Bonaire Trip Report
October 3rd   October 10th, 2022

This is a detailed trip report of my wife and I's 30th wedding anniversary to Bonaire. Neither of us had been there before and I sort of picked places out of the blue. There might have been better accommodations, there might be better scuba operators, but overall it worked out well. Keep in mind that this is written from the perspective of a complete newbie to Bonaire.

Weather
It's close to the equator, so sunrise/sunset is pretty much 6:30am/6:30pm. The temperature also doesn't vary much around the year, 90-95 for a high and 70-ish for a low   and humid. October wasn't supposed to be rainy, but we got hit by quite a bit. In the middle of our stay we got sideswiped what would become hurricane Julia, but we just dove in the rain. Gonna get wet anyway. Other days, it might be a brief rain shower but nothing that lasts long.

Clothing
Bring less than you think. We mostly cycled through a couple of swimsuits and fast-drying shirts, along with a pair or two of shorts and Tshirts for me. If you go out, then YMMV. A pair of easy on/off shoes and a more sturdy pair of shoes for more serious walking/hiking is all you need.

Lodging
We stayed at the Courtyard Marriott Resort just North of the airport. The location was very nice even if we didn't have direct ocean access. The resort has an infinity-style pool, albeit very shallow (3ft max). Very nice to relax in though, especially after a dive. The rooms were clean and in good order. The thing to keep in mind is that you can't park next to your building so you might have a bit of a walk to get to your room, and ours were right by the pool so that made for the longest trek. Unexpected bonus: Breakfast was included, and they had a very nice spread. Omelets, eggs, bacon, sausage, pancakes, breads/cold cuts/cheeses, juice, etc. That normally runs in the $25-30 range, so being able to eat a big breakfast and pretty much skip lunch was a huge bonus. The King suite had a small fridge but no microwave.
Big drawback: There was no on-site scuba gear storage, but thankfully our scuba shup hooked us up. More later. There's a new dive shop moving in, but I don't know if they'll let you store the gear there if you don't rent through them. It was easier with our scuba shop anyways.

Money/Prices
Everything on Bonaire is priced and paid in US Dollars. Lots of places take credit cards - even smaller shops/restaurants but keep some cash on hand. Super easy.
Keep in mind: Pretty much everything is imported from far away, so it's expensive. Not crazy expensive, but some stuff has to travel all the way from the Netherlands in some cases (that's what the label showed). You can really notice that with anything fresh like green vegetables, salad, etc. Drinks are also not too cheap. We found some Lipton Ice Tea 12-packs on sale for $4.50 and drank that. Lots of stuff is reasonable too, so don't let me scare you. Gas is $1.59/liter, which is about $6.10/gal. Expensive, but you won't be driving a lot.

Theft
One of my primary concerns while scuba diving was theft. Pretty much everyone that has gone to Bonaire has heard the stories. I was probably way overthinking it, but here's what worked for me: I took my room key card and my driver's license while scuba diving and hid them in an inconspicuous spot. No one is going to steal your driver's license anyway. It would have been nice to take a credit card, but I didn't want to risk it. Initially, I got some small dry pouches and nested them inside each other with my driver's license, room key card, and a driver's license but they leaked every dive. That's when I decided to just take my driver's license. We also had a couple of towels and my sunglasses and they weren't touched. Most divesites had people there when we were diving, but it might be other divers doing the stealing too   it's not necessarily the locals. Use common sense, but don't go overthinking it like I did.

Food
My wife and I aren't into going out to expensive places to eat so we mostly ate in our room. We did that by going to the local grocery stores, all of which are conveniently located on one major street, and buying food we could eat cold. Our mainstay was bagels/sandwich bread and cold cuts, I ate some cans of stew cold, snacks, drinks, cheese spread, etc. It worked out very well for us, but not everyone may like to economize.

We only ate out three times: Twice at Ling's Kitchen (Asian) and a D ner sandwich place. Ling's was good and was freshly cooked in wok   you could taste the "wok he". Each meal comes in regular or large, and the large was indeed a big portion. Reasonably priced and highly recommended. The sandwich shop was OK too, but that's about all we experienced.

Cars and Traffic
I don't think I saw a single signal light on the entire island. It's either Yield signs, roundabouts, or the occasional Stop sign. People drive OK, nothing too crazy   unless you get downtown on a Saturday night in tight traffic and the locals are zipping around on mopes, bikes, and scooters while weaving through traffic   including kids. Definitely keep an eye out.

There isn't a huge amount of traffic congestion, but since there are no lights you will run into a few spots at certain times where there's a long cue because the car at the front of the line has to yield to another busy road.
Roads are OK. Could be worse but could definitely be better. After a rain there is hardly any drainage and some spots turn into ponds   even on the main road north and south of town.

If you're diving, you'll want a pickup. Pretty much all trucks on Bonaire are mid- or compact-sized. Don't expect them to be US or Japanese either   they're almost all Chinese made, and probably have a manual transmission. The newer midsize trucks come with key fobs you have to protect from getting wet. The slightly older trucks usually have just a simple key that you can clip to your BC. If your truck has a key/Fob combination, you'll want to buy a scuba-proof key container which you can find on the internet (AB also carried them). Our only complaint was a stuck tailgate, but AB fixed it very quickly.

Speaking of AB: We used them for both car rental and scuba services, and I couldn't be happier. Just get the CDW waiver policy from them and all you'll have to worry about when dropping off your truck is that it is full of gas. We only interacted with them when we picked up and dropped off the vehicle.

Scuba Shop
Tons of options on the island just like lodging, but I ended up going with AB as mentioned above. Since all they do is provide you tanks, I figured there wouldn't be much difference between all of them. AB has a large number of tanks, each in air (DIN and Yoke) and EAN32 (DIN and Yoke). Price was the same for either one. The employees were all Dutch and extremely friendly and helpful. I have nothing but good things to say about them. My wife and I finally ponied up and got Nitrox certified on our second day for cheaper than what we would have paid in the US.

They would have answers to your questions about dive sites, give recommendations, help load/unload your tanks, etc.

AB also provided rinse tanks and gear storage, which really helped us out by not having to drag our wet gear to/from our room, much less where to store all that crap because our second-floor room had no balcony and that would have meant keeping the gear in the bathroom or somewhere like that. Yuck.

Sightseeing
There's not a whole lot to see, but we made the most of it. On a scuba trip to the southern end of the island, you can use your surface interval to check out the lighthouse and Lac Bay, for example. We saw the longest tree of Bonaire and a few other things. Nothing is very far and that makes for good time fillers. Unfortunately, the Washington Slaagbai park was closed on our last day when we visited, so that was a bummer.

Diving
As you know, all diving on Bonaire is shore diving. You can go on a boat dive, but I don't know if I saw more than a couple of boats used for diving the entire week. GET A REEF GUIDE   there's an excellent one on Amazon and I suggest you get the print version (and not the Kindle version like I did). You can take the print version with you, but we never took our electronic devices. It describes the dive site, how to get there, how easy the entry is, how far from town, what the reef is like, how to navigate it, etc.

The reef starts close to shore in most places, but a few are a little further out, so keep that in mind depending on how far out you want to swim.

Access to most dive sites is easy, but entry may be treacherous   especially if you're older like my wife and I. There is virtually no sandy beach that you're going to walking in from. Best case, there are rocks you'll have to walk over, worst case you'll be doing some climbing up/down stairs or minor cliffs. The absolute best thing we found on YouTube was a channel that recommended fin/mask keeper. You loop the strap through your fins and mask, then clip that to your BC. That way, your hands are free as you're getting in and out of the water. Even though most dive sites are on the leeward side, that doesn't mean there's no surge close to shore that can make it challenging. The sites way north and way south are more turbulent due to being more exposed to the winds. We did a dive at Red Slave way south, after a tropical storm had brushed by, and it was a miserable experience. The 2ft waves easily knocked us over on entry, but entry wasn't even the worst. Getting out was treacherous and they kept knocking us over once the water got about waist deep. We got bruised and scratched pretty bad. The visibility was the worst, and so was the current. Even so, we saw unique stuff and don't regret it. Make sure you evaluate the entry/exit and don't make any foolish decisions.

I'm not going to discuss each dive site as there is a ton of information already on the internet. In general, the reefs north of town are more wall-like with Karpata being the most spectacular. South of town, there is a double reef system where the closer/shallower reef is separated from the further/deeper reef by a sandbar of varying widths. Further south you get more a wall dive experience again. We did not regret any of the spots we picked on our trip.

We have a lot of experience in Cozumel and my absolute favorite dive site in the world is Palancar Caves and the surrounding Palancar reefs. The visibility is spectacular, and I love the coral spires. Walls are also my favorite. Bonaire, in comparison, does not have walls that drop off to infinity, but you wouldn't know it because you usually can't see the bottom. Many reefs are very steep and I was not left wanting in that department. Bonaire has way more soft corals than Cozumel and the current is much lighter. Plus, Bonaire has that double reef system which is neat. The biggest difference is probably the visibility; don't get me wrong: Bonaire's visibility is great, but Cozumel can be absolutely spectacular.
All in all, we will definitely be looking to do another trip to Bonaire before we get too old and decrepit. If you haven't been, make sure to give it a try!

Video highlights of our dives:



I also have a ton of pictures in case anyone is interested.

Yeah, I know. Should have done that many years ago.

A few select pictures...

I need to get my dives squared away for when we stop there in December. Married to a non-diver so I’ll probably never get a week-long dive vacation there, so getting out while there on a cruise will have to do.

Well, I had been looking forward to adding my Bonaire dive experience to this post, but the guide I was going to dive with on 12/27 got hit by a car and killed on Christmas Day. Found out too late to get anything else set up.

Oh dang. Sorry to hear that.

What do you need a guide for though?

I was coming in on a cruise ship, and I'm not at the point where I'm comfortable renting a car, picking up tanks, and doing shore dives on my own (and I'm 100% sure my non-diving wife wouldn't be comfortable with it). The other dive ops I had tried to get in with were totally booked up because of the holiday week.  I'd seen recommendations on Scuba Board for this guide, and he was available to take me. Given that the guy died, my not being able to dive is pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of things. I still got out in St. Kitts, so bringing my gear wasn't a total loss.

I've been to Cozumel a bunch and it's hands-down my favorite place to dive. The underwater topography is so varied that you feel like you're diving in different places. Plus, I'm still awed every dive on Palancar; I just can't get enough of seeing it.

You *can* go deep in Cozumel, but there's not much of a point. Most operators keep you around 100 or shallower. I've seen a blacktip reef shark and a hammerhead in Cozumel spread across 6-7 trips. Otherwise, it's boring old nurse sharks. Bonaire is pretty devoid of shark encounters.