Sue & Brian at Habitat – September 25th- October 9th 2004.
Travelling
Our package included a free KLM City Hopper flight from Birmingham (UK) to Amsterdam, which also meant a 6 hour layover at Schiphol. We decided to take the train into Amsterdam and found a very nice bar overlooking Dam Square where we drank a couple of beers before enjoying an excellent meal at Chao Phraya - a great Thai restaurant we’ve used several times before (try the fish cookies with Garlic and Chilli Sauce). We got back to Schiphol in time to do a quick round of the Duty Free Shops before the flight to Bonaire departed at around 23:30. Nice KLM flight across the Atlantic with Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban as the main feature film.
Returning to the UK via Curacao was a real pain to be honest, and the kindest thing we can say about dealing with Bonaire Exel at Flamingo Airport is that it was less than straightforward. It took over an hour for all three members of staff to process us (two people)! Can you imagine how popular we were with the long queue of passengers behind us? Thank goodness they eventually opened another check-in desk! Towards the end of this protracted process they (smilingly) allocated us the SAME seat on the final two legs of our journey. Luckily we spotted this and got them to allocate us a seat each, but then half-way through the short hop to Curacao we discovered that they’d given us somebody else’s boarding card for the last part of our trip (George Whigman – we sincerely hope you got back to the UK OK). Kudos to KLM though – they were extremely proactive once we got to Curacao and sorted the problems out within 10 minutes. Sorry to be negative about Bonaire Exel, hopefully they will improve with experience - and before anybody comments on our relative airline experience yes we’ve travelled with ALM/DCA many times and also on several other ‘rather basic’ airlines – for example, Air China (especially on internal flights – e.g. Xian to Beijing), Air Egypt (ditto internal flights) and Gulf Air – we’ve had ‘interesting’ experiences booking/travelling with all three.
Captain Don’s Habitat
We arrived at Flamingo Airport around 3:00am, and Habitat’s usual slick check-in procedures meant we were asleep by about 4.30am. As our last trip was in January, we didn’t need to attend the orientation and did our checkout dive at about 11:00am. It was great to be back in the water. All the usual suspects were there – every type of moray imaginable including chain, viper and honeycomb. Post Ivan we were worried about how the reefs would be – but other than a bit of sand and silt (which we did our best to fan away) we didn’t see too many problems – the corals and sponges were all recovering well and there seemed to be more fish than we saw in January. Here are a few photos …
We always stay in a Deluxe Junior Suite at Habitat. This accommodation is ideal for us as the rooms are spacious, have a fridge, plenty of storage, an excellent view over the ocean and Klein, and, most importantly, are within a couple of minutes of the restaurant, dive lockers and boats, photo shop and reception. We always get a first floor unit as the huge covered balcony is great for drying swim suits and gear and enjoying a Bright or two as the sun goes down (if you’re not doing a twilight dive of course!).
We met up with several friends we’ve met before at Habitat – Julie and Kevin from Liverpool, Ditte and Randy, Gail, John and Steve, Amiris and Nina from Texas, Peter from London, Chris and Ingrid from Holland, and our Dutch Coral Spawning pals Ruud and Denise, most of all Neil from London - keep up the u/w photography and watch out for those blank films!
Dining
We ate most of our meals at Rum Runners at Habitat– thoroughly enjoyable - really good fresh food - and the ocean-side location has to be one of the best on Bonaire. Many thanks to TT, Max, Joanna, Esperanza, Denis, Floris and Nanie – and Brad in the Deco Stop Bar (two Brights please…)..Actually don’t know what happened this time, as we both lost about 4lbs whilst we were away and our bar bill was half as much as it is usually – healthy eating perhaps?
We also dined at Mai Mai’s, and Lions Den (great lobster).
Diving
I think you could say we were fairly lazy this holiday (approximately 35 dives in two weeks). We did a lot of dives off the Habitat Baby Dock (so easy), and many boat dives, but other than that didn’t venture far from the property at all. We just dived, took photos, looked at the results, ate, drank, read a lot of books (Dan Brown (The Da Vinci Code, Deception Point etc.) you have a lot to answer for…!!!), wandered up to the Sand Dollar Grocery and Michael’s Chat’N’Browse, and guess what – did more diving, eating, reading etc., etc. We had an absolutely brilliant time, and saw barracuda, cornet fish, sea horses, scorpion fish, various jacks and tuna, many octopus, free-swimming morays and sharp tailed eels, lots of midnight parrot fish including one that accompanied us on an entire dive, and also several lobsters and a few cooperative (from a photographic perspective) juvenile spotted drums. We noticed that there were many more crabs around this time – particularly arrow crabs.
The main focus of this trip was the coral spawning which involves a lot of late night dives (up until about midnight). Because of the relatively late full moon this year we (along with a lot of our coral spawning friends) really didn’t know whether the main event would be September or October, and, thanks to Ivan (which occurred during the September spawning week), I don’t think anybody really knows for sure. We saw a fair bit of spawning – and I actually got two of my dream photos this time (sea cucumber smoking in the cobra position right up on a coral head and a ruby brittle star up on all five legs releasing scarlet-coloured eggs – both macro shots (with my Sea&Sea MM II 1:3 framer)). We also saw sponges smoking, lots of boulder coral releasing egg packages, and hundreds of brittle stars – here are a few photos….
A highlight was a stingray alongside a boulder coral releasing egg packages – I was busily taking macro shots of the coral and Brian was desperately trying to attract my attention to the ray!
Big highlight – the tarpon – we saw them on every night dive and they seemed to be bigger and a lot more attentive than I’ve known them to be in previous years. Have a look at this shot ..
Big thanks to the Habitat dive crew - Sherman, Karen, Jenny, Chris, Anja, Rob and Max (who, less than a year ago said – ‘when a fish gets out of the water and walks to the bar, then I’ll go diving’ he’s now just about to get his DM – well done Max, he will be such an asset to the Habitat dive operation.). Also Wilco and especially Ernst in the Photo Shop – thanks for all the advice and constructive criticism!
Next time
Sorry we didn’t make Gibi’s or the webcams this time – Brian had a horrible cold the first week and we were diving the coral spawning during week two, but … and I know you’re all going to hate us – we’re due to be back on Bonaire in eight weeks for Christmas the New Year. We realised that we were serious outgunned on the camera front (MMII and Sony P9) this time but with a bit of luck I’ll have a new housing for our Nikon F80 SLR (big learning curve for me) – so keep your fingers crossed for a few good shots and hopefully we’ll make Gibi’s/the webcams next time.
Dive safe and often … Sue & Brian
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By Brian (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #704) on Saturday, October 23, 2004 - 7:39 am: 
