On July 4th my wife and I returned from two awesome weeks on Bonaire. We had fun taking pictures during our stay and wanted to share some of the shots. We now have many of them posted on the web with the following link www.ricksusiebonaire.com
With the exception of 3-4 shots all the Bonaire images are from our most recent stay.

This was our 3rd visit and I would say it was our best and most enjoyable trip. That’s saying a lot, since we fell in love with Bonaire on our first visit and had a great time on our second visit as well. One difference was a longer stay. Two weeks was a perfect amount of time. Our first two trips were shorter and we always felt like we were leaving way to early with too much left undone. Plus, the previous experiences helped us to really get dialed in.

We flew in on Air Jamaica without incident. The 5 hour layover in Montego Bay isn’t much fun. We went down stairs where you can push the seats together to make a semi comfortable bed and a couple carry-on bags piled between the seats can make an extra comfortable bed. I also brought a bicycle lock to lock the carry-on luggage together, so we didn’t have to worry about one of our bags growing legs while we were snoozing.

We have stayed at the Sand Dollar for all of our stays. We like the quiet and relaxed atmosphere the Sand Dollar offers. The accommodations were nice and everyone we worked with was great. For this trip we stayed in an upper unit with a balcony. We loved it, the balcony was a perfect place to relax and dry wet clothing. It was also nice to open things up and get a good breeze through the condo. We also did an unlimited beach diving package through Sand Dollar. The facilities for storing dive gear and changing tanks were very convenient. For us, it really was the ideal set up. There is also a cyber café within walking distance of the Sand Dollar if you can’t resist checking email during your stay.

For the diving we opted to not get any boat dives for this trip. Since Bonaire is so easy to beach dive we felt boat dives really weren’t necessary. We love the independence of doing our own thing each day, which is part of what we love about Bonaire. The benefits of boat diving would be hitting sites that you can’t beach dive (like Klein Bonaire) and/or diving with a dive master that could show you something you might not find on your own, like a sea horse or frog fish… We did a couple boat dives on our first two Bonaire trips and left most in our package not used. Since there is only one mooring buoy at most sites there is no guarantee that you will get the site you select. If a boat is already on the site you can’t dive that site, which is what happened to us each time we tried to do a boat dive in the past. What we figured out for us at least is that beach diving is the way to go. That being said, we did talk to others that enjoy doing the boat dives.

Most days we did three dives. Typically we’d get up, and head to the catered buffet breakfast. It worked out great having the breakfast option. They offered a good spread including omelets made to order. It was very convenient way to fuel the furnace before heading out for some diving. It was also a nice place to meet and chat with other divers. After eating we’d throw four tanks and our gear in the truck and head out for two dives. Later on that day we’d do an afternoon or evening dive. Over the course of our two week stay we managed to get in 33 dives. ( We also took off one day to go to Washington Park, which we would recommend doing.) Memorable dives include Salt Pier where we hung with a squadron of squid, 1000 steps were we swam for about a ½ hour with a hawksbill turtle, town pier where we saw a frog fish, sea horse, eels aggressively dining, big tarpon close-ups, and countless macro creatures living on the pilings. We also really enjoyed Angel City, Tori’s Reef, Fish Hut, Red Slave, Hilma Hooker, etc. etc. Overall, conditions were really good this trip. It’s always breezy, but it didn’t seem to be quite as windy this trip as our other stays which seemed to translate into even better visibility. Midway through the trip we had seen everything we wanted to see and more. We were lucky to catch most of it on film. . We even saw dolphins, but somehow 1 of our rolls came back from the processor as “exposed” and that was the roll. I suspect the processor accidentally ruined that roll.

One tip - Remember that bicycle lock I brought and used at the airport? Well, on the Island it was used to lock up our spare tire. On our first trip we did have a spare tire stolen. On this board we’ve heard of others having this happen as well. We now keep it locked up which is pretty easy insurance. In our 3 trips to Bonaire that’s the only negative incident we’ve had. Another tip – it’s nice to have cold drinks and snacks between dives. At the market for a couple bucks you can buy small Styrofoam cooler. Freeze a water and everything will stay nice and cold. One more tip – for beach diving we really like the book Bonaire Diving Made Easy by Jessie Armacost. It’s available on the island and I also just did a Yahoo search and found places to order it on the internet as well. The problem with most other books is that they are out of date and pre-Lenny. This book is up to date and also provides complete info on each dive site including helpful entry and exit information.

On food we really enjoyed a combination of dining out as well as kicking back some nights and cooking/relaxing at the condo. We really enjoyed our meals at It Rains Fishes, Capriccios and our favorite is probably Casablanca. If you like fish, the “catch of the day” everywhere we went was Wahoo and it was always very tasty and it was nice to sample the different ways it was prepared at the different restaurants. Capriccios has some awesome deserts and we also would recommend the flan at Casablanca. Here’s links to a couple of the places we liked: http://www.restaurantcasablanca.com/ http://www.itrainsfishes.com, I couldn’t find a website for Capriccios, but Capriccios has very good Italian dishes, a little pricier than some other places, but well worth it our opinion.

We have loved all our time on Bonaire. Bonaire is the type of place that draws people back again and again. It’s amazing how many people we ran into that are on their 10th visit, their 15th visit, 12th, 6th etc…

- Rick and Susie
www.ricksusiebonaire.com

Rick and Susie,

Enjoyed your post and the pics were awesome. Thanks so much.

Rick and Susie, those pictures are amazing. Thank you so much for sharing your Bonaire vacation with us.

Lisa

amazing photo's!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rick and Susie,

Great trip report and absolutely beautiful photos. Thanks so much for sharing!

Belinda

Rick and Susie excellent report, thanks for taking the time to share.

Now your pictures are another story, I am in awe. Absolutely stunning and amazing. I have recently converted to digital and have not looked back. Recently I had a thought that I could some how manipulate images to make digital look like 35mm. Well...you solved that problem, it can not be done. There is not a thing on this planet I could do to make one of my shots look like yours. I on the other hand also know, that even if I switched back, I still could not duplicate your shots.

I am also amazed at some of the behaviors you were able to photograph. The mating Filefish comes to mind. Great job.

You mentioned that you took 4 tanks with which you could both do 2 dives. I'm curious to know what you did with your spare tanks while on each dive? Or did you wear 2 tanks each for each dive?

Just wondering how you avoided the spare tanks from getting stolen (assuming you left them in the truck).

Also, the people you talked to who like boat dives were the ones on the boat at the mooring before you got to your target dive site. No wonder they like boat dives. ;)

Rick and Susie - great report!!!
I could not agree more with Cecil's comments - WOW on the pics - no way my digital will ever compete that!!! One thing it does make me realize - I need to at least use the 35mm on land!!!

once again AWESOME PICS!!!! Thanks

Thanks everyone for all the nice comments!

Brian - We took 4 tanks - 2 each. So during the dives we would leave the extra tanks in the truck. This is very common and what everyone does. Your truck should come with a wooden rack to hold the tanks, or they also had the racks at the Sand Dollar.You don't need to worry about the tanks getting stolen, it just doesn't happen. I understand that a stolen tank doesn't have much value to anyone as no one on the island would fill it...

Thanks for sharing! The pictures are awesome!!

Excellent Photography!!

Rick and Susie,

Thanks for posting your report, and the pictures are great!!

Wow, great report, amazing photos! Thanks!

Excellent shots and trip report.

We are back in 50 days

What type of camera are you using to get these shots?!?!

WOW! Rick and Susie, your photographs! I can't even find the words to express my admiration. I tried UW photography this year and was disappointed in my results. Your compositions and subjects and lighting and focus and colors and on and on and on! THANK YOU for letting us enjoy them!

Rick and Susie, Thank you so much for taking the time to post your trip report. Awesome photography!! Loved the captions too. Hope the next 6 weeks fly by, can't wait to see Bonaire for the first time.

wow! The only word I can come up with regarding your pictures. Thank you for sharing!

I really do greatly appreciate everyone’s feedback. A lot of effort went into getting the shots and it’s nice that we can share them with fellow Bonaire divers. I’m glad I found this message board!

Chris,

The camera used is a Sea & Sea Motormarine IIex (the Sea & Sea Seamaster Pro is also the same model). My primary setup has dual strobes, a ys-120 and ys-60. There are also several interchangeable lenses that can be changed underwater, offering a lot of flexibility. The other lenses are 16mm, 20mm, 2/1 macro and 3/1 macro, plus the 35mm lens on the camera as well as the close-up lens on the camera. I also had a back-up camera rigged for macro with a single ys-60 and 2/1 macro lens. This set-up can be seen in the UW the picture of my wife Susie. Initially she was just going to carry it for me, but she quickly discovered the challenge and fun of taking pictures. Several of the nice macro shots posted are hers (octopus, couple cleaner shrimps, one of the blenny’s and a few others...) The Motormarine is a film camera and I had the film processed directly to photo cd’s without prints. The pictures on the cd’s were then loaded into photoshop and tinkered with (cropping, resizing, levels adjustments, adding a frame, etc.) to get the final results you see. What you aren’t seeing is the hundreds and hundreds of pictures that were terrible!

- Rick

Thx 4 sharing your trip with is and thx 4 the great, great pictures!

I agree, your photos are something else! Thanks for sharing.

Awesome pictures!

Awesome shots, Rick! No words to describe the beauty, clarity, composition, etc....excellent results!

One question, tho.....how did you guys get on top of salt mound...other than "we climbed up"! Need special permission or anything like that??

Thanks so much for sharing your work with us...I have passed your site on to everyone I know who loves diving and/or great photography. Just awesome work! Carole

Carole,

I hope I’m not responsible for the masses flocking to the salt mound(s) and Cargil getting a really big lock for their gate :-). But, the short answer is that we did ask permission. The longer answer is that I like breaking rules and didn’t want to ask permission and just wanted to “climb up”- the old it’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission :-). But, my wife who is always the chicken, insisted that we ask. They were actually very nice and even gave us a small bag of Bonaire Salt. They just requested that we stay away from any of the conveyer belts etc. We only went to the very front mound and didn’t climb very high – I was using the timer on the camera and needed to have time to get into the frame...

- Rick

What GREAT pictures Rick and Susie!!!!!! The Lizard...is he a friend of yours!!!!! :-) You guys left the day we arrived! When are you guys going back to Bonaire? We are going in October 2nd-13th for the coral spawning!!!!!!!! Did you coax the lizard with the banana? At Oil Slick, a lizard came right up to us and we gave them cheetos and they loved them. They would eat some beside us and take a few back in the bushes!! Rick, are you a professional photographer?

Awesome photos. Great work. Thanks for sharing.

Marvin

Bill and Donna, I guess the lizard became a friend as soon as we broke out the food. There were several places in Washington Park where the whiptail lizards weren’t shy about accepting handouts. When we went to Washington we brought ample bananas, grapes and melon for the critters. I’m not sure when we will be back to Bonaire yet. No, I’m not a professional photographer. There was one time I came close to getting a little money though. A friend asked me to take some pictures for an event and promised to pay for the film, but I still haven’t seen the green stuff.

Great pictures, really awesome (like all the others already stated ) I'm really excited for our trip and seeing those beautiful pictures make me more enthusiastic.
And also your tip about the Bonaire Diving made easy is one I will remember and try to buy through internet and otherwise, directly on Bonaire!!

Wow...those pictures are incredible!!! Thanks for taking the time to post them. My wife and I are even more excited about our trip after seeing them.

Impressed,
Mike