Bonaire3

Oh my god, SCUBATREKKERS are back in LA! We have spent 2 fabulous weeks on Bonaire. Our Diveteam consisting of Sandra, Aldie, Rosanna, Mike, Tanja & Bruno arrived on the island ready to dive the magical reefs of this famous place. While Mike, Tanja and Rosanna made it on ALM Airlines without (!) any problems, Aldie, Sandra and Bruno who flew Air Jamaica touched down with the dive gear missing. But lucky us, we stayed at the Belmar Resort (the very best!!!) and they offered in conjunction with Toucan Diving free dive gear rental until our own gear showed up. Thanks very much for this great service. By the way... the rental gear was in perfect shape. Air Jamaica delivered our bags (after some pressure form our side) three days later.

We are so happy that we made the right choice to stay at the Belmar. Jan & Wilma are very nice and made us feel like at home. We rented a Superior Classic 2 bedroom condo complete with kitchen. No doubt, very luxurious and indeed a home away from home! The Belmar also has a great pier from which we did lots of dives. The reef is very nice especially for night dives and the convenience to just walk up to your room after a cool dive is awesome. Also there is a big rinse tank for your gear and every apartment has a dive locker to hang up your equipment. Also very valuable is Toucan Divings little shop at the Belmar. Irene was very helpful and there were always plenty of scuba tanks 24 hours a day. That's what we call DIVING FREEDOM!!!

I guess I don't have to mention that we all enjoyed the diving on Bonaire tremendously. Very healthy reefs, lot's of fish and other little critters. Not too many large fish encounters. Some good looking Baracudas, some huge Tarpons and some nice sized Groupers. Of course, we were also searching for the famous sea horses but could not find any. We did only shore diving and we believe if you don't dive Klein Bonaire you do not need a boat to access the best dives Bonaire has to offer.

Bonaire is definately a divers paradise but if you are looking for nightlife... this is the wrong island.We all enjoyed the quite evenings under the stars. Most of the time we were cooking our own food at the apartment. Food is not exactly cheap on Bonaire and the price for the beer at the supermarket is creepy... Twice we went out for dinner and being Swiss ourself (except for Aldie) we had to try the new Swiss Chalet restaurant. Great food indeed and the hosts Susy and Noldi are nice people. Just Susy's calculator doesn't seem to work to good... But her fruitcakes are top delicious. The other place we tried was Rum Runners at Captain Don's Habitat. Also not bad and it was fun to watch all the night divers lights zoom around the water below the restaurant.

After 2 incredible weeks on Bonaire it was not an easy task to leave the island.
As a taxi driver told us: Bonaire is a great place... but the hardest thing is to get here and away. Tanja & Mike who flew ALM Airlines did the usual game; sitting at Flamingo airport not knowing when they will be able to leave the island. Most ALM employees at this airport had no clue what they are doing and they are not very helpful nor very friendly. Eventually they made it off the island with a six hour delay just to get caught in the middle of an airline drug bust in Miami, where part of the crew was arrested.

Aldie, Sandra and Bruno departed Bonaire a day later with Air Jamaica. The entire day it was raining cats and dogs and all the locals mentioned that this is very unusual even for the rainy season. We were also delayed for a while and missed our connection to LAX in Montego Bay. So we took a little detour to Atlanta while our luggage made a short visit to New York.
But who cares about this after you had two incredible weeks of SCUBA DIVING on Bonaire. After all Aldie & Bruno did 34 dives in paradise.
Bonaire is definetely one of the most spectacular places to dive! Ask any SCUBATREKKER about this and they will all answer:
IT'S PURE MAGIC!