Well, we finally got to do our second trip to Bonaire. This time was even better than the last. Other than the long travel days getting to and from the island everything went great.
We stayed at the Deep Blue View, an excellent bed and breakfast up on the hill in Republiek. www.deepblueview.com It has a nice pool and observation deck that overlook Kralendijk and Klein Bonaire. The layout and landscaping are fantastic. It has that quiet, private villa feel to it which makes it a very relaxing place to retreat to when you've had enough and want to chill out. So far, in all the places we've stayed at on our different vacations, this is the only one that made us not even have an interest in looking at someplace else to see if we could do better. It's a feeling that's hard to describe, but I like it. It's nice to not feel like you're just another customer staying in room whatever.
This year we brought our son along. We gave him the trip and an open water course for his 20th birthday. His b'day was back in April but he agreed that it was well worth the wait. Menno and Esther who own and run DBV are both PADI instructors so it worked out that he got a private class with two instructors. Menno started him off with a Discover Scuba dive the first morning before hitting the books just to make sure he would be ok in the water and that it was something Brian really wanted to do. We knew Brian, who loves the water, wasn't going to have any problem so when Menno shoo'd us off to go shore diving while they hit the pool followed by a shallow dive at Front Porch we said, "buh bye, see you at lunch". 
Everything went well and he saw a bunch of fish and an octopus that surprisingly was out in the open during the day. That's all it took and boom, he was hooked. We met up for lunch and then he went off to study for the rest of the day by the pool while we did our thing. After dinner we went for our first night dive of the trip and he went and read Chapter 3.
It worked out well because while he was off doing his class work we were able to do a few dives he wouldn't be ready for. So we went off and explored the sand chutes at Karpata and an old pipe sticking out of the bottom at Witches Hut. Looked like a nice hidey-hole for a big moray but no such luck.
Even though all of our dives were great in one way or another we had two that really stood out. The first was a boat dive that we were supposed to go to Rappel on but there was already a boat on the mooring and another one waiting to take its place when he left so we had to change plan. This turned out to be a stroke of luck for us because we moored at Bloodlet to get in the water and then swam north from Bloodlet all the way to La Dania's Leap. We had six divers so each buddy pair dropped in as they were ready and then Menno followed just out past the drop off. He then came in and picked up each pair when they had finished. It was awesome, 70 minutes and we didn't cover the same ground twice!!!
There are some wonderful coral structures over this stretch of reef with lots of fish to see along the way. There are tons of holes and crevices in the reef to explore with all kinds of stuff to see in them. We swam along as we wished and stopped where we wanted. We never saw the other dive teams from our boat during the dive but we did swim right through the herd of dives from the other boat just north of the Rappel mooring.
The other really outstanding dive was Salt Pier. We did this on my wife's birthday and I think nature gave her a present on this one because we hit the jackpot. Our son had passed his OW and was diving with us now and as soon as we got in the water we were surrounded by a dense school of baitfish. As we swam out we encountered another dense school of baitfish but of another species. It was like watching streams and sheets of oil and water flow as both schools went their own way. The schools would collide and separate and flow with and against each other but would never mix. It was almost hypnotic. There were good sized schools of snappers, grunts, and goatfish around the pilings with tarpons and other predators swimming through regularly. We also saw a small turtle, an octopus and a couple of scorpionfish. Not bad for one dive. The main attraction for me was a couple of large green moray eels we saw out foraging. I love taking pictures of them and here were two big ones out free swimming in the middle of the day. One went deep as I was trying to get near it to take a picture and I wasn't about to chase it to 100 feet. The other I had a close encounter with.
Esther who was DM'ing the dive had spotted one moving along and signaled to me so I could get ahead of it and get a good photo of it as it swam by. Well wildlife doesn't read the script and after I drift into the spot I wanted to be in when he passed by he decides that instead of continuing on straight ahead he's going to make a right turn and head straight toward me. At first I'm think oh wow, "PHOTO OP!!!" and I start shooting away. Well I'm shooting and panning out, and shooting and panning out, and shooting and panning out until the camera won't pan out any more. That's when I look over the top of the camera and here he is stopped right in front of me only a few feet away. I got a great photo of him, one my best of the trip, but he was a lot closer than I had been planning on getting to him. What got me nervous was when he postured a bit. I know they have poor eyesight so I was worried he might either get curious and decide to check me out, at which point I probably would have fudged my wetsuit. Or worse, confuse me for a threat and take a shot at me. I knew that if he bit me I was definitely going to see the wrong end of the Bonairian medical system. I stayed still and didn't take any more pictures in case the flash might have been what attracted or was upsetting him. We looked at each other for a few long seconds and he relaxed and continued on his way. The others divers confirmed for me afterwards what I was thinking in the water. You're 6'2" tall and it's bigger than you are, what are you doing nose to nose with it? Ok, I wanted a close encounter and I got one. Wow!
We ran into a lot of turtles on this trip which was great because Lisa really likes them. We ran into eight just in two dives on the east side diving with Benji the DIR instructor from Caribbean Gas Training and probably another four elsewhere. We had some very close encounters with them this time which was very exciting. I guess it helps if the turtle conservation folks aren't out tagging them at the same time we're trying to swim with them. This time we had them get a mere inches away from us as they swam up and checked us out.
The only dive we had that we came away from it giving it a thumbs down was the first night dive we did with our son after he finished his class. The dive went well and Brian was fine with night diving, and that was the main purpose of the dive anyway, to see if he liked it or not. So with that I suppose the objective of the dive was achieved. The problem was that we went in at Front Porch for the easy entry and turned south toward Eden Beach and ended up doing a dive that might as well have been on the surface of the moon. Other than some tube anemones and some Gobies it was a wasteland. We should have turned north. The thinking was that where we had already gone to the north toward Bari previously we'd try toward the south this time. We found Charlie the tarpon about ten feet off the beach so that was cool. Brian got to see his first tarpon. He stuck with us until we turned south, and that should have been a clue I guess. He already knew there was nothing in the direction we were heading and wasn't going to waste his time following us. Where Brian is a new diver and was on his first night dive I wasn't going to change the plan on the fly so we just went for the swim. The main thing was that Brian did well and liked it. He had no problems but came away thinking "yeah that was cool but I don't see what the big deal is about night diving". Luckily we were able to change that on the next night dive when we went back up toward Bari and got to show him what it was all about.
We did the ride through Slagbaai and fed the lizards along the way. I ended up getting bit by one of the iguanas. Darn thing took a shot at the fruit I was holding and knocked it out of my hand. An instant later and before I realized it, it had decided "hey, fruit, fingers, it's all good" and grabbed my finger. They sure have some good raspers in their mouths. Luckily he just left a few good scratches. I made sure to clean them as soon as possible when we left the park though. No need to let an infection get started. The part that made it the most unpleasant was that they were on the part of the finger where the skin flexes a lot any time you move it. From then on we fed the iguanas with the fruit stuck on the end of a small stick a few inches long. That was more fun anyway because we made him stand up and beg for his fruit after that. The little lizards were no problem though. We fed them over by Boka Chikitu and they were climbing all over Lisa. It was hilarious. The weather was interesting this trip. There were showers around the entire time. We missed most of them up when you get hit with one, wow, what a downpour. Luckily they were short though. I'd hate to have been on the coast of Venezuela they had thunder storms every night at sunset. It was cool for us because we could watch the sunset followed by a light show during dinner.
And speaking of dining, we're probably not the most adventurous but we do try different places. However, if we find a place we like we'll go there a couple of times. With such a short time on the island it means we don't get to go to all of the places we had intended to. So it was with the Lion's Den. The first night we ate there it was shrimp night which was aye ok with me. Bring it on baby! That was a great meal. We ate there twice and came back for drinks and desserts another evening. We also ate at Harbor Village which we thought was just ok. Good but not great. Of course we got take out from Pasa Bon Pizza once during our stay and it was awesome just like last time. The special dinner for the trip though was at Richards at the table out on the pier to celebrate Lisa's birthday. We got a nice sunset, the food was great, and we all had a great time. Richard was funny when he'd check in to see if everything was ok on the walkie talkies.
Getting to and from the island wasn't too bad. It was long but at least everything got to where it needed to be in one piece and on time. We did the Boston to Aruba leg on US Air which went well. Unfortunately on the days we were travelling DAE's flight schedule between Aruba and Bonaire were less than optimal. It wasn't bad on the way down. We got into Aruba around 2:30 PM and flew out at 6:30 PM arriving finally on Bonaire at 8:00 PM. On the way back we had a direct flight from Aruba to Boston which left at 1:30 PM and got in at 8:30 PM which we thought was great since we had to be back to work the following day. In order to make the flight we had to take the 6:00 AM DAE flight back to Aruba because the next flight that day was at noon. A week before the trip US Air calls to notify us that the flight is cancelled and that we've been moved to the 3:55 PM flight that goes through Charlotte and doesn't get in to Boston until 11:35 PM. We tried to change our DAE flight to the noon flight but it was full so we had an eight hour layover in Aruba. We rented a car for the day and drove around the island. It was nice, we saw all the things we didn't see when were there a couple of years ago, but it reinforced why we like Bonaire better. |
By Jim Peters (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #111) on Thursday, October 26, 2006 - 2:47 pm: 
