Bonaire Sand Dollar trip report

Although my "package" was to arrive on Saturday and leave the following
Saturday, my airfare was out of Atlanta which necessitated an overnight
stay so I actually left on Friday and returned home on Sunday.

Security going to Bonaire in the Atlanta airport went quite smoothly
considering the massive number of people that needed to be screened.
The line, while quite long, moved quickly and I was through the
screening area in about 30 minutes or less.

Our flight from Atlanta was on Air Jamaica which included a stop in
Montego Bay for about an hour or so layover. Finally arriving at the
Flamingo airport on Bonaire we were met by the car rental agent who
provided us with our 8 rental trucks. The forms were signed, the trucks
were assigned to our groups and we were on our way. We had a fairly
large group from our area, 28 divers in all. Sunday morning brought a
briefing on local diving conditions, resort policies and familiarization
and the purchase of the Marine park tag ($25). We needed to make a
weight checkout dive and afterwards we were on our own. The briefing
which lasted 2 hours, seemed like it went on forever but only because I
was so anxious to get in the water.

We stayed at the Sand Dollar condominiums and resort which is located on
Bari Reef. The condominium where we stayed was clean, well accomodated
with a full kitchen, living room area, 1 bath, and two bedrooms. The
condos had satellite TV with quite a few US networks featured, however,
I found very little time to watch TV. My roommate and dive partner, is
a retired Geology professor from a local university. We also teamed up
with a fellow who teaches computer technology in the local school
system. The other 2 people in our condo had just married and were using
this as their honeymoon trip.

While we had a fairly large group from our area (28 people), we saw very
little of them during the week. Occasionally we would pass someone we
knew on one of the dive sites or sometimes wind up at the same dive site
with someone in our group but that was only by chance.

All of my dives were shore dives, however, a boat trip to Klein Bonaire
was taken by my dive buddies one morning. Klein Bonaire, I was told was
once owned by Harry Bellafonte and purchased by the island of Bonaire
and remains uninhabited except for the sea turtles that lay their eggs
there.

We essentially had 5 days of diving considering the first part of Sunday
was taken up with the briefing and the Marine Park tag purchase. We
chose not to dive in the afternoon of the Friday before we left.

Sand Dollar offers free nitrox for those appropriately trained. All of
the mixes measured 29-31% and tanks could be obtained by the boat dock,
or at a parking lot area behind the dive shop near the compressor for
easy loading into a vehicle.

For those who may not be familiar with Bonaire, while boat diving is
offered, many divers choose to load their gear in a truck and dive from
the shore. The dive sites are marked by moderately sized rocks that are
painted bright colors and feature the name of the dive site. Naturally
we dove Bari Reef multiple times since is was a mere 200 yard walk from
our room to the dock and into the water. But we also visited "Angel
City" where we entered, did a leisurely drift dive to the "Hilma Hooker"
(wreck), and exited. We parked our vehicles so we would not have to
haul the gear a great distance back to our entry point. We also visited
"White Slave", "Oil Slick", "Tori's Reef", "Ol Blue", "Front Porch",
"Soft Coral Garden", "Alice in Wonderland" "18th Palm" and "Karpata".
Some of the shore diving was relatively easy, but some a bit more
challenging having to contend with a somewhat heavy surf that seemed to
enjoy knocking you down. I have the battle scars on my left shin and
knee and a torn wetsuit so subtantiate my story but my tenacity to
intermingle with the Bonaire marine life overcame even natures attempts
to keep me out.

As I mentioned previously, my dive buddies were the professor and a
teacher. I have been trying to figure out some way of getting some
"Gilligans Island" connection in here but I have given up on that. The
professor has been diving for quite a few years, but many of his dives
were research dives. Some quite fascinating stories, and some humorous,
as he told of diving the frozen regions of Antarctica. Turned out, my
dive buddies enjoyed night diving as much as I did, so we were out every
night. On one night, we made a trip north from "Bari Reef" for a
somewhat uneventful dive other that a moray eel or two and I spotted a
very small octopus. However, on the way back we were joined and
"escorted" by 3-4 very large tarpon. The professor and myself were
using HID lights and the teacher had an 8 cell halogen light. The
tarpon stay close to us swiming within touching distance in front, from
behind underneath, and all around us. They were most interested in our
lights and were obviously using the illumination for hunting. While the
tarpon did not act aggressive towards us at all, it was still a bit
unnerving to have one pass directly underneath you from behind. We
found we could actually direct the path of the tarpon by pointing our
HID lights at various spots. The professor found this quite amusing and
talked about that dive for days. Another favorite location for our
night dives turned out to be "Oil Slick" which was on the northern end
of the island. "Oil Slick" is fairly remote with only a few houses
around and no city lights to intrude on our dive. Entry to "Oil Slick"
was a 5ft giant stride from either a nearby flat block of concrete or a
ladder attached to the rocks. While the moon was nearly full and
provided some light for our dives, there is something about doing a
giant stride 5 feet into the water below at night that gives you a bit
of an adrenaline rush. A buoy nearby provided us a rope to hang a
strobe marker beacon for our return navigation. One trip to "Oil Slick"
showed us the largest lobster any of had ever seen. I am certain we
could have ridden him back to the resort but that would have left our
vehicle stranded there.

Dive conditions were always superior. Visibility was always at least
100 ft and often time more. Water temperatures varied but stayed in the
77-81 deg F range. An exception to that was one day, I did hit a
noticeable thermocline at 108 ft which brought the temperature to 73
degrees. While I using a .5 mil skin for protection, the cooler
temperature didn't bother me.

One of the divers in our group spotted a manta ray. This was met with a
bit of skepticism back with the resort until they were shown the
photographs.

Friday, we ended our diving with a morning dive at "Karpata".
Negotiating the steps in a full rig was challenging but not nearly as
challenging as entering the water and trying maintain your balance on
the rocks just a few inches under the surface of the surf, and avoiding
the sea urchins that have posted themselves as little mines between the
rocks. We returned to the resort and dove one last time on Bari Reef
spotting a few morays and just minutes before starting our safety stop,
saw and photographed a sea horse clinging to some coral.

Sand Dollar resort and I think most other dive operations on Bonaire are
pretty much a "do your own thing" type of diving. We certainly had very
little inter-action with any of the dive staff aside from the first day
orientation.

All in all, I logged 19 dives, 5 of them night dives, and 15 hours of
bottom time.

Topside activities are somewhat limited, as Kralyndyke, being the major
population center of the 6 mile by 25 mile island, is relatively small.
For people from the US that might get homesick, I did manage to locate
a "Subway" and a "KFC" and even a Harley Davidson shop. Sand Dollar has
a nice open air restaurant overlooking Klein Bonaire and facing west.
Meals were pricey but very good. One of the things I noticed about all
of the restaurants on Bonaire, the wait staff does not refill you
beverage as is commonplace in the US. You most often have to ask for it
and then it is an extra charge on your bill.

While our room had no phone, internet was "available"....well sort of.
There is a small convenience store near the resort that runs a wireless
internet service. I located what appeared to be nodes or relay stations
on all of the resort buildings but could never get a signal. So I took
my laptop to the store where they had some small tables and chairs set
up for people to access the internet. You could either access it with a
WiFi card or there were two ethernet plugs run through the front wall.
Internet access cost $35 for the week which I paid, mainly to keep in
contact at home. I did share this with the couple we shared our condo
with. The owner of the convenience store was a likeable chap who told
me I was welcome to use the phone on the wall and call home. He told me
he was using "voice of internet" which was a minimal cost and he let his
customers call home for free. I called my wife and spoke with her. She
was quite suprised to get the call. The shop owner did caution me about
using the phone. He wanted to know if I had caller ID on my home phone,
which I do. He had one customer who used the phone to call home and the
caller ID showed "Florida" to the wife whose husband was supposed to be
in Bonaire.

Saturday was our return day with our flight scheduled to take off at
3:15. We kept getting varied reports the flight was early, the flight
was late, there were inadequate security people at the airport and
checking in was going to be delayed. Our flight finally arrived and we
were about 3 hours late taking off. While this didn't affect anyone in
our group, others on the plane had to spend the night in Montego Bay.
It did however, put me into Atlanta around 1am and I was quite tired.
I found it quite odd, that on my arrival from Bonaire, I picked up my
luggage from the carousel and met with some Air Jamaica employees who
took my bags from me and put them on yet another belt. I then proceeded
through yet another security checkpoint complete with the x-ray
machines, metal detectors, etc, to get me OUT of the arriving passenger
area and into the terminal. I guess they didn't want to take a chance
on a hotel shuttle bus getting hijacked by someone who might have
smuggled a weapon of minimal destruction on the plane.
My return flight from Atlanta was at 10:45. I got there a little over 2
hours early, but again, the security screening process went quite
smoothly and I spent a lot of time waiting in the concourse. I guess
thats better than missing the flight all together though.

Delta airlines, bless their heart, were constantly making announcements
over the PA system in the concourse about flight delays, broken planes,
etc. My flight was delayed about 30 minutes and they left my dive bag
in Atlanta. Just got it back today (everything intact) and have cleaned
of all the gear and I am now ready for my next dive.

On Jul 2, 4:17 pm, nitespark <nitesp...@cox.net> wrote:
> Although my "package" was to arrive on Saturday and leave the following
> Saturday, my airfare was out of Atlanta which necessitated an overnight
> stay so I actually left on Friday and returned home on Sunday.
>
> Security going to Bonaire in the Atlanta airport went quite smoothly
> considering the massive number of people that needed to be screened.
> The line, while quite long, moved quickly and I was through the
> screening area in about 30 minutes or less.
>
> Our flight from Atlanta was on Air Jamaica which included a stop in
> Montego Bay for about an hour or so layover. Finally arriving at the
> Flamingo airport on Bonaire we were met by the car rental agent who
> provided us with our 8 rental trucks. The forms were signed, the trucks
> were assigned to our groups and we were on our way. We had a fairly
> large group from our area, 28 divers in all. Sunday morning brought a
> briefing on local diving conditions, resort policies and familiarization
> and the purchase of the Marine park tag ($25). We needed to make a
> weight checkout dive and afterwards we were on our own. The briefing
> which lasted 2 hours, seemed like it went on forever but only because I
> was so anxious to get in the water.
>
> We stayed at the Sand Dollar condominiums and resort which is located on
> Bari Reef. The condominium where we stayed was clean, well accomodated
> with a full kitchen, living room area, 1 bath, and two bedrooms. The
> condos had satellite TV with quite a few US networks featured, however,
> I found very little time to watch TV. My roommate and dive partner, is
> a retired Geology professor from a local university. We also teamed up
> with a fellow who teaches computer technology in the local school
> system. The other 2 people in our condo had just married and were using
> this as their honeymoon trip.
>
> While we had a fairly large group from our area (28 people), we saw very
> little of them during the week. Occasionally we would pass someone we
> knew on one of the dive sites or sometimes wind up at the same dive site
> with someone in our group but that was only by chance.
>
> All of my dives were shore dives, however, a boat trip to Klein Bonaire
> was taken by my dive buddies one morning. Klein Bonaire, I was told was
> once owned by Harry Bellafonte and purchased by the island of Bonaire
> and remains uninhabited except for the sea turtles that lay their eggs
> there.
>
> We essentially had 5 days of diving considering the first part of Sunday
> was taken up with the briefing and the Marine Park tag purchase. We
> chose not to dive in the afternoon of the Friday before we left.
>
> Sand Dollar offers free nitrox for those appropriately trained. All of
> the mixes measured 29-31% and tanks could be obtained by the boat dock,
> or at a parking lot area behind the dive shop near the compressor for
> easy loading into a vehicle.
>
> For those who may not be familiar with Bonaire, while boat diving is
> offered, many divers choose to load their gear in a truck and dive from
> the shore. The dive sites are marked by moderately sized rocks that are
> painted bright colors and feature the name of the dive site. Naturally
> we dove Bari Reef multiple times since is was a mere 200 yard walk from
> our room to the dock and into the water. But we also visited "Angel
> City" where we entered, did a leisurely drift dive to the "Hilma Hooker"
> (wreck), and exited. We parked our vehicles so we would not have to
> haul the gear a great distance back to our entry point. We also visited
> "White Slave", "Oil Slick", "Tori's Reef", "Ol Blue", "Front Porch",
> "Soft Coral Garden", "Alice in Wonderland" "18th Palm" and "Karpata".
> Some of the shore diving was relatively easy, but some a bit more
> challenging having to contend with a somewhat heavy surf that seemed to
> enjoy knocking you down. I have the battle scars on my left shin and
> knee and a torn wetsuit so subtantiate my story but my tenacity to
> intermingle with the Bonaire marine life overcame even natures attempts
> to keep me out.
>
> As I mentioned previously, my dive buddies were the professor and a
> teacher. I have been trying to figure out some way of getting some
> "Gilligans Island" connection in here but I have given up on that. The
> professor has been diving for quite a few years, but many of his dives
> were research dives. Some quite fascinating stories, and some humorous,
> as he told of diving the frozen regions of Antarctica. Turned out, my
> dive buddies enjoyed night diving as much as I did, so we were out every
> night. On one night, we made a trip north from "Bari Reef" for a
> somewhat uneventful dive other that a moray eel or two and I spotted a
> very small octopus. However, on the way back we were joined and
> "escorted" by 3-4 very large tarpon. The professor and myself were
> using HID lights and the teacher had an 8 cell halogen light. The
> tarpon stay close to us swiming within touching distance in front, from
> behind underneath, and all around us. They were most interested in our
> lights and were obviously using the illumination for hunting. While the
> tarpon did not act aggressive towards us at all, it was still a bit
> unnerving to have one pass directly underneath you from behind. We
> found we could actually direct the path of the tarpon by pointing our
> HID lights at various spots. The professor found this quite amusing and
> talked about that dive for days. Another favorite location for our
> night dives turned out to be "Oil Slick" which was on the northern end
> of the island. "Oil Slick" is fairly remote with only a few houses
> around and no city lights to intrude on our dive. Entry to "Oil Slick"
> was a 5ft giant stride from either a nearby flat block of concrete or a
> ladder attached to the rocks. While the moon was nearly full and
> provided some light for our dives, there is something about doing a
> giant stride 5 feet into the water below at night that gives you a bit
> of an adrenaline rush. A buoy nearby provided us a rope to hang a
> strobe marker beacon for our return navigation. One trip to "Oil Slick"
> showed us the largest lobster any of had ever seen. I am certain we
> could have ridden him back to the resort but that would have left our
> vehicle stranded there.
>
> Dive conditions were always superior. Visibility was always at least
> 100 ft and often time more. Water temperatures varied but stayed in the
> 77-81 deg F range. An exception to that was one day, I did hit a
> noticeable thermocline at 108 ft which brought the temperature to 73
> degrees. While I using a .5 mil skin for protection, the cooler
> temperature didn't bother me.
>
> One of the divers in our group spotted a manta ray. This was met with a
> bit of skepticism back with the resort until they were shown the
> photographs.
>
> Friday, we ended our diving with a morning dive at "Karpata".
> Negotiating the steps in a full rig was challenging but not nearly as
> challenging as entering the water and trying maintain your balance on
> the rocks just a few inches under the surface of the surf, and avoiding
> the sea urchins that have posted themselves as little mines between the
> rocks. We returned to the resort and dove one last time on Bari Reef
> spotting a few morays and just minutes before starting our safety stop,
> saw and photographed a sea horse clinging to some coral.
>
> Sand Dollar resort and I think most other dive operations on Bonaire are
> pretty much a "do your own thing" type of diving. We certainly had very
> little inter-action with any of the dive staff aside from the first day
> orientation.
>
> All in all, I logged 19 dives, 5 of them night dives, and 15 hours of
> bottom time.
>
> Topside activities are somewhat limited, as Kralyndyke, being the major
> population center of the 6 mile by 25 mile island, is relatively small.
> For people from the US that might get homesick, I did manage to locate
> a "Subway" and a "KFC" and even a Harley Davidson shop. Sand Dollar has
> a nice open air restaurant overlooking Klein Bonaire and facing west.
> Meals were pricey but very good. One of the things I noticed about all
> of the restaurants on Bonaire, the wait staff does not refill you
> beverage as is commonplace in the US. You most often have to ask for it
> and then it is an extra charge on your bill.
>
> While our room had no phone, internet was "available"....well sort of.
> There is a small convenience store near the resort that runs a wireless
> internet service. I located what appeared to be nodes or relay stations
> on all of the resort buildings but could never get a signal. So I took
> my laptop to the store where they had some small tables and chairs set
> up for people to access the internet. You could either access it with a
> WiFi card or there were two ethernet plugs run through the front wall.
> Internet access cost $35 for the week which I paid, mainly to keep in
> contact at home. I did share this with the couple we shared our condo
> with. The owner of the convenience store was a likeable chap who told
> me I was welcome to use the phone on the wall and call home. He told me
> he was using "voice of internet" which was a minimal cost and he let his
> customers call home for free. I called my wife and spoke with her. She
> was quite suprised to get the call. The shop owner did caution me about
> using the phone. He wanted to know if I had caller ID on my home phone,
> which I do. He had one customer who used the phone to call home and the
> caller ID showed "Florida" to the wife whose husband was supposed to be
> in Bonaire.
>
> Saturday was our return day with our flight scheduled to take off at
> 3:15. We kept getting varied reports the flight was early, the flight
> was late, there were inadequate security people at the airport and
> checking in was going to be delayed. Our flight finally arrived and we
> were about 3 hours late taking off. While this didn't affect anyone in
> our group, others on the plane had to spend the night in Montego Bay.
> It did however, put me into Atlanta around 1am and I was quite tired.
> I found it quite odd, that on my arrival from Bonaire, I picked up my
> luggage from the carousel and met with some Air Jamaica employees who
> took my bags from me and put them on yet another belt. I then proceeded
> through yet another security checkpoint complete with the x-ray
> machines, metal detectors, etc, to get me OUT of the arriving passenger
> area and into the terminal. I guess they didn't want to take a chance
> on a hotel shuttle bus getting hijacked by someone who might have
> smuggled a weapon of minimal destruction on the plane.
> My return flight from Atlanta was at 10:45. I got there a little over 2
> hours early, but again, the security screening process went quite
> smoothly and I spent a lot of time waiting in the concourse. I guess
> thats better than missing the flight all together though.
>
> Delta airlines, bless their heart, were constantly making announcements
> over the PA system in the concourse about flight delays, broken planes,
> etc. My flight was delayed about 30 minutes and they left my dive bag
> in Atlanta. Just got it back today (everything intact) and have cleaned
> of all the gear and I am now ready for my next dive.

Thanks for the very good and thorough report, Andy. Makes me look
forward the more to my Bonaire trip this fall.

Those lazy tarpon at night are fun, aren't they. I had those in
Belize on night dives last year, but they stayed back a bit, either
behind and invisible or just off to the side and barely visible until
I lit up something they thought they could catch and streaked off
after it.

And your description of the urchins in the rocks reminded me of night
diving at Dive Tech at Grand Cayman, climbing down a ladder in the
dark, then trying to put on my fins while bouncing in the surge among
urchin covered rocks. They were there on purpose, just waiting for me.
But I never did get poked by one.

Thanks again. Sounds like a great trip.

gc

Dan Bracuk wrote:
> nitespark <nitespark@cox.net> pounded away at his keyboard resulting
> in:
> :We stayed at the Sand Dollar condominiums and resort which is located on
> :Bari Reef.
>
> :For those who may not be familiar with Bonaire, while boat diving is
> :offered, many divers choose to load their gear in a truck and dive from
> :the shore. The dive sites are marked by moderately sized rocks that are
> ainted bright colors and feature the name of the dive site. Naturally
> :we dove Bari Reef multiple times since is was a mere 200 yard walk from
> :our room to the dock and into the water. But we also visited "Angel
> :City" where we entered, did a leisurely drift dive to the "Hilma Hooker"
> :(wreck), and exited. We parked our vehicles so we would not have to
> :haul the gear a great distance back to our entry point. We also visited
> :"White Slave", "Oil Slick", "Tori's Reef", "Ol Blue", "Front Porch",
> :"Soft Coral Garden", "Alice in Wonderland" "18th Palm" and "Karpata".
> :Some of the shore diving was relatively easy, but some a bit more
> :challenging having to contend with a somewhat heavy surf that seemed to
> :enjoy knocking you down. I have the battle scars on my left shin and
> :knee and a torn wetsuit so subtantiate my story but my tenacity to
> :intermingle with the Bonaire marine life overcame even natures attempts
> :to keep me out.
>
>
> If you had to do it again, would you consider not renting the vehicle
> and doing all your dives right off the dock? I was there a dozen or
> so years ago, and if I went back, I'd seriously consider it.

Not a chance. I would defintely rent a vehicle. While Bari Reef was
nice...all three of us got a bit tired of it and wanted some variety.
15 hours on the same reef would really get quite old.

We also used the vehicles for other surface activities such as visiting
the East coast of the island, going into town for an occasional meal,
souvenier shopping, donkey watching, and just general sight seeing.


>
> By the way, thank you for a well written report. Sounds like you had
> fun.

My pleasure. I indeed had to sacrifice a "Dive with Dan" event but I
suffered in behalf of all of our rec-scubans out there.

>

George Cathcart wrote:

> On Jul 2, 4:17 pm, nitespark <nitesp...@cox.net> wrote:
>
>
> Thanks for the very good and thorough report, Andy. Makes me look
> forward the more to my Bonaire trip this fall.

My pleasure George. Actually, I was making mental notes the entire week
with the thoughts of a rec.scuba trip report.
>
> Those lazy tarpon at night are fun, aren't they. I had those in
> Belize on night dives last year, but they stayed back a bit, either
> behind and invisible or just off to the side and barely visible until
> I lit up something they thought they could catch and streaked off
> after it.

It was kinda fun watching them. They only seemed interested in our HID
lights. The diver that had the halogen light, didn't seem to interest
them as much. One of the tarpon actually followed me within a few feet
of the exit ladder at the resort. Water was quite shallow there, only
2-3 ft deep. I was getting ready to ask him if he would like to join me
at our condo. :)

>
> And your description of the urchins in the rocks reminded me of night
> diving at Dive Tech at Grand Cayman, climbing down a ladder in the
> dark, then trying to put on my fins while bouncing in the surge among
> urchin covered rocks. They were there on purpose, just waiting for me.
> But I never did get poked by one.

The professor got hit with one once. Took a spine in the finger which
went completly through. I forgot what he called the substance the
spines are made of, but it is quite brittle and if you attempt to pull
it out, it starts to crumble. He said the spine broke off in his
finger. The next day he dove again and while underwater, noticed the
spine had exposed itself enough to where he could remove it intact.


>
> Thanks again. Sounds like a great trip.

Had a great time, but am really glad to be back home. I was really
quite tired. Glad I took Monday off to recuperate, catch up on rest,
clean dive gear and return it to service.


Andy

On Jul 2, 4:17 pm, nitespark <nitesp...@cox.net> wrote:
> Although my "package" was to arrive on Saturday and leave the following
> Saturday, my airfare was out of Atlanta which necessitated an overnight
> stay so I actually left on Friday and returned home on Sunday.
>
> Security going to Bonaire in the Atlanta airport went quite smoothly
> considering the massive number of people that needed to be screened.
> The line, while quite long, moved quickly and I was through the
> screening area in about 30 minutes or less.
>
> Our flight from Atlanta was on Air Jamaica which included a stop in
> Montego Bay for about an hour or so layover. Finally arriving at the
> Flamingo airport on Bonaire we were met by the car rental agent who
> provided us with our 8 rental trucks. The forms were signed, the trucks
> were assigned to our groups and we were on our way. We had a fairly
> large group from our area, 28 divers in all. Sunday morning brought a
> briefing on local diving conditions, resort policies and familiarization
> and the purchase of the Marine park tag ($25). We needed to make a
> weight checkout dive and afterwards we were on our own. The briefing
> which lasted 2 hours, seemed like it went on forever but only because I
> was so anxious to get in the water.
>
> We stayed at the Sand Dollar condominiums and resort which is located on
> Bari Reef. The condominium where we stayed was clean, well accomodated
> with a full kitchen, living room area, 1 bath, and two bedrooms. The
> condos had satellite TV with quite a few US networks featured, however,
> I found very little time to watch TV. My roommate and dive partner, is
> a retired Geology professor from a local university. We also teamed up
> with a fellow who teaches computer technology in the local school
> system. The other 2 people in our condo had just married and were using
> this as their honeymoon trip.
>
> While we had a fairly large group from our area (28 people), we saw very
> little of them during the week. Occasionally we would pass someone we
> knew on one of the dive sites or sometimes wind up at the same dive site
> with someone in our group but that was only by chance.
>
> All of my dives were shore dives, however, a boat trip to Klein Bonaire
> was taken by my dive buddies one morning. Klein Bonaire, I was told was
> once owned by Harry Bellafonte and purchased by the island of Bonaire
> and remains uninhabited except for the sea turtles that lay their eggs
> there.
>
> We essentially had 5 days of diving considering the first part of Sunday
> was taken up with the briefing and the Marine Park tag purchase. We
> chose not to dive in the afternoon of the Friday before we left.
>
> Sand Dollar offers free nitrox for those appropriately trained. All of
> the mixes measured 29-31% and tanks could be obtained by the boat dock,
> or at a parking lot area behind the dive shop near the compressor for
> easy loading into a vehicle.
>
> For those who may not be familiar with Bonaire, while boat diving is
> offered, many divers choose to load their gear in a truck and dive from
> the shore. The dive sites are marked by moderately sized rocks that are
> painted bright colors and feature the name of the dive site. Naturally
> we dove Bari Reef multiple times since is was a mere 200 yard walk from
> our room to the dock and into the water. But we also visited "Angel
> City" where we entered, did a leisurely drift dive to the "Hilma Hooker"
> (wreck), and exited. We parked our vehicles so we would not have to
> haul the gear a great distance back to our entry point. We also visited
> "White Slave", "Oil Slick", "Tori's Reef", "Ol Blue", "Front Porch",
> "Soft Coral Garden", "Alice in Wonderland" "18th Palm" and "Karpata".
> Some of the shore diving was relatively easy, but some a bit more
> challenging having to contend with a somewhat heavy surf that seemed to
> enjoy knocking you down. I have the battle scars on my left shin and
> knee and a torn wetsuit so subtantiate my story but my tenacity to
> intermingle with the Bonaire marine life overcame even natures attempts
> to keep me out.
>
> As I mentioned previously, my dive buddies were the professor and a
> teacher. I have been trying to figure out some way of getting some
> "Gilligans Island" connection in here but I have given up on that. The
> professor has been diving for quite a few years, but many of his dives
> were research dives. Some quite fascinating stories, and some humorous,
> as he told of diving the frozen regions of Antarctica. Turned out, my
> dive buddies enjoyed night diving as much as I did, so we were out every
> night. On one night, we made a trip north from "Bari Reef" for a
> somewhat uneventful dive other that a moray eel or two and I spotted a
> very small octopus. However, on the way back we were joined and
> "escorted" by 3-4 very large tarpon. The professor and myself were
> using HID lights and the teacher had an 8 cell halogen light. The
> tarpon stay close to us swiming within touching distance in front, from
> behind underneath, and all around us. They were most interested in our
> lights and were obviously using the illumination for hunting. While the
> tarpon did not act aggressive towards us at all, it was still a bit
> unnerving to have one pass directly underneath you from behind. We
> found we could actually direct the path of the tarpon by pointing our
> HID lights at various spots. The professor found this quite amusing and
> talked about that dive for days. Another favorite location for our
> night dives turned out to be "Oil Slick" which was on the northern end
> of the island. "Oil Slick" is fairly remote with only a few houses
> around and no city lights to intrude on our dive. Entry to "Oil Slick"
> was a 5ft giant stride from either a nearby flat block of concrete or a
> ladder attached to the rocks. While the moon was nearly full and
> provided some light for our dives, there is something about doing a
> giant stride 5 feet into the water below at night that gives you a bit
> of an adrenaline rush. A buoy nearby provided us a rope to hang a
> strobe marker beacon for our return navigation. One trip to "Oil Slick"
> showed us the largest lobster any of had ever seen. I am certain we
> could have ridden him back to the resort but that would have left our
> vehicle stranded there.
>
> Dive conditions were always superior. Visibility was always at least
> 100 ft and often time more. Water temperatures varied but stayed in the
> 77-81 deg F range. An exception to that was one day, I did hit a
> noticeable thermocline at 108 ft which brought the temperature to 73
> degrees. While I using a .5 mil skin for protection, the cooler
> temperature didn't bother me.
>
> One of the divers in our group spotted a manta ray. This was met with a
> bit of skepticism back with the resort until they were shown the
> photographs.
>
> Friday, we ended our diving with a morning dive at "Karpata".
> Negotiating the steps in a full rig was challenging but not nearly as
> challenging as entering the water and trying maintain your balance on
> the rocks just a few inches under the surface of the surf, and avoiding
> the sea urchins that have posted themselves as little mines between the
> rocks. We returned to the resort and dove one last time on Bari Reef
> spotting a few morays and just minutes before starting our safety stop,
> saw and photographed a sea horse clinging to some coral.
>
> Sand Dollar resort and I think most other dive operations on Bonaire are
> pretty much a "do your own thing" type of diving. We certainly had very
> little inter-action with any of the dive staff aside from the first day
> orientation.
>
> All in all, I logged 19 dives, 5 of them night dives, and 15 hours of
> bottom time.
>
> Topside activities are somewhat limited, as Kralyndyke, being the major
> population center of the 6 mile by 25 mile island, is relatively small.
> For people from the US that might get homesick, I did manage to locate
> a "Subway" and a "KFC" and even a Harley Davidson shop. Sand Dollar has
> a nice open air restaurant overlooking Klein Bonaire and facing west.
> Meals were pricey but very good. One of the things I noticed about all
> of the restaurants on Bonaire, the wait staff does not refill you
> beverage as is commonplace in the US. You most often have to ask for it
> and then it is an extra charge on your bill.
>
> While our room had no phone, internet was "available"....well sort of.
> There is a small convenience store near the resort that runs a wireless
> internet service. I located what appeared to be nodes or relay stations
> on all of the resort buildings but could never get a signal. So I took
> my laptop to the store where they had some small tables and chairs set
> up for people to access the internet. You could either access it with a
> WiFi card or there were two ethernet plugs run through the front wall.
> Internet access cost $35 for the week which I paid, mainly to keep in
> contact at home. I did share this with the couple we shared our condo
> with. The owner of the convenience store was a likeable chap who told
> me I was welcome to use the phone on the wall and call home. He told me
> he was using "voice of internet" which was a minimal cost and he let his
> customers call home for free. I called my wife and spoke with her. She
> was quite suprised to get the call. The shop owner did caution me about
> using the phone. He wanted to know if I had caller ID on my home phone,
> which I do. He had one customer who used the phone to call home and the
> caller ID showed "Florida" to the wife whose husband was supposed to be
> in Bonaire.
>
> Saturday was our return day with our flight scheduled to take off at
> 3:15. We kept getting varied reports the flight was early, the flight
> was late, there were inadequate security people at the airport and
> checking in was going to be delayed. Our flight finally arrived and we
> were about 3 hours late taking off. While this didn't affect anyone in
> our group, others on the plane had to spend the night in Montego Bay.
> It did however, put me into Atlanta around 1am and I was quite tired.
> I found it quite odd, that on my arrival from Bonaire, I picked up my
> luggage from the carousel and met with some Air Jamaica employees who
> took my bags from me and put them on yet another belt. I then proceeded
> through yet another security checkpoint complete with the x-ray
> machines, metal detectors, etc, to get me OUT of the arriving passenger
> area and into the terminal. I guess they didn't want to take a chance
> on a hotel shuttle bus getting hijacked by someone who might have
> smuggled a weapon of minimal destruction on the plane.
> My return flight from Atlanta was at 10:45. I got there a little over 2
> hours early, but again, the security screening process went quite
> smoothly and I spent a lot of time waiting in the concourse. I guess
> thats better than missing the flight all together though.
>
> Delta airlines, bless their heart, were constantly making announcements
> over the PA system in the concourse about flight delays, broken planes,
> etc. My flight was delayed about 30 minutes and they left my dive bag
> in Atlanta. Just got it back today (everything intact) and have cleaned
> of all the gear and I am now ready for my next dive.

Nice report. Bonaire is on my list of wannavisits.

JF

JOF wrote:
> On Jul 2, 4:17 pm, nitespark <nitesp...@cox.net> wrote:
>
>>Although my "package" was to arrive on Saturday and leave the following
>>Saturday, my airfare was out of Atlanta which necessitated an overnight
>>stay so I actually left on Friday and returned home on Sunday.
>>
>>Security going to Bonaire in the Atlanta airport went quite smoothly
>>considering the massive number of people that needed to be screened.
>>The line, while quite long, moved quickly and I was through the
>>screening area in about 30 minutes or less.
>>
>>Our flight from Atlanta was on Air Jamaica which included a stop in
>>Montego Bay for about an hour or so layover. Finally arriving at the
>>Flamingo airport on Bonaire we were met by the car rental agent who
>>provided us with our 8 rental trucks. The forms were signed, the trucks
>>were assigned to our groups and we were on our way. We had a fairly
>>large group from our area, 28 divers in all. Sunday morning brought a
>>briefing on local diving conditions, resort policies and familiarization
>> and the purchase of the Marine park tag ($25). We needed to make a
>>weight checkout dive and afterwards we were on our own. The briefing
>>which lasted 2 hours, seemed like it went on forever but only because I
>>was so anxious to get in the water.
>>
>>We stayed at the Sand Dollar condominiums and resort which is located on
>>Bari Reef. The condominium where we stayed was clean, well accomodated
>>with a full kitchen, living room area, 1 bath, and two bedrooms. The
>>condos had satellite TV with quite a few US networks featured, however,
>>I found very little time to watch TV. My roommate and dive partner, is
>>a retired Geology professor from a local university. We also teamed up
>>with a fellow who teaches computer technology in the local school
>>system. The other 2 people in our condo had just married and were using
>>this as their honeymoon trip.
>>
>>While we had a fairly large group from our area (28 people), we saw very
>>little of them during the week. Occasionally we would pass someone we
>>knew on one of the dive sites or sometimes wind up at the same dive site
>>with someone in our group but that was only by chance.
>>
>>All of my dives were shore dives, however, a boat trip to Klein Bonaire
>>was taken by my dive buddies one morning. Klein Bonaire, I was told was
>>once owned by Harry Bellafonte and purchased by the island of Bonaire
>>and remains uninhabited except for the sea turtles that lay their eggs
>>there.
>>
>>We essentially had 5 days of diving considering the first part of Sunday
>>was taken up with the briefing and the Marine Park tag purchase. We
>>chose not to dive in the afternoon of the Friday before we left.
>>
>>Sand Dollar offers free nitrox for those appropriately trained. All of
>>the mixes measured 29-31% and tanks could be obtained by the boat dock,
>>or at a parking lot area behind the dive shop near the compressor for
>>easy loading into a vehicle.
>>
>>For those who may not be familiar with Bonaire, while boat diving is
>>offered, many divers choose to load their gear in a truck and dive from
>>the shore. The dive sites are marked by moderately sized rocks that are
>>painted bright colors and feature the name of the dive site. Naturally
>>we dove Bari Reef multiple times since is was a mere 200 yard walk from
>>our room to the dock and into the water. But we also visited "Angel
>>City" where we entered, did a leisurely drift dive to the "Hilma Hooker"
>>(wreck), and exited. We parked our vehicles so we would not have to
>>haul the gear a great distance back to our entry point. We also visited
>>"White Slave", "Oil Slick", "Tori's Reef", "Ol Blue", "Front Porch",
>>"Soft Coral Garden", "Alice in Wonderland" "18th Palm" and "Karpata".
>>Some of the shore diving was relatively easy, but some a bit more
>>challenging having to contend with a somewhat heavy surf that seemed to
>>enjoy knocking you down. I have the battle scars on my left shin and
>>knee and a torn wetsuit so subtantiate my story but my tenacity to
>>intermingle with the Bonaire marine life overcame even natures attempts
>>to keep me out.
>>
>>As I mentioned previously, my dive buddies were the professor and a
>>teacher. I have been trying to figure out some way of getting some
>>"Gilligans Island" connection in here but I have given up on that. The
>>professor has been diving for quite a few years, but many of his dives
>>were research dives. Some quite fascinating stories, and some humorous,
>>as he told of diving the frozen regions of Antarctica. Turned out, my
>>dive buddies enjoyed night diving as much as I did, so we were out every
>>night. On one night, we made a trip north from "Bari Reef" for a
>>somewhat uneventful dive other that a moray eel or two and I spotted a
>>very small octopus. However, on the way back we were joined and
>>"escorted" by 3-4 very large tarpon. The professor and myself were
>>using HID lights and the teacher had an 8 cell halogen light. The
>>tarpon stay close to us swiming within touching distance in front, from
>>behind underneath, and all around us. They were most interested in our
>>lights and were obviously using the illumination for hunting. While the
>>tarpon did not act aggressive towards us at all, it was still a bit
>>unnerving to have one pass directly underneath you from behind. We
>>found we could actually direct the path of the tarpon by pointing our
>>HID lights at various spots. The professor found this quite amusing and
>>talked about that dive for days. Another favorite location for our
>>night dives turned out to be "Oil Slick" which was on the northern end
>>of the island. "Oil Slick" is fairly remote with only a few houses
>>around and no city lights to intrude on our dive. Entry to "Oil Slick"
>>was a 5ft giant stride from either a nearby flat block of concrete or a
>>ladder attached to the rocks. While the moon was nearly full and
>>provided some light for our dives, there is something about doing a
>>giant stride 5 feet into the water below at night that gives you a bit
>>of an adrenaline rush. A buoy nearby provided us a rope to hang a
>>strobe marker beacon for our return navigation. One trip to "Oil Slick"
>>showed us the largest lobster any of had ever seen. I am certain we
>>could have ridden him back to the resort but that would have left our
>>vehicle stranded there.
>>
>>Dive conditions were always superior. Visibility was always at least
>>100 ft and often time more. Water temperatures varied but stayed in the
>>77-81 deg F range. An exception to that was one day, I did hit a
>>noticeable thermocline at 108 ft which brought the temperature to 73
>>degrees. While I using a .5 mil skin for protection, the cooler
>>temperature didn't bother me.
>>
>>One of the divers in our group spotted a manta ray. This was met with a
>>bit of skepticism back with the resort until they were shown the
>>photographs.
>>
>>Friday, we ended our diving with a morning dive at "Karpata".
>>Negotiating the steps in a full rig was challenging but not nearly as
>>challenging as entering the water and trying maintain your balance on
>>the rocks just a few inches under the surface of the surf, and avoiding
>>the sea urchins that have posted themselves as little mines between the
>>rocks. We returned to the resort and dove one last time on Bari Reef
>>spotting a few morays and just minutes before starting our safety stop,
>>saw and photographed a sea horse clinging to some coral.
>>
>>Sand Dollar resort and I think most other dive operations on Bonaire are
>>pretty much a "do your own thing" type of diving. We certainly had very
>>little inter-action with any of the dive staff aside from the first day
>>orientation.
>>
>>All in all, I logged 19 dives, 5 of them night dives, and 15 hours of
>>bottom time.
>>
>>Topside activities are somewhat limited, as Kralyndyke, being the major
>>population center of the 6 mile by 25 mile island, is relatively small.
>> For people from the US that might get homesick, I did manage to locate
>>a "Subway" and a "KFC" and even a Harley Davidson shop. Sand Dollar has
>>a nice open air restaurant overlooking Klein Bonaire and facing west.
>>Meals were pricey but very good. One of the things I noticed about all
>>of the restaurants on Bonaire, the wait staff does not refill you
>>beverage as is commonplace in the US. You most often have to ask for it
>>and then it is an extra charge on your bill.
>>
>>While our room had no phone, internet was "available"....well sort of.
>>There is a small convenience store near the resort that runs a wireless
>>internet service. I located what appeared to be nodes or relay stations
>>on all of the resort buildings but could never get a signal. So I took
>>my laptop to the store where they had some small tables and chairs set
>>up for people to access the internet. You could either access it with a
>>WiFi card or there were two ethernet plugs run through the front wall.
>>Internet access cost $35 for the week which I paid, mainly to keep in
>>contact at home. I did share this with the couple we shared our condo
>>with. The owner of the convenience store was a likeable chap who told
>>me I was welcome to use the phone on the wall and call home. He told me
>>he was using "voice of internet" which was a minimal cost and he let his
>>customers call home for free. I called my wife and spoke with her. She
>>was quite suprised to get the call. The shop owner did caution me about
>>using the phone. He wanted to know if I had caller ID on my home phone,
>>which I do. He had one customer who used the phone to call home and the
>>caller ID showed "Florida" to the wife whose husband was supposed to be
>>in Bonaire.
>>
>>Saturday was our return day with our flight scheduled to take off at
>>3:15. We kept getting varied reports the flight was early, the flight
>>was late, there were inadequate security people at the airport and
>>checking in was going to be delayed. Our flight finally arrived and we
>>were about 3 hours late taking off. While this didn't affect anyone in
>>our group, others on the plane had to spend the night in Montego Bay.
>>It did however, put me into Atlanta around 1am and I was quite tired.
>>I found it quite odd, that on my arrival from Bonaire, I picked up my
>>luggage from the carousel and met with some Air Jamaica employees who
>>took my bags from me and put them on yet another belt. I then proceeded
>>through yet another security checkpoint complete with the x-ray
>>machines, metal detectors, etc, to get me OUT of the arriving passenger
>>area and into the terminal. I guess they didn't want to take a chance
>>on a hotel shuttle bus getting hijacked by someone who might have
>>smuggled a weapon of minimal destruction on the plane.
>>My return flight from Atlanta was at 10:45. I got there a little over 2
>>hours early, but again, the security screening process went quite
>>smoothly and I spent a lot of time waiting in the concourse. I guess
>>thats better than missing the flight all together though.
>>
>>Delta airlines, bless their heart, were constantly making announcements
>>over the PA system in the concourse about flight delays, broken planes,
>>etc. My flight was delayed about 30 minutes and they left my dive bag
>>in Atlanta. Just got it back today (everything intact) and have cleaned
>>of all the gear and I am now ready for my next dive.
>
>
> Nice report. Bonaire is on my list of wannavisits.
>
> JF
>
Thanks John. This was my second visit to Bonaire. My previous Bonaire
trip was to Plaza Resort.

Andy

On Jul 2, 2:30 pm, nitespark <nitesp...@cox.net> wrote:

> The professor got hit with one once. Took a spine in the finger which
> went completly through. I forgot what he called the substance the
> spines are made of, but it is quite brittle and if you attempt to pull
> it out, it starts to crumble. He said the spine broke off in his
> finger. The next day he dove again and while underwater, noticed the
> spine had exposed itself enough to where he could remove it intact.

Put some vinegar on them and they'll disappear by the next day.
Promise.

On Jul 2, 2:58 pm, nitespark <nitesp...@cox.net> wrote:

> Thanks John. This was my second visit to Bonaire. My previous Bonaire
> trip was to Plaza Resort.

I thought you had been there before. How did Sand Dollar compare to
Plaza?

(I'm already planning my next trip - we're gonna try Den Laman, next
door to Sand Dollar)

Greg Mossman wrote:
> On Jul 2, 2:58 pm, nitespark <nitesp...@cox.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Thanks John. This was my second visit to Bonaire. My previous Bonaire
>>trip was to Plaza Resort.
>
>
> I thought you had been there before. How did Sand Dollar compare to
> Plaza?

Our condo was very nice. Clean, well equipped with modern amenities.
Refridgerator, microwave, dishwasher, air condition. Our room was also
equipped with a room safe. The safe was big enough to hold 3 laptop
computers and billfolds. The room I stayed in was somewhat small. I
glanced in the other bedroom which looked to have a queen size or
possibly king size bed in it. Since the other folks were staying in
there, I didn't venture in there. Only saw it from the hallway.
Contained two single beds that were slightly larger than cots. I think
the mattresses, in the slow season function part time as concrete
construction barriers.

>
> (I'm already planning my next trip - we're gonna try Den Laman, next
> door to Sand Dollar)
>

A couple of days, the professor and I went next door (north) and I think
that was Buddys dive resort. There was nothing immediately south of us
but an open field. Entrance to Sand Dollar is the first driveway north
of the round-about.

On Jul 2, 4:18 pm, nitespark <nitesp...@cox.net> wrote:

> A couple of days, the professor and I went next door (north) and I think
> that was Buddys dive resort. There was nothing immediately south of us
> but an open field. Entrance to Sand Dollar is the first driveway north
> of the round-about.

Hmm. My photographic memory is failing me right now, probably due to
all the booze I drank there. Den Laman is probably off the same
driveway. Or maybe it's between Sand Dollar and Buddy Dive. It's
definitely right there, the three-story little square building I drove
by every day on the way back to Buddy, honestly not a mirage or
hallucination. They promise in-room wifi, a laptop safe (Buddy's is
big enough for a wallet), onsite dining and dive shop, pool, and the
entire condo is a/c'd, not just the bedroom. Plus the actual reports
I've read are very positive.

www.denlaman.com