Monday 18 October 2010
Sunday 17 October 2010
Week two on Bonaire
After our trip up to the National Park we took it easy on Wednesday as I was feeling a bit ill. We headed up to Eden Beach, where the Wannadive dive shop is and sat on the beach and did a bit of swimming. Later on I stocked up on food at the supermarket investigating what is available and not ridiculously expensive. Predictly, that isn't much given the size of the island. Most food is imported from the States or The Netherlands with some fresh fruit from Venezuela. Trying not to think too much about the food miles.
Thursday, we investigated the diving options from Eden Beach. There is a marked dive site not too far away - Front Porch. Here there is coral reef and plenty to see. Off the beach itself is mostly sand and rubble but still quite a lot of life to see if you spend the time. There are also three wrecks, a small wooden skeleton of a ship. Our Confidence, just south of the beach at about 18m deep which was quite interesting. And also two other small but more intact wrecks, a tugboat and sailing boat at 20-25 m further north. There are many morays and snake eels which seem to swim freely more often than I've seen elsewhere. We've also seen a couple of 1.5m tarpon quite close up. We did three dives Thursday, two on the Our Confidence and one going North from the beach. The currents seem stronger in the afternoon and are usually flowing south.
Friday we did a boat dive at Keepsake on Klein Bonaire. This was a nice relaxing dive with no current and plenty of pristine coral to see. No turtles or big fish but a nice scorpion fish and good to be out on the boat. In the afternoon we stayed at the beach and did two more dives. One down to the deep sailing boat wreck, which contains a mattress growing soft coral and one much shallower on the reef. One interesting thing of note is the Sergeant Major damselfish which are nesting at the moment. The males are darker in colour and guarding dark blue patches of eggs. If you get too close they will take a nibble out of your fin tips! I guess this is a warning to keep away. Just deeper than the wrecks where the reef gives way to sandy bottom which is populated by hundreds of garden eels. These are so cute but retreat into their holes as you approach.
Saturday was another relax on the beach and snorkelling day. We were both pretty tired from the quite deep dives the previous day. Also my computer had been telling me I had 2 minutes of no deco time left at 7.5 metres on the way back from the third dive so I had pushed right to the limits and thought a day off would be useful.
We ate out Saturday night at City Cafe. One of the few restaurants/bars that seems almost reasonably priced. But the best part was the ice cream from Watta Burger afterwards! I think there will be many more of them!
Thursday, we investigated the diving options from Eden Beach. There is a marked dive site not too far away - Front Porch. Here there is coral reef and plenty to see. Off the beach itself is mostly sand and rubble but still quite a lot of life to see if you spend the time. There are also three wrecks, a small wooden skeleton of a ship. Our Confidence, just south of the beach at about 18m deep which was quite interesting. And also two other small but more intact wrecks, a tugboat and sailing boat at 20-25 m further north. There are many morays and snake eels which seem to swim freely more often than I've seen elsewhere. We've also seen a couple of 1.5m tarpon quite close up. We did three dives Thursday, two on the Our Confidence and one going North from the beach. The currents seem stronger in the afternoon and are usually flowing south.
Friday we did a boat dive at Keepsake on Klein Bonaire. This was a nice relaxing dive with no current and plenty of pristine coral to see. No turtles or big fish but a nice scorpion fish and good to be out on the boat. In the afternoon we stayed at the beach and did two more dives. One down to the deep sailing boat wreck, which contains a mattress growing soft coral and one much shallower on the reef. One interesting thing of note is the Sergeant Major damselfish which are nesting at the moment. The males are darker in colour and guarding dark blue patches of eggs. If you get too close they will take a nibble out of your fin tips! I guess this is a warning to keep away. Just deeper than the wrecks where the reef gives way to sandy bottom which is populated by hundreds of garden eels. These are so cute but retreat into their holes as you approach.
Saturday was another relax on the beach and snorkelling day. We were both pretty tired from the quite deep dives the previous day. Also my computer had been telling me I had 2 minutes of no deco time left at 7.5 metres on the way back from the third dive so I had pushed right to the limits and thought a day off would be useful.
We ate out Saturday night at City Cafe. One of the few restaurants/bars that seems almost reasonably priced. But the best part was the ice cream from Watta Burger afterwards! I think there will be many more of them!
More diving and the National Park
Last Monday we moved from the Black Durgon Inn (which was a little quiet and far out of town) to Wannadive Hut (http://www.wannadive.com/) which is in town and has a bar. We have a studio room so can cook our own food which we need to because there are no cheap restaurants on Bonaire. It's actually renowned as having some of the best restaurants in the Caribbean!
Tuesday we were invited to go diving with a couple of guys staying here from the US (see http://www.tacomascubacenter.com/ for the dive shop they run if interested in diving near Seattle (Brr!)). We headed up to the Washington Slagbaai National Park with a truck laden down with 15 cylinders and 5 sets of dive gear. Extra air was added to the tyres before we left! Note the the roads in the park are untarmacced and generally 4 wheel drive only.
We left a little later than planned due to some excess beer (not us) on Monday night but made it up to the park around 11am. Very rough country and hot and dry. The track around the park is one way and takes around 3 hours to drive with 2 hours to the cafe stop after you've started. We stopped a couple of times on the way to the dive sites at an area where you can clearly see the uplifted reefs, a blowhole and an old lighthouse. At every stop there were lizards and iguanas swarming to the car looking for food. We also saw many wild goats and donkeys.
Our first dive site for the day was Boka Bartol. A mild surf entry and then a fair surface swim out to the site. A nice long dive with beautiful coral and lots of life. We saw a foot long lobster at 29m - biggest I've ever seen and our first turtle of the trip. Just a small hawksbill but lovely nonetheless. After a short surface interval we did our second dive at Playa Benge. Another surf entry (the sea is a little rougher in the park compared with further south) and a swim out over the shallow reef and sand channels. More good coral and fish life and a buzz by a metre long jack.
Unfortunately, we didn't have time for another dive in the park as we needed to be in the water by 2:30 to allow for enough time to drive back to the exit of the park by the 5pm closing time. Instead we stopped for at the park cafe where we ate our picnic lunch and ccould see more wild goats and flamingoes! On the drive back we had to slow for a young donkey that had got separated from its mother on the road and couldn't work out how to get off the road. Aaah!
Tuesday we were invited to go diving with a couple of guys staying here from the US (see http://www.tacomascubacenter.com/ for the dive shop they run if interested in diving near Seattle (Brr!)). We headed up to the Washington Slagbaai National Park with a truck laden down with 15 cylinders and 5 sets of dive gear. Extra air was added to the tyres before we left! Note the the roads in the park are untarmacced and generally 4 wheel drive only.
We left a little later than planned due to some excess beer (not us) on Monday night but made it up to the park around 11am. Very rough country and hot and dry. The track around the park is one way and takes around 3 hours to drive with 2 hours to the cafe stop after you've started. We stopped a couple of times on the way to the dive sites at an area where you can clearly see the uplifted reefs, a blowhole and an old lighthouse. At every stop there were lizards and iguanas swarming to the car looking for food. We also saw many wild goats and donkeys.
Our first dive site for the day was Boka Bartol. A mild surf entry and then a fair surface swim out to the site. A nice long dive with beautiful coral and lots of life. We saw a foot long lobster at 29m - biggest I've ever seen and our first turtle of the trip. Just a small hawksbill but lovely nonetheless. After a short surface interval we did our second dive at Playa Benge. Another surf entry (the sea is a little rougher in the park compared with further south) and a swim out over the shallow reef and sand channels. More good coral and fish life and a buzz by a metre long jack.
Unfortunately, we didn't have time for another dive in the park as we needed to be in the water by 2:30 to allow for enough time to drive back to the exit of the park by the 5pm closing time. Instead we stopped for at the park cafe where we ate our picnic lunch and ccould see more wild goats and flamingoes! On the drive back we had to slow for a young donkey that had got separated from its mother on the road and couldn't work out how to get off the road. Aaah!
Thursday 14 October 2010
Tuesday 12 October 2010
Saturday 9 October 2010
Settling in
4 days after leaving the UK we're starting to settle into Caribbean life. We had a few minor hiccups in getting here but have accommodation in the same place on Bonaire for the next month.
We left London at 10:10 BST on Tuesday 5th October 2010 on BA2159 to Trinidad via St Lucia. Landed in St Lucia about 8 hours later but unfortunately all we saw of it was the runway from inside the plane as we weren't allowed off. A couple of hours later and we arrived in Trinidad. We weren't allowed immediately through immigration since we didn't have a print out of our onward ticket with us! Seems they are a lot stricter on these sort of things in the Caribbean than anywhere else I've ever been before. A nice man from BA managed to get us a print out from our next airline and we were through and in a taxi to the Holiday Inn Express. Probably the most expensive hotel we will stay in all year but the only hotel close to the airport and it was pretty nice to get there after a long flight.
The next morning we headed back to the airport to continue our journey to Curacao and Bonaire. Along the way we paid more in excess baggage charges than I have ever paid before (we each have our dive gear in a separate bag). For future reference, Liat have particularly high charges, we handed over an extra $184 for the 2 hour flight to Curacao, only slightly less than the cost of the tickets!
After dealing with more immigration difficulties in Bonaire (no onward flight ticket and no booked accommodation and wanting to stay for 40 days apparently not OK) we found ourselves in the tourist information office in Kralendijk desperately seeking a room during the busiest week of the year, International Regatta week! Luckily we found a room for that night only that didn't cost the earth and was in town. Next day (Thursday) we found a room further out of town, at the Black Durgon Inn, for a few days at a very cheap rate. Good enough while we looked for something more long term but a long 3 mile walk from town.
Finally on Thursday afternoon we had a chance to get in the water. Just for a snorkel as we arrived too late for a diving orientation of the marine park. Water is 30 degrees C at the surface, clear with almost endless visibility and a stunning number and variety of fish even in 2 metres depth!
Thursday evening we walked into town and went to Wannadive Hut, where we are planning to spend the rest of our time here, for their weekly all you can eat BBQ with free run punch :-) Seems like a very friendly place bustling with divers and cheapish beer. Met a group from Seattle who spend most of the year cold water diving much like ourselves. Hopefully, we will see them again and maybe go diving with them.
On Friday we started diving. The Black Durgon Inn has access to a site called Small Wall which we're told is a very good site that you can only dive if you are staying here or come in by boat (Bonaire is pretty much all shore diving). After breakfast and an orientation we jumped in and had a pootle along the reef to see what we could see. Was pretty awesome (not quite as diverse and colourful as the Indo-Pacific but pretty close). After the dive I headed into town to take my CV to every dive school I could find. Every one had pretty much the same answer, no work permit it's going to be difficult especially as the law changes on Monday when Bonaire becomes a municipality of The Netherlands. Also I'm not really here for long enough to be of use to anyone. So guess it's just going to be a long (and expensive) holiday until I head to Tobago in mid-November to work for Coral Cay Conservation. I probably need the break anyway. A second dive just before sunset cheered me up and this time we actually saw the wall part of the dive site which the current didn't allow us to earlier. Pretty impressive. Will hopefully have a chance to learn more about the fish here as they are quite different to those I know in Asia and The Red Sea.
Saturday (today) has been a diving and relaxing day. 3 dives, some reading, some eating and some napping :-) First dive of the day was to 35 metres where a sizable stingray swam past. Also saw lots of morays, a couple of snake eels, 2 cuttlefish and a huge barracuda amongst thousands of other fish. The cutest sights of the day are probably the tiny tobies and a juvenile burrfish who was hanging around at the start and end of our third dive.
Tomorrow we plan to dive further afield having grabbed a lift with a couple of guys who arrived today. Not sure we've quite adjusted to the slower pace of life yet but definitely getting there. No running has been accomplished yet but I think we may have found the Bonaire Hash House Harriers who run every other Wednesday.
We left London at 10:10 BST on Tuesday 5th October 2010 on BA2159 to Trinidad via St Lucia. Landed in St Lucia about 8 hours later but unfortunately all we saw of it was the runway from inside the plane as we weren't allowed off. A couple of hours later and we arrived in Trinidad. We weren't allowed immediately through immigration since we didn't have a print out of our onward ticket with us! Seems they are a lot stricter on these sort of things in the Caribbean than anywhere else I've ever been before. A nice man from BA managed to get us a print out from our next airline and we were through and in a taxi to the Holiday Inn Express. Probably the most expensive hotel we will stay in all year but the only hotel close to the airport and it was pretty nice to get there after a long flight.
The next morning we headed back to the airport to continue our journey to Curacao and Bonaire. Along the way we paid more in excess baggage charges than I have ever paid before (we each have our dive gear in a separate bag). For future reference, Liat have particularly high charges, we handed over an extra $184 for the 2 hour flight to Curacao, only slightly less than the cost of the tickets!
After dealing with more immigration difficulties in Bonaire (no onward flight ticket and no booked accommodation and wanting to stay for 40 days apparently not OK) we found ourselves in the tourist information office in Kralendijk desperately seeking a room during the busiest week of the year, International Regatta week! Luckily we found a room for that night only that didn't cost the earth and was in town. Next day (Thursday) we found a room further out of town, at the Black Durgon Inn, for a few days at a very cheap rate. Good enough while we looked for something more long term but a long 3 mile walk from town.
Finally on Thursday afternoon we had a chance to get in the water. Just for a snorkel as we arrived too late for a diving orientation of the marine park. Water is 30 degrees C at the surface, clear with almost endless visibility and a stunning number and variety of fish even in 2 metres depth!
Thursday evening we walked into town and went to Wannadive Hut, where we are planning to spend the rest of our time here, for their weekly all you can eat BBQ with free run punch :-) Seems like a very friendly place bustling with divers and cheapish beer. Met a group from Seattle who spend most of the year cold water diving much like ourselves. Hopefully, we will see them again and maybe go diving with them.
On Friday we started diving. The Black Durgon Inn has access to a site called Small Wall which we're told is a very good site that you can only dive if you are staying here or come in by boat (Bonaire is pretty much all shore diving). After breakfast and an orientation we jumped in and had a pootle along the reef to see what we could see. Was pretty awesome (not quite as diverse and colourful as the Indo-Pacific but pretty close). After the dive I headed into town to take my CV to every dive school I could find. Every one had pretty much the same answer, no work permit it's going to be difficult especially as the law changes on Monday when Bonaire becomes a municipality of The Netherlands. Also I'm not really here for long enough to be of use to anyone. So guess it's just going to be a long (and expensive) holiday until I head to Tobago in mid-November to work for Coral Cay Conservation. I probably need the break anyway. A second dive just before sunset cheered me up and this time we actually saw the wall part of the dive site which the current didn't allow us to earlier. Pretty impressive. Will hopefully have a chance to learn more about the fish here as they are quite different to those I know in Asia and The Red Sea.
Saturday (today) has been a diving and relaxing day. 3 dives, some reading, some eating and some napping :-) First dive of the day was to 35 metres where a sizable stingray swam past. Also saw lots of morays, a couple of snake eels, 2 cuttlefish and a huge barracuda amongst thousands of other fish. The cutest sights of the day are probably the tiny tobies and a juvenile burrfish who was hanging around at the start and end of our third dive.
Tomorrow we plan to dive further afield having grabbed a lift with a couple of guys who arrived today. Not sure we've quite adjusted to the slower pace of life yet but definitely getting there. No running has been accomplished yet but I think we may have found the Bonaire Hash House Harriers who run every other Wednesday.
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