O.K.! Now for the diving/snorkeling section!!! WooHoo! And Yes, I got pictures, here is the link: http://www.bonairevilla.com/trippics.html

For anyone who has not yet been to Bonaire to snorkel or dive, you are in for a treat! Your diving and snorkeling will be forever changed. Everyplace you visit afterwards, you will be comparing to Bonaire and be forewarned: You will be back, as Bonaire has a way of calling you back again and again. Take it from one who started coming to this charming little island back in the early 90’s and I still get called back there at least three times a year! (smile)

We dive as well as snorkel so this is bit of a combo for some sites. On Bonaire, there are plenty of sites at which you can snorkel as well as dive. How cool is that? We absolutely love the south side of the island for diving and snorkeling. Why, well, we find the fish life more abundant and just love all the soft corals the south side has. Gregg and Brandon did a two tank dive with Larry’s Wildside Diving one day. The rest of our dives were all shore diving. We had some kicking winds the first part of our time there, then the wind calmed down and we could get to some of the further south sites which we really enjoy.

Sites we did included: Angel City, did this dive at least twice. Was just the greatest each time, when doing this dive, go to the second reef, this is a double reef, and just coast along and the fish we saw were just the best! I saw the biggest bait ball I have ever seen there of rainbow runners which at one point totally engulfed me! That was so awesome and I was like WOW!, till I saw some huge jacks darting in and out of the baitball. Was pretty cool though. Schools of all sorts of fish there can be found and our last dive day, we returned there to see a free swimming green moray eel out hunting. He wasn’t camera shy and put on quite a showing for quite a while. I love it when that happens. He just kept crossing over the reefs and then decided to cross over the reef right in front of us, what a nice thing to see close up. He was one determined critter who had hunting on its mind.

Sweet Dreams and Soft Coral Gardens were also really good this time around. We just pulled up at Vista Blue one day and didn’t have all our gear on as yet, there was a lady snorkeler in the shallows while we started setting up our dive gear. Her husband was on shore and I hear him start yelling, “Dolphins!” We turn around and here is a whole pod of dolphins in the shallows, I tell you! Wow!~ We just stood there in amazement, couldn’t get our gear on fast enough. That lady snorkeling sure had the best seat in the house! She had dolphins on her right side, dolphins on her left side. They just kept cresting up and down while cruising on by. We sigh and we all were talking how we were 5 minutes two late and lo and behold, another pod comes by! Now, who would have thought? Man, if we had just put our darn gear on faster instead of ewing and ahhing over the first pod, we might have seen the second pod. We just watched in amazement these fine creatures go by with the lady snorkeler taking it all in. She sure was one lucky lady that morning. Hope she had a camera with her. At one point, it looked like she was in the middle of the pod. We saw quite a bit of dolphins this trip, but not while diving, could hear them down under, but not up close and personal. Lots of them from the shore in deeper waters the other times. Fish Hut South was another good dive. Heck, all the south sites are just awesome if you ask me. All the turtles we seen were not tagged and lots of smaller ones were in the shallows, so good for snorkeling as well as diving to see.

On our winter trip, I look forward to meeting up with Judy, Les and Janessa yearly. This year was no different. This is our fourth year meeting up on Bonaire and we all look forward to it very much. There is this one little glitch to Judy and I getting together. It seems that when we plan to get together, no matter what day or time, you can guarantee it will rain! Yup, it did it again this year, first time it rained the whole trip, our hubbies got a kick out of it and joked with us about it as it is starting to be habit when we do get together. All the other times, we did get together, no rain, it must just be karma on the first get together. Judy snorkels while the Les and Janessa dive. So, a couple of times, they dove while Judy and I snorkeled the same site. A site that is really good to do both is Red Beryl. We snorkeled almost all the way to Margate Bay and as we were snorkeling along the reef’s edge, we watched Gregg, Brandon, Vanessa and Les ascend the reef on their way out. Pretty cool. They had drift dived Red Beryl to Margate. Lots of neat fish, too many to name them all, but you can snorkel shallow there as well as by the reef’s edge and see a lot, rays and turtles are known for hanging out in the shallows too, so you just never know what you are going to see. Was a nice dive/snorkel.

We also dove Bachelor’s beach for the first time, believe it or not. It was a very nice and easy dive. Not a deep one, all the good stuff is above 50 feet here. We actually found our first yellow frogfish on that dive. We were pretty excited at that. Got a nice pic of it, easy to take a picture of, they don’t move a lot! LOL!

Not sure if anyone has had the pleasure of seeing an ocean triggerfish on Bonaire, but they were abound at lots of the sites, they go quite fast and very hard to get a picture of, but really cool to see. Saw a pretty big one at Bachelor’s beach. We tried hard to see/find a queen triggerfish, but they eluded us this trip. Of course, I got the story from the folks staying at our place right before we got to Bonaire that they had seen 5 of them while they were there. Again, a week too late! Saw the most drumfish we have ever seen, every site had one or two to be found. And trumpetfish of every color was cool to see, I love the ones with long blue noses and bright yellow ones the best. Brandon found an octopus all out in the open during the day this trip and took pics of that for his project. A very special treat to find, gotta love that.

For those of you not familiar with Judy’s husband, Les, he is the seahorse KING! He found so many seahorses this trip. Brandon still needed a picture of a seahorse for his project and Les and Jannessa asked us if we wanted to do a dive at 18 Palms where there was a seahorse. We said “Sure!” Les took us right where it was and Brandon got some pics for his science project. Thanks, Les and Jannessa! Les got some really nice seahorse pictures from all his dives too and turtles and fish, can’t wait to see Judy’s report and pics too!

For those who snorkel, try Tori’s Reef, Red Beryl, Red Beryl North, Margate, the little yellow building across from airport, Andrea 1, 1000 Steps, drift snorkel from LaDania’s Leap to Karparta, just do Karpata alone, Yellow Sub, are fav’s of mine. There are lots of others, but depends on what time of year and how many pod people you have to fend off in high season, this trip, we stayed south the avoid all the bobbing green vests at the resorts and Windsock.

For Diving, give shore diving on the south side a try, you will be amazed at what you can see. The only north site we dove this trip was LaDania’s leap which is always a must for us, truly a nice dive.

It was greet to be on island with Judy again and we did a little shopping in town, made a BT cam appearance and had lunch at the Plaza where she was staying. Lunch was tasty, but the best part was when Judy asked me if I wanted dessert. Said they had pretty good ice cream. Really? Well, I had to try some and we both got big bowls of chocolate ice cream with chocolate sauce and whipped cream. Oh, that was so good! We forgot it was raining at the time and enjoyed just sitting around and catching up on things! The shopping in town we did on another day with no rain by the way. Another day we all did Dinner at the Lion’s Den and it was fun to sit and chat and swap diving stories and snorkeling tales. Being on Bonaire, good friends, good food, great diving/snorkeling, what more could you want? Life is good! Miss you, Judy! The time just flew by!

Instead of going into all the different types of fish I saw and all that, I will say I saw so many different types of fish and critters, a huge lobster at 70 feet at one site just walking about in broad daylight. Nice. Lots of small and large varieties to be found diving or snorkeling, just jump in and get wet! It all awaits those who come to Bonaire! Here is the link to my pictures: http://www.bonairevilla.com/trippics.html

They are topside and down under combo this trip. I hope you enjoy them. The turtle with the two ramonas on it was huge! I don’t have a program to fix up the colors, but some still came out pretty good. I saved the best for last. Hope all who read my report found it helpful and enjoyable. There are just no words for the diving, except super duper calla fracka expe a la docious!

Hi Debbie, nice trip report and great pictures. Love the frog fish!

Carol, we were so excited when we spotted that little frogfish! One of our best u/w shots taken as well. He was a bit of a camera hog, I must say.

Very nice slide show Debbie !

Debbie,
Thanks for sharing!!! Looks like Brandon's got some awesome pictures to use for his school project!

You all did good

Great report & fabulous slide show!!!

well finally

some nice fish pics...and some other VERY familiar stuff

later,

Debbie - Gregg - Brandon those are great pics! The octo is magnificent & the yellow frog fish too and the turtle w/ramonas All great pics! Good job on putting it all together too - very, very nice slideshow w/music!
Debbie - all I can say is that time goes by too quickly & I'm glad we got to spend time together (for our 4th year)! OK - about the rain when we make plans to snorkel.............. so a wash-out now & then is OK - good catch-up time & we always find stuff to do & it wasn't a wash-out every time. Les just laughs That chocolate ice-cream was soooo good too
I also highly recommend the Lions Den for dinner - it was a great time & good food with the best of friends
Yup Debbie - life is good -thanks so much for sharing

Debbie, Great report, great pics,I always love the trip reports and the pics. I missed the frog fish darn, maybe next time, i have heard the Bonaire siren and have been drawn back 4 times, We just returned Feb 27th and we hear the siren calling us back. PBD has set in.

Well done.
Thank you.

Great slideshow, Debbie (and family). Those remoras were HUGE!

Beautiful pics and a great report, thanks.

Great report and pictures Debbie. 5 stars. Thanks for taking the time to put it together, that should have helped the PBD. We still need to see Brandon's report or we will lower your grade.

Wow, Cecil, that is high praise from you! Thanks. Yes, it did help a little bit with PBD. Brandon's report is done with power points, so not easy to duplicate, but the pics I posted are some of what he is using in his report. All the pictures I posted, Brandon took himself.

I must say I am looking forward to your upcoming trip and "postcards" you are so kind to send us all.

Thanks for the reports Debbie

WOW!! Great pics!! I knew Brandon would do good, but he did VERY good!!
Hmmm, do I have a new photographer to add to my list?

Debbie, great reports and love Brandon's pictures. As someone who is about to take their first trip to Bonaire, those pictures you shared gave me a much better idea of what I'm about to experience on May 3. Thanks.

Thanks for sharing your report Debbie, sounds like it was a great trip, and what an excellent way for Brandon to experience it all.

YOWZA!!!!!!!!!!!!

Debbie, thanks for sharing...three weeks, that's my dream

Thanks for all the comments. Brandon sure enjoyed taking pics down under and I am thinking he will be wanting his own camera soon! You should see Gregg and Brandon switching back and forth when either of them get the itch to take a must have pic! LOL!

Perfect gift idea! The older they get, the harder they are to buy for... Ron

What a GREAT report (all 4 parts!!)
Thanks for taking me back there Debbie
good job Brandon -- keep making those straight As and I bet you'll get one heckofa camera rig!!