.
8. Pink Beach 64' - 34min: This was my first Nitrox Dive and I must say it was great - I was not tired at all on this dive which was great given the current we ran into. We must have hit a current that was close to 2 knots (if I remember right you can't swim into anything over 2 knots and we were barely able to make progress) - we went into the current for 20 minutes and only took about 4 minutes to return. This was a shame since this was our last dive and it looked like it would have been beautiful. If you do this dive it is best to turn to the right or north - I think it is much prettier.
Last edited on June 29, 2002
