Bonaire
June, 2002
Trip
Report
Travel
Accomodations
Food
Activities
Diving
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We made our third visit to Bonaire in June, 2002. Trying to save some dollars on air travel, we spent quite a bit of time flying on a bunch of different airlines. We used our Northwest Worldperks miles to fly Northwest Airlines free from Detroit to San Juan (via Newark). Then we took the American Eagle flight from San Juan to Bonaire. Our flight from Newark to San Juan arrived 5 hours before the flight left for Bonaire. Our one mistake was not immediately checking in for the American Eagle flight. We decided to have lunch and talk instead. By the time we checked in with American Eagle, they would only issue 3 of the 5 boarding passes. Their claim was that they could only issue 90% of the boarding passes until 30 minutes before the flight. Shortly thereafter, they announced that the flight was overbooked and they were looking for volunteers to take a later flight via Curacao. Fortunately for us, they must have had enough volunteers because about 45 minutes before flight time, they issued the last 2 boarding passes to our group. When we arrived in Bonaire, all our luggage arrived with us! Success!!!! We booked our room, car and diving through Great Southern Island Adventures. Our rental car was provided as part of our dive package. However, we were to pick that up when we checked in. We were met by a shuttle that took us to the resort. On the way back, our American Eagle flight left at 6am. We had stopped at the airport the day before to pay our departure tax since we were supposed to be at the airport at 4am and we didn't want to have to deal with it then. I highly recommend anyone else on the flight do the same. Also, be sure to arrive at 4am. They were hand searching all the checked bags before they would let people check-in so it took a long time. Don't be late! We were able to check our bags all the way to Detroit, however, we needed to pick them up in San Juan to clear customs. Once we cleared customs, we rechecked our bags (they are set up to make this very easy) so we didn't need to haul them around the airport. Our connection from San Juan went to Houston, then to Detroit. Once again, our bags arrived with us!! Home run!
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This year, we decided to stay at Buddy Dive. In our past trips we had always stayed at the Sand Dollar Condos. Although we really love the accomodations at Sand Dollar, the Sand Dollar Dive and Photo operation is still operating out of temporary quarters and diving with them is just not as convenient as it is at Buddy Dive. On the plus side, it appeared as if construction had started on a new permanent dive shop and boat dock right next to Sand Dollar. Our room at Buddy Dive was very nice. Since there were 5 of us, we got a 3 bedroom apartment. It was a 2 story room with two bedrooms upstairs and 1 bedroom downstairs. Each bedroom had its own bathroom, although the downstairs bathroom was not actually in the bedroom. The kitchen was a bit small. One disappointment was that the fridge/freezer was not full size. We couldn't use the freezer for anything more than making a couple of ice cube trays. In years past we always put our water bottles in the freezer so that we had cold water post shore dive. To make up for that, Buddy Dive offered an ice machine at the front desk so we just ended up filling our cooler bag with ice from that. Our other complaint was that the living room did not have ceiling fans. Since there were no fans, you had to keep the windows open to keep the air moving. That would have been fine except that there were no screens on the windows. This meant BUGS! Needless to say, we were swatting misquitoes quite a bit in our room. After the second night, we got some bug spray and that helped. The rest of the resort was very well maintained. The pool has a swim up pool bar. We ate lunch there our last day and really enjoyed it. Should have done it every day. The staff was just fantastic. They were the most helpful group I have ever met. They really do their best to make you happy! Despite my complaints about bugs, I highly recommend Buddy Dive as a place to stay. Keep reading to learn more about the Buddy Dive restaurant, dive shop, and activities center. |
A Donkey waiting for ice cream
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Our package at Buddy Dive included breakfast every day. The breakfast buffet was served in the Dock of the Bay restaurant on site. This was no cheap continental breakfast.......this was the real thing! Every morning there were fresh oranges to squeeze for your juice as well as pitchers of other juices. There were meats, cheeses, and bread for those that like a typical European breakfast. There were made-to-order omeletts, as well as cold cereals, pancakes, scrambled eggs, potatoes, sausage, and bacon. The menu was the same every day, but with such variety, you could have a different breakfast every day. It was a great way to start the day or to re-energize after an early morning dive. Breakfast was served from 7am to 10:30am so we often ate after doing an early shore dive. We typically ate lunches in our room with food we had bought at the local grocery store. Lots of peanut butter sandwiches and chips, but after a big breakfast, none of us were that hungry at lunch. For dinner, we tried to sample a number of restaurants on the island. One new place we tried this trip was Capriccio. Capriccio serves Italian food. All of their pasta and bread is homemade and really delicious. It was the best Italian food I had tasted anywhere. Highly recommended. We also tried the City Grill for the first time. I had the beef tenderloin in a blue cheese sauce that was just spectacular. The atmosphere was quite casual and we enjoyed ourselves immensely. Also recommended. We also went back to Richards this trip. They probably have the best location (right on the water) and the food is good, and reasonably priced.
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The gang at the Richards |
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The team caught on the Bonaire Webcams
Photo
Copyright © 2001 by Caribbean WebCams, LLC
Mike with the rebreather |
Bonaire has surprisingly much to offer besides diving and I think Buddy Dive has an organized activity to do all of them. Mountain Biking, Ocean kyaking, kyaking in the mangroves, 4-wheeling, windsurfing.................the list goes on and on. Two of the people in our group did the Mangrove Kyak trip on our last day. They really had a good time. We preferred to drive up to Gotomer to do some flamingo watching. In the past, we've always visited Washington Slagbaii National Park. This trip we skipped the visit to get in more dives. If you're into hiking, you can climb to the highest point on the island. It only takes about 2 hours round trip and it is worth the view. Just remember to bring lots of water!! If you're not into hiking, there are snorkeling and dive sites within the park that make a really nice stop. Its also the best place to see the native parrots. A drive to the south will take you past the Solar Salt Factory. If you're lucky, there will be a ship at the pier filling it's hold with salt. Drive a little further and you'll come to the slave huts. It's frightening to think that people actually lived there. If you make the drive around sunset, you may see flocks of flamingos on their way to Venezuela for the night. If you head over to Lac Bay (Sorobon) you can do some windsurfing, or like me, just watch. The road around the south end doesn't make it all the way to Lac Bay (there's a collapsed bridge not shown on the tourist map). To get there you have to take Kaminda Sorobon or Kaya Ir. Randolph Stratuis Van Eps. Keep your eyes out for the donkeys. They roam all over on the island. One day we stopped the car to take some pictures and ended up surrounded. We had to close all the windows in the truck and move slowly until the herd parted. |
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Divers Paradise. Thats what the license plates say and they mean it. Our group got in 18 dives in our five diving days. This was our first time with Buddy Dive and I have to say, we were thrilled with their operation. The Divemasters were just great. The boats were in fantastic shape. The shop had everything you could ever need, and the drive-thru air fill station was super convenient. Our only complaint was that the driveway that you could take to get your vehicle close to the diveshop (and your gear if you were storing it there) was only wide enough for 1 car. So, if someone parked there car in the way, you could get stuck. We found that most people were very curteous and stayed with their car so they could move it, but occasionally, someone would leave a car unattended for awhile, blocking everyones exit. Buddy Dive ran three boat dives per day every day. One at 8:30am, 10:30am and 2:15pm. Occasionally they did night boat dives and they did arrange special boat trips for some of the groups staying with them. The two morning dives can be used as a two-tank dive, with your surface interval consisting of the ride back to Buddy Dive to let people off that only wanted the 8:30am dive and pick people up that only wanted the 10:30am dive. We found it really convenient to do the two morning dives, then plan 1 or 2 shore dives in the afternoon, and of course a night dive. One day we decided to do the Hilma Hooker as a shore dive really early (7am) which got us back for Breakfast at 8:30 in time to make the 10:30 boat dive. Their boat schedule allows you a ton of flexibility in planning your dives. Buddy Dive uses the standard "chalk-board sign up sheet" for boat dives. You can start signing up for the next dive as soon as the current day dive has gone out. They do not pick the dive sites for you. The group is asked to pick a site at the time of the dive. Of course, if people have requests, they can put them on the chalk board when they sign up. However, just because someone requests it, the group can decide to go somewhere else. Of course, the divemasters will have final approval in cases where the group's desired site might be too challenging for some of the people on the boat (kids, newer divers, etc.)
Here are the
notes from my Dive Log:
Dive 2: Shore dive at Windsock Reef
Dive 3: Early shore dive at Buddy's Reef
Dive 4: Shore dive at Bachelor's Reef
Dive 5: Boat dive at Hilma Hooker
Dive 6: Boat dive at Joanne's Sunchi - Klein Bonaire
Dive 7: Shore dive at Webers Joy
Dive 8: Shore dive at Town Pier
Dive 9: Boat dive at Ebo's Reef - Klein Bonaire
Dive 10: Boat dive at Hands Off Reef - Klein Bonaire
Dive 11: Shore dive at Webers Joy
Dive 12: Night shore dive at Buddy's Reef
Dive 13: Shore dive at Hilma Hooker
Dive 14: Boat dive at South Bay - Klein Bonaire
Dive 15: Boat dive at Nearest Point - Klein Bonaire
Dive 16: Shore dive at Andrea II
Dive 17: Night shore dive at Buddy's Reef
Dive 18: Early morning shore dive at Buddy's Reef
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Kris and Tracy at Buddy Dive
Kris and Sue modeling dew rags
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Spotted Eel Feeding on Fish: (185K RealVideo®)
Sue at the Hilma Hooker's prop and Mike peering over
the rudder at a French Angle: (119K RealVideo®)
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Bonaire.net - listings of EVERYTHING on Bonaire BonaireTalk - a great discussion forum Len Kaltman's Bonaire Site - great photos and more
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InfoBonaire - The official website of Bonaire |
Interknowledge.com - Great info on Bonaire
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