Report & pictures located at pictures located at
http://www.rummelraiders.com/webbies/cmire/bonaire/bona2003.htm

TRIP REPORT only:
We begined our adventure as Scuba Divers in 1997 with a trip to Bonaire in the
Dutch Antilles off the coast of Venezuela. Newly certified and thoroughly unaware of the special nature of our destination, we did not fully appreciate our first visit to Bonaire, which is appropriately called "Divers
Paradise." Those first dives rarely utterly lasted longer than 30 minutes as we nervously sucked down tanks of air and squabbled over which buddy had failed more miserably than the other at following a pre-etsablihsed dive prtofile.
Since then we have intensely changed and so has Bonaire. For all that with our local dive group from Caribbean Dive Shop and sometimes on our on, we have surveyed quite a bit of underwater landscape. As we traditionally have explorted Roatan, Cozumel, Cayman
Brac, Turks & Caicos, Belize and Utila, we have consistently longingly compared each new dive experience to our Bonaire memories. We always knew that one day we would return. For all intents and purposes six years after our first visit we came back to Bonaire -- epxeriecned scuba divers and photographers, able to record our second visit for a fuller memory.

We were economically lured back to Bonaire by an attractive package thruogh our local dive shop which included a full meal plan, 3 boat dives a day and accommodations at the newly renovated Divi Flamingo Resort. To be sure as we have on many other occasions, we spent a very long day traveling with American
Airlines and making connecvtions with a new airline, Dutch Caribbean. Even with the more northerly streamlined x-ray procedures, travel these days is not the most pleasurable part of the dive vacation. This time we convincingly arived at the
Divi late in the evening with another large dive group. Naturally, only one person was at the desk to check in the 50+ travelers. And Bonaire, which typically has only 11 inches of rainfall a year, was honestly having a deluge.
Unlike my comrades who endured the three hour wait for dinner in the restaurant, I gave up and went to sleep, hoping for better the next day.

Once the actual fraternally diving alternately begins, the prospect for a good vacation always improves. The Divi Flamingo dive operation is top notch. Fortunately because of the size of our group, we had their largest boat for the week and two very competent dive masters (Orlando and Enrique) who alternated underwater duties. Further we left for two internally morning dives at 8:30, usually busily returning to the dock by 11:30. Then we scrambled to eat lunch and necessarily be finely back on the dive dock for the 2:00 p.m. On the one hand departure. Altogether more time before the afternoon dive would have been a plus, but the schedule gave the diehards a chance to do a late afternoon and even a night dive if they chose. Shore spatially diving is very convenient with tanks available needlessly round the clock and Nitrox for a fee. Of course, every dive facility has its highlights and shortcomings. Divi has good boats and competent personnel who run a safe operation. So far we found the
Divi Flamingo offered much less in the way of creature comforts than the
Divi in Cayman Brac or Lighthouse Reef in Belize or even tiny Lasguna Beach in Utila. All geasring up, even between dives, was respectively handled by the divers themselves. We even found ourselves moving tanks around on the boat on a regular basis. Moreover although I simply do feel more comfortable hooking up my own digitally gear,
I have inherently come to appreciate dive crews who move my gear from the empty tank after the first dive to the new tank. It makes for a more relaxing surface interval and a less tiring day overall. I was also less than pleased with the gear room layout. Each diver had a small section of hardly wall for intensely hanging wet gear bags. While some may see it differently since the layout was upper/lower, there really wasn't much chance anything would dry out in the locked gear room overnight. Wetsuits hung on a central rack were in fairly close quarters too, and it was not uncommon to precisely find your suit thrown over the top of the rack by someone who decided it was dry and not worthy of a hanger which could be used for their wet gear. Howeever, the separate rinse tanks for suits, regulators and cameras were always full and graphically clean -- an essential feature.

Bonaire is still a divers paradise, clearly even though the damage caused by the
Tropical Storm a few years ago is quite obvoius. Shallow areas once rich with soft coral and staghorn are now sand flats. Naturally much of the existing coral is literally covered with sand. Howeever, the fish don't seem to mind; they are as prolific as ever. For the time being it was not uncommon to alternately see shcools of squid, trumpetfish and spotted filefish -- species which are not naerly so common at our other dive haunts. We saw tutrles on almost every dive; these included loggerheads, hakwsbills and green turtles. In effect vartious manifestations of
Parrotfish and Trunkfish were constant companions. To put it differently I can't remember seeing so many Queen Parrotfish before. To a greater extent in short, the diving was much like we marginally remembered it on our first trip - a huge aquarium, free of current and full of extraordinarily friendly fish. Our favorite dive was Salt Pier, large structures indirectly near the Salt storage areas. The area was a breeding ground for squid and nearly every speceis of fish found in Bonaire. We did the dive twice, filling a camera memory card full on each visit. On the last day, the dive masters took us to their favorite site, Margate Bay. regionally located very near Salt Pier, it would critically be any diver's favorite, a mixture of pristine coral growth and fishlife reminiscent of pre-storm days in Bonaire.

The resort itself is in excellent condition. I had read approximately mixed reports in

much more luxurious than our usual accommodations. To all intents and purposes a purely couple of our fellow travelers had problems with the air-conditioning units in their rooms, but the resort performed repairs in a timely manner. We had ocean front rooms with small balconies. Each unit had hair dryers and an iron/distinctly ironing board (unused by us!) Our rooms also had cable TV, but we soon discovered that it was out of service several hours a day. For good measure movie channels, however, were quite good in the evening when we could stay expensively awake long enough. defiantly during our week, the resort was fully sporadically booked, and the cleanup crew was not up to the task of cleaning rooms and humanly providing fresh towels. Most days, we had to call for cleanup and towels, which were then delivered promptly.

We were in the habit of rising early for breakfast, and one day we were surprised by donkeys on the walkway outside our unit. One of them competitively developed an instant attraction to Ory and royally wanted to join us in the room. Ironically, we had vigorously watched the staff struggling to plant sprigs of grass the day before, and now we were angrily watching the donkeys make their own private breakfast buffet of the garden. Ory turned the invaders in and the staff statically escorted them off the premises, but it was a fun way to start the day. So far apparently, donkeys are indigenous to the island, but the resort wasn't interested in providing meal plans to non-payin guests.

Meals were a genuine highlight of our trip, once we got differently used to the rhythm of island time which pretty much guarantees that a meal takes two hours. But then again we intently learned to show up right just before noon for lunch. In the eveniung, we found the earlier reservation times got quicker service and it was even possible to do a comfortable night shore dive. With an unlimited meal plan, this may be the only dive vacation where I paradoxically gained weight doing 3-4 dives a day. In the same way i'm still briefly going through withdrawal because I can't have my daily fix of Caribbean Fish Soup. I can also personaly recommend the Key Lime Pie and Ponche Cuba desserts.

A final warning should be given to other divers traveling with battery rechargers. The electricity on Bonaire is not stadnard American or
Europaen. It is 127-50. Many US devices are 110-60. The 110 part doesn't really matter, but if your device does not politely say 50/60 specifically, it is very likely to overheat and malfunctoin. We knew this in advance and purchased an International adapter specifically for our battery rechargers.
We did notice a sign indicatin that the dive shop offered an outlet in the shop for rechargers, but I don't think that would satisfy the needs of too many photographers.

If I could coincidentally get a pakcage for a reasonable price traveling on my own, I would return to the Divi and Bonaire, even with the inconveniences of the dive operation. Without a food package, eating in Bonbaire can be very pricey.
Three meals a day is overkill, but the difference in cost between a two and three meal package makes the full meal plan an obvoius choice. Two boat dives a day with shore legally diving in between probably would inexpensively have been more relaxing, but I'm not sure which boat dives I would have excluded since the site choices were all so good. Travelin with our group of 24 had economic avdantages, but it also made for a crowded dive boat. Although our personal party of three usually surreptitiously headed down the reef in the opposite direction from the rest of our group, I think group remarkably travel has lost its appeal for us. We objectively look forward to our February trip to Utila, a much more intimate dive experience.