Trip Report
Sand Dollar -- March 11-18
Overview: We just finished our first trip to Bonaire and, of course, can't wait to go back. The main focus of the trip was diving, and we had a fantastic time.
Flights/Transportation: We took the continental redeye in on March 10th. The flight landed in Bonaire early, and after a fairly long wait for our bags (1 of which, of course, was on the second truck they took off the plane) left customs intent on looking for a cab to the hotel (the reservations agent had told us the car rental places wouldn't be open). It turns out Total Car Rental was in fact open that early, so we waited about 20 minutes in line to find out that they didn't have a truck for us yet. The woman kindly offered to drive us to our hotel, though, so we were at sand dollar by 5 or 5:15, where we found the front desk already open. We got into our room and zonked out. Total delivered our rental truck later that morning. Standard double cab white truck (a Mazda) which served us fine. It didn't particularly like to start in the mornings, but we had no real problems. Our flight back was delayed quite a bit, which made for a very long day. We'd been warned at checkout about the storm in the northeast, but got up and headed for the airport at 3:45. Thanks to a tip here we'd paid our departure tax the day before, and we were at the airport soon enough that check in only took 15-20 minutes (there was an absolutely massive line by the time we went in through security). The outside-security restaurant opened around 5:15 and we had coffee there, but someone said there was a restaurant inside security so we decided to head in and relax there while we waited. It turns out there's a lunch counter there, which had no breakfast items (except coffee) and not much of anywhere to sit. Our plane finally left around 9-9:15 and we made it back to Newark uneventfully. All in all the non-stop continental was an excellent way to travel!
Accommodations: As I mentioned we stayed at Sand Dollar, primarily because our first choice after reading reviews didn't have any space (Buddy Dive). The reservations process was quite a hassle, it took 4 or 5 different phone calls to get everything in order, and even then we didn't get our confirmation until a couple days before departure (every time we talked with them, it seemed, they were having "computer problems"). On Saturday we discovered a minor error in the confirmation (dates of diving) and tried to call the office, which claimed to be open. Nobody ever picked up throughout the morning, so we finally called the resort directly and got things taken care of promptly. The condo itself was great, even better then we were expecting having read the room descriptions. We had F-15, a studio unit on the far northern end of the complex. It would've been nice to be closer to the dock and dive op, but overall we really have zero complaints about the unit.
Food: We ate out most meals, cooking dinner one night and having leftovers/sandwiches for lunch a number of days. We had the included breakfast buffet each morning, which was at best consistent. The staff at breakfast was very friendly, but except for omelettes the "hot food" was at best room temperature (even first thing in the morning). Most of the places we ate were good, though we want to make a better effort at finding smaller/cheaper places, we tended to have a list of things we'd seen recommended and walk into them when we saw them. It may be due to the places we ate, but in general food was a little more expensive then I'd expected. Clearly the main reason is due to how much has to be shipped in, but compared to say Cozumel where it's easy to eat great local food dirt cheap, Bonaire seemed to be a little pricier.
Specific notes:
lunch @ Papagayo: Picked because we drove by and it was open. Ok, nothing too remarkable; service was bad, but that seemed to be just our waitress.
dinner @ Cappriccio: Very good spaghetti carbonara was outstanding. Very nice and relaxing, not too terribly expensive.
lunch @ Sunrise Cafe: Chose again for the convenience factor, but it was surprisingly good for lunch.
dinner @ La Guernica: Tasty tapas, excellent banana dessert. Might try fish entrees next time instead of tapas.
Lunch @ City Cafe: Randomly picked cause we were hungry, was fine, nothing fantastic.
Dinner @ Mona Lisa Cafe: Very good fish of the day specials and tasty dessert. Decent wine.
Dinner @ Pasa Bon Pizza: Medium had leftovers. Fish pizza was good, but we'd probably just get a regular pizza next time ($$$). Yummy garlic bread and excellent chocolate cake.
Dinner @ Wil's Tropical Grill: A small hassle over drink coupons (skip them, they're only valid for slushy-machine-"margaritas"). Food was tasty and well prepared (both had fish).
We also went to a BBQ dinner put on by the same couple that did the breakfast buffet. This was a nice chance to eat outside and meet some other guests (all of whom seemed to be from the NY area like us!), though truth be told we'd probably pass next time.
Diving: Over the 6 days we could dive we ended up doing 18 dives. You can't beat the convenience of diving in Bonaire, and there were so many excellent short diving sites we never ended up doing any boat trips (saving Klein Bonaire for our next trip). Our favorite sites were Ol'Blue (which we preferred slightly to Karpata, even, though perhaps because we saw our only turtle of the trip at Ol'Blue), Taylor Made, and Bari Reef at night. We dove Bari most frequently, the Hilma Hooker twice (though once primarily to do the second/deep reef, which we'd skip next time despite seeing a huge eel), and other sites just once each. We didn't make it into the park or any further south the Hilma Hooker, though both are on our list for next time. Other sites we dove included Andrea I, 1000 Steps, Oil Slick Leap (hands down the easiest entry!), Karpata, Bachelor's Beach, Something Special, Front Porch, and Yellow Submarine.
The night dives on Bari were the first time we've really enjoyed night dives (we're relative novices, with about 75 dives each over the past 2.5-3 years). We saw our only stingray of the trip at night, and had fun trying to get Charlie the tarpon to eat (we'd been warned that he likes to get close).
On our night dive Wednesday night I managed to wrench my back, so we had to stick with some easier entries on Thursday and only two very easy entry dives on Friday, otherwise I think we definitely would've done around 20 dives (night dive Thursday and another 1-2 on Friday).
As I said, we used the unlimited shore diving option with a nitrox upgrade from Bonaire Dive Adventure (via Sand Dollar). Overall we were happy enough, though without another local operator to compare to I'm hesitant to really recommend them. Our main issues with them were:
1) It took some time (4 days!) to get a hook in the equipment room. It was clearly a busy week for them, but it was a real hassle trying to put two people's gear onto one set of hooks, and they clearly weren't interested in anything but newly registering guests. At one point the gentleman in the dive shop asked my wife what he was supposed to do, tell people they couldn't have a hook (somehow not realizing that was exactly what he was telling us). By Wednesday afternoon we finally got a second assigned space.
2) The SPG at the drive up fill station was inaccurate, and completely broken on one day. This wouldn't be a huge deal, except that short fills were a constant problem, it sometimes took rejecting 2 or 3 tanks to get one with 3000psi "cold". Probably due to how busy they were, but it was frustrating.
Nitrox fills were fairly consistent (subject to the short fill problems I mentioned above) at 30-31% (we had exactly one tank of 32, and one set that was only 28, but no real problems). If you want to do a night (or pre-8:30am) dive on Nitrox you need to pull the tank out ahead of time as they lock up nitrox by 4:30 or so.
I wish we'd been able to sign up for the fish ID course being offered by the naturalist with BDA, but it filled up immediately both days it was offered.
Pictures: You can see a number of the better (it's all relative!) shots at zenfolio . I finally got it through my thick skull that my little Sony and built in flash are only good within a couple feet of the critter/reef and otherwise I'm just adding to my already huge collection of blue/green shadow shots!
A couple of my favorites from this trip (see zenfolio for most of them, since I couldn't get anything but a thumbnail down to 50k for most of my favorites.
 
Miscellaneous: We had a fantastic time on Bonaire and can't wait to return. I was pleasantly surprised by Sand Dollar and even Bonaire Dive & Adventure, after hearing some negative reports from our local dive shop. The diving, of course, can't be beat for convenience. Almost without exception everyone we met (locals and tourists) on the island was friendly.
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By Scott McCool (New BonaireTalk Poster - Post #3) on Tuesday, March 20, 2007 - 3:58 pm: 
