Friday 10/27/23
We are picked up at 1:30 pm by the driver from Blue Nile Livery. He has a lot of crap in his trunk, so the bags don’t all fit, and he ends up moving some of it to the front seat. One of our three bags rides shotgun. He’s kind of grumbling, but we get everything in and the rest of the ride is uneventful. We try to check in at the self-serve kiosk, but the screen says we need to see an agent. The agent we get is very new, and he messes up something badly in the system which requires a supervisor to intervene. She needs to call someone else to get our issues cleared. This process takes 30-40 minutes, but we have lots of time built in. We get to our gate and onto our plane.
I watch Renfield on the way to Atlanta. A pretty dumb story, in addition to a typically unhinged performance by Nick Cage makes for a fun time for me. 3 out of 5 stars. We take the monorail to our on-airport property hotel and get settled in the room. We eat at the hotel sports bar, steak tacos for me, and a turkey burger for K. Both are serviceable, and then it’s off to bed for the long flight to Bonaire in the morning.
Saturday 10/28/23
We arise, shower, and then we’re off to the airport on the monorail for our flight. Once again, the self-check kiosk is not working, so we go to an attendant, but at least one who knows what she’s doing. After checking our bags, we get into the long line for security. All airports have signs stating that weapons are not allowed, but I wonder how many they confiscate in Atlanta to require signs PLUS rotating gun holograms with a red slash through them.
We stop at a McDonalds for breakfast, and it’s the worst run McDonalds on Earth. They are very efficient taking your order and money, but getting your food is another issue. It took us over a half hour to get crappy food. Also, for Iced Coffee they had only caramel or French Vanilla. We both would prefer plain, but I ask for French Vanilla. The woman then fills two glasses with PLAIN ICED COFFEE, and adds the French Vanilla syrup! Why not allow me to order it without the cloyingly sweet syrup? Weird.
Our flight is uneventful save for some turbulence and a sharp left turn just after takeoff. The pilot explains we got caught in another plane’s air wake. It was a little scary. I watch Evil Dead Rise on the trip down. I was not entranced by the wrap around story, but it was a respectable entry into the Evil Dead canon, 3 out of 5 stars.
We land and disembark onto the tarmac, and are smacked in the face by the heat. It always takes me a few days to acclimate to the temperatures here. I never stop sweating, I just sweat a bit less as the weeks progress. We had paid our tourist tax in advance, so that saves us a line, and our passports are stamped, we get our luggage, and grab a cab to the Divi Flamingo, our home for the next two weeks. We check in, but the room isn’t ready yet, so I use this time to grab our rental car at the Hertz office at the Divi. Once our room is ready, we make a quick grocery list, and K unpacks our stuff, while I head to the Van Der Tweel grocery store for supplies. I’m very happy that Kip Tukkie, he of the amazing smoked chicken is outside the store when I get out, and I grab two smoked chicken halves. I bring the supplies back and we unload the groceries. The seas are very rough today, as there is a wind reversal that has been happening over the past few days. The prevailing winds run East to West normally, but it’s going West to East, stirring up big waves on the normally quiet Western shore. It’s 5 PM, so we make the decision to skip snorkeling today, and we settle for a dip in the pool, followed by a trip down to the bar to get some Coconut Shrimp, Chicken Wings (since they were out of the delicious Bonarian Cheese balls), and some Bitterballen for me. We also get a bucket of 6 Sol beers and watch the sunset. It’s an early bedtime tonight, as we’ve been going since 6 am. Tomorrow, there shall be snorkeling!
Sunday 10/29/23
We wake up and have our first Island eggs of the trip (scrambled eggs with chorizo, onion, pepper, tomato, and cheese) coffee, and tropical juice. We never drink juice at breakfast at home, yet we always do here. After breakfast we head down to the water. Three of the four access points to the water are closed off with yellow tape, leaving only the new metal stairs off the small sunning dock next to what’s left of the old dive dock. K is hesitant, so I put on my fins on the stairs and lower myself into the water. Once I am in, it’s obvious that the visibility (or vis) is very poor. K tells me to check it out, and I swim south towards the stone jetty, but I’m having to lift my head out of the water frequently in order to see where I am, as the vis is only a few feet. The wind reversal and storms have roiled up the sand, and the combination with the heavier than normal surf, makes it nearly impossible to see. I see some fish, but honestly the water conditions are so poor, that I don’t even turn on the camera. I head out of the water, and we head to the pool for a dip.
We decide that since the vis is so poor, that we should go back to the store to get a few things that I forgot yesterday. We return, unload, and have some lunch. Lunch today is some of the excellent smoked chicken in sandwiches with chips, and Royal Club biter lemon soda, a Dutch treat not sold in the US. I watch some of the Pats/Miami game, and we head back down to the water at halftime. The surf has mellowed a bit, and we decide the best way to get in the water from this little dock is to gear up and then slide off since it is in 10-12 feet of water. While not as good as it is normally, the vis is far superior to what it was earlier. K really wants to get one snorkel under her belt before we go on the Woodwind for the first of 2 trips with them tomorrow. We snorkel south towards the stone jetty, around it, and continue south to the Woodwind dock. and return. We swim north past the remnants of the old dive dock, and a bit further north towards the mooring places for the cruise ships. We head out to the depths for a bit, then back into the jetty, making another circuit, then head back out at the small dock. We go to the pool for our usual post snorkeling dip, then I head up to return our gear and get some rum and juice drinks to watch the sunset with.
When I get into the room, however, the door will not close, and I call the front desk to have someone come to check it. I let K know it will be a while before she gets her drink. The maintenance guys come, and there is a screw sticking up a bit in the door jamb that’s preventing it from closing. A quick screw removal and screwing it back flush fixes the problem, and I go down to the pool, rum drinks in hand. We have few drinks and watch the sunset, before returning to our room to shower, change, and get ready for dinner.
For the past few years, we’ve heard a bunch of different people talk about a Chinese restaurant right across the street from the Divi called Bon Bini Bar and Restaurant. It’s supposedly good and cheap. We walk over, and we sit at the bar. They have an interesting way of keeping track of how many drinks you have, they put the beer caps on their side of the bar in front of you! Several locals are sitting at the bar with liquor bottles in front of them. I’m not sure if they keep track of what they drink, or if they allow them to bring in their own bottles. It’s interesting. We order a huge egg roll, some chicken satay ( a huge portion for only $4!), vegetarian fried rice, and sweet and sour chicken. It’s all good, and all that food, plus five beers total to a bill of only $44.50! We walk the short distance to the Divi, and go to bed. We may not return on this trip, but we will definitely eat here again in the future.
Monday 10/30/23
Today is our first trip on the Woodwind. We have a simple breakfast of peanut butter on toast, fresh pineapple, yogurt for me, coffee and juice. We head down to the Woodwind dock for the 9 am trip. Waiting to leave we meet a nice woman S, who has been coming to Bonaire since the early 90’s with her husband who dives. She snorkels and has gone on the Woodwind many times like we have. The trip out to the island is lovely as always. We learn that Dee has officially retired after her health issues over the past few years.
Isa is now the woman in charge, and she leads an all-woman crew of new captain Kimberley, guides Maria and Kylie, and photographer Martina. The visibility is far better on Klein and we see lots of fish and coral, though the amount of bleaching, especially the fire coral is drastic. There is also some incidence of stony coral disease, which has unfortunately made it to Bonaire after being seen in the Carribean over the past 10-15 years This affects the brain and other stony corals the most.
We do the three-stop snorkel, but only see one turtle (far too deep to film), and three tarpons (also too far away to film), unusual to see on Klein. The rest are what we call the “usual suspects”. The French Angels are very curious here, and one spends some time with me looking at my camera. We return to shore, and make plans with Isa to do a night snorkel with S and her husband D to see the ostracods, bioluminescent crustaceans that can be seen 2-6 days after the full moon, with 5 days being optimal. We’ll be going on Thursday, five days out.
We stop at the pool closer to the Woodwind dock to have a dip, then head to the jetty for a house snorkel. The winds have calmed a lot, and the resort has re-opened the three water entries that had previously closed. Again, most of what we see are the usual suspects, though we do see one very weird thing. It’s a long red tube floating near the surface , about 2-3 feet long (0.6-0.9 M) and 6-8 inches (15-20 CM) in diameter. At first, I thought it was some sort of colony animal, like some jellyfish, but upon returning home, looking through my Creature identification book, I’ve decided it was a squid egg case, as it’s the only thing that makes sense in the book. We also see a large plastic sheet/bag that’s floating in the water. I would normally remove it, but it’s being used by a small school of baby fish for shelter. I try to remove it, but most of the fish refuse to leave it, so I let it go.
Since K does not eat the delicious food that is served on the Woodwind, we stop at the bar for some snacks, Nachos, and Bonairian cheese balls, which they had today. We head back to the room to shower after watching the sunset. There is a talk tonight about Mantas, at the resort, which we attend. We hope someday to see one on Bonaire, though they are very rare here. We have seen them in the South Pacific, and in Hawaii and it is a mesmerizing experience. We had intended to have the rest of our smoked chicken for dinner tonight, but K isn’t very hungry, so I have some crackers, and cheese, and we drift off to sleep.
Tuesday 10/31/23
Happy Halloween! We awake to a rainy Halloween morning. We have heard that a rain storm should help eliminate the wind reversal, which should result in calmer waters, and better vis. Fingers crossed. After an Island egg breakfast, we decide to take a drive north to see if you can still park to go to Bari’s reef, but the parking lot we used last year is a construction zone, and we have no place to leave the car. Disappointed, we head back south towards Sorobon.
The streets are flooded with muddy water, and deep puddles. We get as far south as the slave huts, when we have to turn aback as the coast road to Sorobon is closed. We stop and take some shots of Flamingoes near the road. We stop at Salt Pier to look at turtles. You always see Green Sea Turtles here as there is plentiful sea grass, their primary food. My camera won’t turn on, so we just hang about watching the turtles as they eat on the bottom, then rise up to the surface to breathe. I’m bummed the camera is not working, but I’m trying to not get upset over things I can’t control, and just go with the flow. After we get out of the water, we head back north to the Divi. K takes the gear bag and heads down to the jetty, while I head to the room to get the camera working. I install a fresh battery, and the camera is back in business. I notice that outside our room door, there is a nest in the tree (we’re on the second floor), and there is a dove with two chicks in the nest. I’ll have to remember to show K when we go back to the room. I head back down to the jetty to join K. I see my first Spotted Moray, but they’re not in a place I can film them. I also see our first puffer (porcupine) fish hiding under a ledge. We also see a small turtle that swims away in the distance that’s too far away to film. We get out of the water for a pre-lunch pool dip. Back in the room, we have a late lunch of ham and cheese sandwiches, and chips. It’s about 3:30, so we decide to just hang in the room and relax. K and I met at a Halloween party in 1983, and so we always celebrate Halloween as our “start of the relationship” anniversary. We sat by the water and watched the sunset, drinking the bottle of sparkling wine we brought with us. I could get used to this. Dinner is in tonight, and we’re finishing the end of the Kip Tukkie smoked chicken with a microwaved baked potato, and cucumber. We read a bit an watch some TV before nodding off. K isn’t feeling 100%, but we think it’s just a cold, as she doesn’t feel like she did when she got COVID. Hopefully she feels better soon.
Wednesday 11/1/23
We awake to torrential rain and K still feeling kinda lousy. We eat some breakfast and then read in the room. The rains lessen for a bit, but then picks back up in intensity. I try to make K stay in bed to rest, and she’s putting on a good face and trying to stay upbeat. We stay in the room until a little after noon, when we decide to go get some lunch at the resort restaurant Chibi Chibi. K has a BLT with added cheddar cheese and fries, and I get a bacon cheeseburger with fries. We walk back to the room to grab our gear, and head to the jetty for a house reef snorkel. First, we go north, where we see our first puffer not hiding on the trip. I also spy a few scorpionfish which K finally sees. We head south once the dive boats have left the dock. We say hello to S who is staying at the Carib and getting into the water to snorkel. Soon after K finds a gold spotted eel. These are snake eels like the sharptail eels, but unlike the brown body and white spots of the sharptail eels, these have a white body with gold spots. We generally see one about once a week while here. We swim south as far as the Sebastian’s dock and back. On the return trip I see a Golden Moray in the fire coral. The fire coral on the whole island is suffering from bleaching, and some has gone from its original brown to nearly pure white. Coral can come back from bleaching (caused by the water temperatures being too high), but if it persists too long, it can be fatal. We swim back to the jetty, and K gets out of the water. I take one final spin around the jetty, ad I see a small puffer swimming free. I film it a bit, as it heads into the rocks.
Afterwards, we go for a dip in the pool. Due to the heavy cloud cover it’s probably not going too be a great sunset. We head back to the room for showers and to change for dinner. Dinner tonight is one of our favorite places,, Mezze. Mezze is a middle eastern restaurant, and we make a meal out of various tapas, including meaty hummus (house made hummus with seasoned ground beef on it), tabbouleh, Turkish Sujok sausage, and beef carpaccio accompanied by their excellent house made pita bread (more like a saj bread as it doesn’t have a pocket. We go to Gio’s afterwards for some of their amazing gelato, salted caramel for K and a combo of passionfruit and mango for me. We forgot it was cash only and didn’t bring any with us. They write my name in a book, and we promise to return tomorrow to pay. We eat the gelato looking at the ocean watching far off lightning illuminate the clouds. We walk back to the Divi to head to bed. It’s brutally hot tonight, and we can’t wait to get back to the air-conditioned room. I hope K feels better tomorrow.
Thursday 11/2/23
We decide to do a morning snorkel before breakfast today. Unfortunately, we don’t get out until after 7:30, which is later than we would have liked. It’s nice to not have any other people in the water, and we immediately see a nice puffer out and about. Immediately after we see the puffer, my camera starts to register an SD Card Error. So from this point on, it’s a looking and not filming snorkel for me today. The only time I wish I had a camera was when we saw a nice spotted moray out and about, otherwise, it’s all the usual suspects. We swim back to the jetty and then out to head back in for breakfast. We finish breakfast around 10 am, and since we’re doing a night snorkel with Isa from the Woodwind tonight, we decide to have a chill day today.
We walk into town around 2 pm to check out the shops and to have an early dinner as we won’t be able to eat dinner at our normal time with the upcoming night snorkel. We were planning to stop at Diver’s Diner for a pizza, but we arrive about 10 minutes before their closing and their limited menu doesn’t entice us. We have a beer, and then move onto the Rumba Cafe for dinner. K has a Thai beef salad, and I have a “traditional Uruguayan dish” of a small steak, bacon, a fried egg, a small salad, a dollop of potato salad, and French Fries. We also stop by Gio’s to pay them for the gelato we didn’t pay for yesterday. We walk back to the Divi to rest before meeting Isa at the Carib at 6:30, where S and her husband D are staying.
The reason we are doing this night snorkel tonight is that it’s exactly 5 days after the full moon. On days 2-6 after the full moon (with day 5 being the best day), you can see ostracods in the water at night. Ostracods are tiny crustaceans which emit a blue bioluminescence to find a mate on those few days after the full moon each month. They release two chemicals in the water which when combined provides an eerie blue light. You cannot photograph this phenomenon without special equipment, but it is a magical sight, with the soft corals underneath us having specks of blue light on them like a star field or flying over a city. When you move your hands or fins through the water you see specks of light form in the water in front of you. Finally, when it’s coming to an end, you see pools of blue light coalesce on the surface of the water. It is an amazing experience. You do need to go away from any ambient light from buildings, etc, and you have to be willing to snorkel in fairly deep water, in the dark, without any lights (which would disturb them, and they won’t come out). It’s an eerie, but wonderful experience, and we’re very happy we did it. We do a mini night snorkel with lights on the way back in where we see a ghostly tarpon, a tint smooth trunkfish baby (much too small to film in focus), and an octopus. There are also thousands of tiny fish that congregate around your lights, that you can actually feel on the skin of your hand. Very cool.
We leave the water and get back into Isa’s van for the drive back to the Carib to drop off S and D. Since it’s a 2-minute walk to the Divi, we tell Isa to head home, and we’ll walk back. We rinse off the gear in the shower, take showers, have a beer and some dessert, then head to bed. Tomorrow is almost the end of our first week. The time just flies.
Friday 11/3/23
More rain this morning. K and I have coffee and breakfast and consider our day. We decide to snorkel the house reef, and it’s quite nice, with mostly just the usual suspects, though we see a nice spotted moray eel again. We normally see more Sharptail eels (we’ve seen only one). We also see an Ocean Triggerfish, but it’s pretty far off and moving away from us, so too far to film. Yesterday when I didn’t have a camera, I spotted a spotted drum in the jetty rocks. Since they generally stay close to the same place during the daytime, I look for it again, and it’s there, in the same area. I make a few dives down to see if I can get any quality footage. We also see the Gold Spotted Moral Eel again, seeing it twice this week. We get out of the water and head to the pool. It’s cooler than it normally is without the sun to warm it, and after a short time we head into the room for lunch. We have ham and cheese sandwiches for lunch, and since it’s about 2 pm now, we decide to hang by the pool and read until I can run back to the store to get more Kip Tukkie smoked chicken.
He’s only there Wed, Fri and Saturdays, and we have an early dinner reservation tomorrow, so today is the only day we can go. We read for a while near the pool until it’s time for me to go. K moves to a space near the ocean and I take off to get smoked chicken. The Divi parking lot is very small, and always full, so I’m not surprised when I leave that someone is behind me, sliding into the spot I vacated. Unless I get lucky, I’ll be parking on the street in front of the resort when I return. As I return and enter the lot to look for a space, the person who had taken my space when I left, leaves, and I slide right back where I was. I’m happy as there were no street spaces really close.
I bring the chicken to the room, and make us some rum and juice drinks to drink while we watch the sunset. We have two drinks then head into the room to shower and get ready for dinner. We notice as we approach the room that the dove and her two chicks that were in the nest near our room have flown the coop.
Dinner tonight is at Donna & Giorgio’s, an Italian restaurant downtown. Donna greets us and we sit down. Some folks don’t like Donna & Giorgio’s as they have a pretty limited menu, based solely on what was available fresh that day. We were hoping to split a beef carpaccio, but it’s not on the menu tonight, so we settle for their wonderful beef lasagna for me, and garlic shrimp with risotto for K. Donna tells us how hot it’s been here this year. We mention that we’re seeing lots less Dutch tourists at the Divi this year, and ask if it’s been slower this year.
She says that the Dutch tourists have been staying at the brand new Chogogo resort, and the newly renovated Plaza resort. The Dutch tend to do the all inclusive meal and drink plans at the resorts, so most of her business comes from locals and American tourists. Donna doesn’t seem to bothered by this revelation, and we pay our bill and walk into town for some more delicious Gio’s gelato. Strawberry and mango for me, and coconut and mango for K. We eat it seaside looking out over the ocean. We head back to the Divi to sleep. Hopefully tomorrow we can get started earlier for a pre-breakfast snorkel as the octopuses are often out early hunting just after sunrise. We drift off to sleep. I have a couple of very odd dreams, perhaps a portent of what’s to come.
The Travel Lion 
Thanks for your extensive trip report! That squid egg case sure looks interesting. The coral bleaching is very dismaying, those fire corals are completely white! We have an upcoming ninth snorkel trip to Bonaire, hoping the brain coral and others are not too badly affected by SCTLD.