ScubaBrucie

 Having been to Bonaire at exactly the same time last year we knew what to expect. One difference is that I had a small target in sight starting the holiday on 931 dives, so I needed 69 dives in 19 days to get to 1,000, an average of just over 3.6 per day.

 Supposedly Brazilian visitors average 6 to 7 dives a day, American ones 3 to 4 and European ones 2 to 3 so I needed to work harder than the average European.

 We arranged the trip through Bonaire Fun Travel and Douglas Durrant did his normal excellent stuff to get us the package we wanted. Flying out of Birmingham with KLM via Amsterdam the flight was faultless both ways. We stayed in a Hamlet studio and dived with Yellow Submarine. Here there were two disappointments, they would only allow us 2 cylinders each at a time and, due to thefts, only one cylinder when travelling north, also we had to pick up our nitrox from Port Bonaire on the other side of town. This compared badly with Eden/Wannadive last year were the nitrox was on site and we could take all the cylinders we wanted. The net result was a lot of time wasted and a lot of extra driving.

Over the 19 diving days I did 77 dives, an avage of just over 4 a day to finish with 1008 logged dives. 2 were boat dives on Klein Bonaire (a waste of time and money) the rest were shore dives. The least in one day was 3 dives, the most was 6. All were on Nitrox 32, 9 were solo dives, only 2 were night dives (and I took the Kowalski all that way), the water temperature was between 28.4C and 27.1C, shortest dive 41 minutes, longest 1hr 36 minutes, deepest 33 metres, shallowest 9.7 metres, shortest surface interval 60 minutes. We used 3mm wetsuits and single ally cylinders.

 We saw a lot more turtles this year, mainly juveniles so obviously the park is now breeding them faster than the locals can eat them, we saw quite a few stingrays and eagle rays on 2 occasions. There were frequent squid sightings, usually 2 at a time but 6 on one occasion. Also we frequently found octopus. On the second reef at Angel City we found a shoal of over 60 baraccuda which halved in size during the course of our stay. We paid a visit to the black seahorse in front of Yellow Submarine in the harbour. The best and most unusual find of the trip was a web burrfish, which apparently were once common on Bonaire. Obviously we saw zero sharks as they are fished out each time they turn up but we saw plently of the tarpon and baraccuda that try to replace them as apex predators.

 Whilst the reefs on Bonaire are good by Caibbean standards (mainly due to more damage by man elsewhere) they are nothing special by world standards. There is a low biodiversity, around half of the hard corals are dead and it is OK for the locals to drop boulders on 500 year old brain corals. Divesites we liked include the second reef at Angel City, Petries Pillar, the entrance to Port Bonaire, Chocogo and the wall at La Dania’s Leap and Karpata.

Getting back to the locals, after very extensive world travel I reckon they score about 2 out of 10 for friendliness, their main attitude being one of surly indifference. Also stealing off tourists is an endemic and accepted part of the culture, anything you bring to the island is fair game and the police are not interested. Hamlet, were we stayed, was broken into 6 times in the month before we arrived. Our dive centre would not store kit overnight because it had been broken into so many times so we were forced to carry all out kit to our rooms and store it there every night along with a supply of cylinders due to the theft problem with these. Theft of batteries and spare wheels from divers’ vehicles is common, there are piles of broken glass at divesites where vehicle windows have been smashed by thieves. We were lucky during our stay in only suffering the one theft. Obviously there would be more tourism and everyone on the island would be richer without this culture of theft, but they seem happy enough shooting themselves in the foot.

Dining out is varied, good and inexpensive. Kon Tiki over on the east coast is well worth the drive, they were very good last year but now with the second chef they are excellent and good value for the awards thay have won. Number 2 for us would be a tie between Captain Don’s and It Rains Fishes. In the interests of balance I should also say that for us the worst place that we ate was Old Inn.

The best thing about diving Bonaire is the diving freedom, you don’t have to put up with dive guides. So you can dive where you want when you want. You can dive in the direction you want at the speed and depth that you want. It is just so liberating. You can be sitting in your accomodation at any time of day and decide that you feel like a dive. 5 minutes later you can be at any of a choice of divesites and 5 minutes later you can be in the water, solo if you want. You can then dive exactly the dive that you want to do. Ten minutes after the dive you can be back in your accomodation with a beer in your hand. And the incremental cost for this is just the fuel for your pickup (at half UK prices) because you pay for diving on a per day basis, it costs the same if you do seven dives or none.

During our visit we went to 2 of the regular evening talks. Dee Scarr a Captain Don’s and Benji Shaub at Bonaire Dive and Adventure. Both were excellent, well worth the time and are highly recommended.

Things that went wrong: Pickup sank to it’s axle on perfectly solid looking rock surface at Dave’s Den, a quick look round showed holes from previous victims.  Half an hour with the jack and a quck reverse got us out. Camera flooded, more care needed in future. Check in at the airport tagged my baggage to go to Birmingham, Alabama! I noticed just in time. Bottom dropped out of my world the morning after a meal at a place I won’t be going back to.

Overall Bonaire is well worth the visit for the average recreational diver, however there are far better places in the world to go on a diving holiday so maybe Bonaire should be a fair way down the list of places to go.