DARLENE’S TRIP REPORT 10/07/06-10/21/06 PART ONE
Travel:
I flew Boston, San Juan to Bonaire on American and American Eagle. All flight were on time or ahead of schedule and I arrived a half hour early in Bonaire with all my baggage. I had about a five hour layover in San Juan and I much prefer that over the tight connection that I had last trip. The return flights went smoothly.
Shopping:
I always make it a point to go to JanArt’s open house on Friday evenings. I love her paintings. The fish are my favorites. She is also doing beautiful clay sculptures.
It’s always fun to stop by and visit Michael Gaynor at Chat n’ Browse. He has the best deal around for renting cell phones and you can use the Internet at the same time. He also carries a lot of great merchandise!!! One of the things I got was a cute little insulated cup for coffee or cold drinks with fishies on it. I intended it as a souvenir but ended up loving it in Bonaire!! It actually kept ice in your drinks for quite a while!!!
The store at the Divi is one of my favorites. Luti, one of the dive masters at Divi owns it. He makes and sells some very nice gold jewelry there. He also carries a lot of nice merchandise as well as some staple food supplies. He just opened another store about a block down from Divi toward town.
The Carib Inn is one of my favorite stores. He always has the best shirts and tank tops for a reasonable price and if you need snorkel equipment that is the place to go! They never try to sell you something that you don’t need and they are very helpful when you have problems with your gear. I got a new mask and snorkel this trip and his prices are great. What really sold me was that I will be able to get prescription lenses for it so I can see again. I am going to email Bruce my new prescription so he can make sure he has it there for when I arrive in March!!!
I did my grocery shopping at Cultamara. I usually buy breakfast, lunch, snack and soda supplies at Cultamara and then have my dinners out in the evenings.
Restaurants:
Gibi’s: He serves great local food right from his home. I have enjoyed meeting all the BT folks on island there and have been able to put the faces with the names of the people that I felt like I already knew. I didn’t make it the second Tuesday because the vote with my roommate and friend was for lobster night at the Lion’s Den! Besides, I was hanging around with all the Bter’s on island all week long anyway but I did miss seeing Gibi again!!!! 
Bo Bo Jans: It is located on a little side street just past It Rains Fishes. Most people just do take out but I like to eat in their little back garden. I went there several times. Their steak is delicious and so are their ribs and both are very reasonably priced.
It Rains Fishes: Located on the waterfront in town. I had Wahoo in mustard sauce that was excellent!!! They are noted for their mustard sauce and I can’t tear myself away from always ordering it when I am there.
Pasa Bon Pizza: It is a really nice pizza place just to the north of town on the main road. They are at the only stoplight in Bonaire so you can’t miss them!! It is on their fence out front. There is a nice dining area there with a bar. The pizzas are really, really good!!! Pasa Bon Pizza is open till eleven at night so it is another good place to eat for those late night arrivals. Denise and Teddy Kakavas who were on island picked me up at the airport and and then we went straight to Pasa Bon for something to eat! Thanks Denise and Teddy!!!! I even ordered an extra pizza take away for lunches for the week!! Just take note that it is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. I love their specials that have the fish on them.
Donna and Georgeo’s: They are located on the ocean front next to the Dive Inn and near the Divi. They specialize in Italian food and Donna is such a gracious hostess! Their food is excellent and presented nicely. I had delicious Red Snapper in Garlic sauce. Their Tiara Mi Sue dessert is the best that I have ever had!!! It is really bad for me when I stay at the Dive Inn because every night Norma, Rhonda and I would end the evening with a Pina Colada and some Tiara Mi Sue!!! Not good for the hips but great for the soul!!! They are closed on Wednesdays.
Chibi Chibi: They are a seaside restaurant located on the Divi resort. I love their coconut shrimp dinner. It is real fun watching the fish in the water while you are eating too!
Lion’s Den: It is a nice restaurant up by Buddies Resort (I think It use to be in Lion’s Dive Resort) It is seaside and overlooks the piers so you can watch all the night divers. We went on Lobster night and I had one of the lobster specials with the coconut shrimp appetizer. It was excellent. The prices are on the high side but worth it.
Will’s Tropical Grill: It is located near the Cultimara grocery store. It use to be the old Di Tuins. I had shrimp special that was very well presented and excellent. I always enjoy Will’s creativity. The prices are on the high side but worth it.
Casablanca: Located on JA Abraham. The road that leads into town from the Divi. I split the mixed grill with Cecil’s friend Art. It is unbelievable!!! There is enough food on it to feed an army and it is very good. Art ate all his half except for the chicken and I only could put a small dent in my share. The rest came home and fed three women lunches for several days!!! The prices are reasonable for the quantity and quality of food.
El Fogon Latino: I went with Teddy and Denise so I am not quite sure where it is but I know it is near Lisa Gas somewhere. It is a very nice and clean local place with inexpensive good food.
Garden Café: I had lunch one day at the Garden Café. It was my first time there and it was very good and inexpensive. I had the chicken sate. The restaurant was packed and we still had good service which is very impressive.
Wind and Surf Beach Bar at Lac Bay: This was another first and it was beautiful and delicious!! I had a tosti ham and cheese sandwich under a thatched roof on the beach. Where else can you go out to eat and take a dip in the water before and after you eat!! You might even get captured on the web cams there!
Lodging:
Dive Inn ---This is my third time staying at the Dive Inn. The room was very clean and well kept and Babs is just great. The location is great for me as the Cha Cha pier is their front yard for easy entry into the water. The Divi is a short walk away and that is where the Woodwind sails from. And Town is just a short walk in the other direction!!! Very convenient and reasonable.
PART TWO
I met a few new BT folks this trip and spent time with a lot I already new! The friendships just keep growing!!! I just can’t say enough of how wonderful BT has been for me!!!! I went solo this trip and between my on island friends and my BT friends, I never ate alone once!! I have a bigger social life in Bonaire than I do at home! I had dinners and fun times with, Cecil and Sue and their friends Art and Terry, Dave and Wanda, and Denise and Teddy and not to mention on the BT sail! And last year I met Norma through Cynde and this year for one of the weeks we were roommates and I got to meet her friend Rhonda. Needless to say we all had a great time together!! Ron Gould, his wife Dianne, son Randy and daughter Susan stayed at the Dive Inn so we would all meet up daily and chit chat about all our great finds. I was at a dive site down by the lighthouse and I met Bill and Donna Goodwin! Tell me it isn’t a small world/island!!! We were coming out of a snorkel and they were asking how it was. They said Bill and Donna, I said Goodwin, and they said Darlene!!! BT is a wonderful thing!!! Then I was over at Lac Cai with the girls and Renee pulls up with a couple who wanted to meet me because her sister lives in the town where I live!!
Cecil,Sue,Art, Terry and myself went to the airport to greet the Wounded Warriors with beers and soda. A group of 15 of us represented Bonaire Talk at the dinner that BT sponsored for them at Captain Don’s where the BT T-shirts were given out to them. It was quite an honor to meet these fine young men.
The BT sail was a success this trip! I think there were 15 of us. Myself, Norma, Rhonda, Cecil, Sue, Art, Terry, Ron Gould and family,Dave, Wanda, Mike and Lee Ann. Ulf was our captain and Annouk was our guide and crew. We saw lots of turtles and a spotted eagle ray among a lot of other good stuff!
My first week there was Regatta. I found it to be quite interesting. I loved seeing all the sails in the water. Ulf, the Captain of the Woodwind organized and lead the working boat parade and was kind enough to invite a group of Bter’s along. The boats were all decorated and sailed up and down the coast at sunset. It was a really beautiful and fun event!! Thanks Ulf!!! In town at night they close off a street and had food and souvenir stands. I guess a lot of people come over from Curacao and Aruba and the street was very crowded with activity. They also had music on a stage.
Rhonda and Norma rented a van so we did some site seeing this trip. We did the northern scenic drive through Gotomere and saw lots of Flamingos that we were able to get pretty close to. We saw lots of goats while driving through Rincon and we even got to see a wild donkey too! Then we drove up to Seru Largo for the beautiful view!! On another day we drove south to the Slave Huts and Salt Pans and on to Lac Bay.
I usually split up my morning time with Renee’s guided snorkeling and sailing on the Woodwind.
The Woodwind is a trimaran that does two snorkel stops with snacks, lunch and drinks included. It sails to Ebo’s Reef and you do a drift down to No Name at Kline then you go to either Andrea I or II, small Wall or Petries Pillar.
I love doing Renee’s guided snorkels and I think her prices are very reasonable. It is like having your own personal guide any time you want one to take you wherever you want to go!!! I call her old eagle eyes!! I know you all think I get a commission, and I don’t, but she really does see things that I would have missed all the time and knows where everything lives!!! I even appreciated her knowledge even more this trip as the girls and I went off on our own a few times and it can be quite tricky navigating entry. Also Renee would know the best direction to go in for all the good stuff.
When I wasn’t out with Renee’s guided snorkels or on the Woodwind, I would be snorkeling around the Divi. The cement pier is full of life and the corals continue to grow! The southern pier of the Divi has beautiful corals and sponges on the pillars. Of course I still love hanging above the little boat that they have sunk to the right of the cement pier with all kinds of life on and in it.
We had a wind reversal this trip for several days. It was wild. The water would be crashing on the promenade right in front of the Dive Inn!! But this reversal meant we could do the east side!!! We went to the Spelonk lighthouse, to Lac Cai twice and to the Sorobon side of Lac Bay.
This was my 13th trip to Bonaire. I have been in January, February, March, September, December and October. I have decided October is my favorite month because the water is so calm and warm. I usually wear a two mil skin with a three mil long sleeve shortie and sometimes even a helmet as I usually freeze, but this trip all I needed was the two mil or a bathing suit!! It is very hot and humid on land during the day but the nights are still enjoyable.
The sites I went to this trip were: Tories Reef, Sorobon, Andrea II, Andrea I, drift from Ebo’s to No Name at Kline, Vista Blue, Renee’s new find of an un- named site near the airport that was awesome, Lac Cai, the lighthouse and Calabas in front of the Divi.
Some of my highlights were:
I had one of the most exciting experiences at Lac Cai!! I was in the middle of a circle of a school of huge tarpons!!! I stopped counting at 12!! They were after some baitfish in some very shallow water. I only stayed for a short while as I began to wonder if I was the bait too! I didn’t get very good pictures. The water wasn’t clear and the couple of shots that I did get didn’t show the size of the tarpon and only two of them made it into the shot. The pictures clearly didn’t depict the exciting experience. There were also some good size schools of the Rainbow parrots and there were three or four huge Permit fish too. The fish seemed much bigger at Cai than what I am use to on the calm side. There were also a couple of Tarpon that would come and greet you when you entered the water by the boat ramp. There were some beautiful fans that seem to have a rainbow of colors at their bases. In the sea grass there were a ton of small lobsters everywhere. We didn’t see them our first trip but when we went with Renee she pointed them out to us. They sure do hide well. Renee also found a yellow cooney over there. The wind reversal made going to Lac Cai a possibility and it was great!
On one of the Woodwind sails we saw 6 turtles on the drift at Kline!!! I couldn’t believe there were so many at one time! Then we went over to Andrea and saw more turtles!! I actually saw two turtles together and that was a first for me!!! Over the two weeks I lost count of the amount of turtles that I saw. Also at Kline there was an adult Yellow headed jaw fish in the same hole that we saw the juvenile last March!!! Annouk found him again for me. I thought that was amazing.
I saw two Spotted Eagle rays this trip. One was at Kline and the other was at the new spot that Renee brought me to. They are such graceful creatures! At that same new spot we also saw four spotted drums and…… are you ready for this????? A baby trunk fish!!! He was soooooo cute. Just a little butterball and I did get pictures of that!
Each trip seems to be different. Sometimes you see lots of eels, juveniles, turtles, octopus, etc, etc. This trip I saw more turtles than I can remember, juvenile Rock Beauties were everywhere and lots of octopus were around. I did not see a lot of eels until my last snorkel which I thought was unusual. But then on my last snorkel I saw three or four Sharptail Eels out feeding, a Goldspotted Eel and a free swimming Chain Moray!! Up to that point I had only seen one small Green Moray and a few Goldentails. Three or four of the octopus that I found were swimming out in the open in the daytime which I thought was cool. My favorite was out in front of the Dive Inn. He was out feeding and a Bar Jack kept pissing him off. It was hysterical! When he was feeding he had his body sitting on a rock with his tentacles wrapped around each side of the rock. It was really neat to watch and I did get a picture!
Usually Queen angels are too deep for me to get pictures but when I was at Kline there was one up on the shelf. She was beautiful and I was able to get a few so so pictures of her. She is one of my favorites. There was also a slender filefish that snorkel..
Other great finds were: Huge Cuberra Snapper, Squid, juvenile Four Eye Butterfly, Porgys, huge Porcupine Puffers, large and small French Angels, Midnight Blue Parrotfish, a couple of huge lobsters and three or four Flamingo Tongues . Oh, I almost forgot. The most weirdest looking Redtail Parrotfish ever. All the other usual and beautiful characters were there to brighten up each and every snorkel!!
The only bad thing I can think of this trip was that I missed seeing dolphins twice. Once they swam by right in front of the Dive Inn at 7:30 AM and I got up at 8 and then on one of the Woodwind drifts I saw the group looking to the deep instead of the reef and I thought they were looking at all the sailboats going by for Regatta but they were actually seeing dolphins!!! Oh well, I will just have to go back again!!!! I am already anticipating March!!!!! Happy snorkeling and diving!!!!!
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By DARLENE ELLIS (Extraordinary BonaireTalker - Post #2258) on Saturday, November 4, 2006 - 2:27 pm: 
