Sorry to have been gone so long, but I chose to spend my time on Bonaire in the water rather than behind a computer screen. And there were quite a few things to do when I got home. But here is my trip report.

Flight: Arkefly Amsterdam – Bonaire & vice versa
More legroom than KLM in Comfort Class, but bad service, old airplanes, long delays (9 hours on the flight to Bonaire).

Stayed at: Coco Palm Garden – Kas Contentu. Lovely place, decorated with style, good value, lots of space, nice owners (Richard stop working!) & staff, nice hammocks (bought one at the Plantation to take home) & gardens. Minus: noise from the airport during the early hours and the dogs at night, no safe in the apartments.

Food: due to bad stomach lots of cooking in, but we did visit:
- Bobbejan’s (3 times, once to bring a letter from Bobbejan’s daughter in law –my wife’s colleague, once with Cindy & Michael, Susan & Lisa, Anonymous B., Nick & Cora and others, and also on our last night (Susan, where were you?). Unpretentious, good food at a good price, very lively but relaxed. Only minus was the tofu gado gado served up with sate sauce instead of gado gado sauce.
- Will’s Tropical Grill: a tip from Susan. So far without competition the best restaurant I’ve tried on Bonaire. Not the best location, but a real cook at work here. Try the day specials.
- Citycafe: loud, noisy, overpriced and nothing special
- Pinchos de Brasil: Cheap lunches, nice terraces, but no real quality here.
- Rose Inn (Rincon): relaxed lunch in the shade, some local specialties, good value.
- Wattaburger: Dutch-style junk food. Terrible atmosphere, hot, noisy, slow.
- Choyce Shake Bar (Rincon): heavy sweet but fresh. And where else can you get a mispelshake?

Snorkeled: Karpata, 1000 Steps, Oil Slick Leap, the Andrea’s, Windsock, Bachelor’s Reef, Invisibles, Tori’s Reef, Chogogo, mangroves, somewhere of Klein with Mushi Mushi, a treat from Cindy & Michael (thanks again guys!). Karpata is by far the most beautiful, but on all sites you can encounter the most beautiful critters, if you look hard enough. Most memorable: the huge barracuda at Windsock, the lovely turtles at Karpata, the giant octopus at 1000 Steps, the yellowhead jawfish at work at Bachelor’s Beach, the “mother of all black margates” (quote from Susan) near Klein and the flying fish on the way over, E.T. the giant porcupinefish in the mangroves, the spotted drums at Windsock, the soapfishes hiding on their sides, the beautiful reef squid in various places, all the morays and eels, and the lobsters, flounders, fireworms, black durgons, bonefish, jacks of all kinds, and lots, lots more, including all the colourful tiny stuff. We “only” saw dolphins from the shore this time and once heard them under water, and we only heard about the whales – never got to see those, alas.

General observations:
Plus: the snorkelling everywhere, meeting with fellow BT’ers Cindy & Michael, Susan & Lisa, Jerry & Louise + Brian & ?, Brigitte, and others, appearing on the webcam on Feb. 1 to congratulate a friend in Holland, the birdlife everywhere but especially near Dos Pos, the bee trees, the tour of Mangasina di Rei by an inspired Danilo (every weekday at 2 p.m.), taking underwater shots for the first time (with a small digital camera in a cheap flexible housing)
Minus: building & construction everywhere (there is even talk about developing Karpata), Linda Baker’s sad tale in the Reporter, groups of divers and snorkellers misbehaving (walking and standing on corals, racing around following turtles, littering etc), many mosquitoes and sand flies (?), the fisherman who drives his car through the mangroves, the jet skiers misbehaving at night near Karel’s, seeing the sandmaking contraption still at work near Onima, the kite flyer that nearly decapitated us when he went south all the way to Salt Pier, very close to the beach, missing seeing the whales that were so close.

All in all a very nice trip on which we got to meet some very nice people and fishes.

I'll try again.


The pics:
Above water:


frigatbird


bee tree




Rincon architecture


trupial


indigenous snails


cactus roof at Mangasina di Rei

Under water:

Danielle snorkelling










on Karpata pier








who is able to eat calamari after seeing this?






Karpata, of course

cool pics;)

Way to go Anonymous!

Anonymous,

Wonderful pictures and excellent observations. It was great to meet you and Danielle. Hope you'll come back soon.

(the other) Anonymous

Anonymous..Nice trip report & glad for the most part you enjoyed your stay..
Quote ..{the kite flyer that nearly decapitated us when he went south all the way to Salt Pier, very close to the beach}..
I'd send an e mail to STINAPA and give them the details of this, when occurred & what happened. No good reason for this stuff..

Go team, go. "Rincon architecture" = good cracker!

Thanks for the positive feedback, everyone.

Bob: I'm sorry I forgot to include you in the BT-ers we met, but I didn't know you were a Bt-er also. I enjoyed our chat. I'm honoured a good photographer like yourself thinks my pics are cool!

Jerry: did you try the hachee yet?

Other Anonymous: great to have met you and that you like my input. Hope to come back soon - are you paying?

Vince: Good idea, I'll send an e-mail to Stinapa asap.

Jon: just for you, more Rincon architecture:

Anonymous,

I would pay, but then you and Danielle would get spoiled. Sorry, but it's for your own good.

;)
Other Anonymous

Other Anonymous,

I understand, but I'm also very sad.

Other other Anonymous

nice pics, you sure saw a lot snorkeling, more than I ever did. Great squid shot !

Great pics! Sorry to hear about the kitesurfer and the misbehaving divers/snorkelers. Some people just are not very nice.

Vince, Tribs,
I mailed my complaint to STINAPA a few minutes ago. If they react I'll let you know.

Anonymous, great report and pics. It was a pleasure meeting you and Danielle, and getting to spend time together so many times! Tell Danielle I am "hoarding" her bee honey! I have "hidden" it for a special occasion with some tea hee hee. Now I need to finish my trip report so I can post the Mushi Mushi pics

Other other Anonymous, thank you for this great report and the other thread where you posted the wonderful photos of bees

R. Scott, thanks for the compliment - we saw a lot more, but my photographing skills leave much to be desired. And the great thing about Bonaire is that anyone who can hold his/her head under water for a few seconds like me, can see the most wonderful things!

Tom C. - glad you liked it, and the bees as well.

And Cynde, if you put honey in hot tea, it will lose a lot of its flavor and all of its healthy enzymes! Maybe on toast?

Vince, Tribs, I received an e-mail from Ramon from STINAPA:

"Dear Anonymous:

Thank you very much for your report. We are working at this moment in a zonation plan to solve this problem before a serious accident happen. I will personally contact the Kite school to inquire if they know something about this incident. Thanks again for your input and for interest on Bonaire.

*****************************
Ramon de Leon.
Manager - Bonaire National Marine Park."

I know they've been planning this zoning thing for a while, let's hope it will be implemented soon, before anything serious happens. The one we saw kiting and jumping, about 20-30 feet from the shore - behind us, as we were snorkeling over the reef, made a couple of snorkelers that were just about getting into the water think twice and leave the site. We never snorkeled the South end after that - better be safe than sorry.

Anonymous, toast it is :-)

Thanks for posting the response Anonymous.

nice trip report,nice colors,great pics.....more please !