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Bonaire Snorkeling - My complete report - 6/19/2012 12:16:16 PM
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Gulfless
Posts: 102
Joined: 4/7/2008
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Bonaire Trip Report
First off, Pictures are problematic. We usually use a Fuji to snorkel with, it’s good to about 16 ft. That didn’t make the trip. We had looked at a Nikon good to 33 ft, but didn’t pull the trigger. We ended up at the airport with the crappy yellow vivitar, and the cheap reloadable 35mm housing, and two disposable fujis. The vivitar took on water day one, we believed the 35mm would do well, but after processing, they are going to need more post processing processing before I post any. We could have rented a camera for $38/day, and would have, but it had more buttons than I had fingers and I was sure I’d screw it up. In short, we have more memories than photos and when we build our album, we will likely google the most representative photo and say that was what we saw.
Why Bonaire? My wife wanted to try something besides RM. I planned out St. Kitts or Rotan. I told her St. Kitts was not that good of snorkeling, but very enjoyable. She looked up “Best snorkeling in the Caribbean and Bonaire came in first. We are both PADI divers, but vastly prefer snorkeling and spend about 5 hours a day with our faces in the water while on vacation.
So the main thing first.
Bonaire probably is “All of that” The entire coastal area is protected, un-fished and un-touched. The entire North and Western side is snorkelable and divable. With the exception of two reserve spots, every quarter mile has a dive site.
For the most part, from a narrow beach the water drops off to 15 ft within 20 yards, at 50 yards it’s about 30-45 ft deep, then takes off at about 30 degrees down to 90 feet. Coral grows mostly on that downward slope and is sporadic from that slope to shore. Without any real barrier reef, you are flying without a net with deep blue to one side possibly feeling small and exposed. There are exceptions with some wide shallow areas and even some coral mazes.
There is a minimal S to N flow, but is easily manageable
There are a lot of fish, small, medium and large. It would be a waste of time to name them all. Look at the Human Caribbean fish guide, I saw that. It seemed without real interesting coral, and a ton of fish, we found ourselves just hanging out and watched what made up the daily lives of different fishes. I will mention specific fish at the specific sites we snorkeled.
Day 1. Bari Reef, right in front of the Sand Dollar, where we stayed. The reef begins at the 40 foot drop off, so we hung by the rocky shore and a coral outcrop, and a sunken pier just to the south. The place is very eely. You know how you can get turtled out in Akumal? You can get eeled out here with sharp tail eels, spotted moray, golden tail moray and purple mouth moray. We saw every juvenile fish to intermediate size we’d see the rest of the week. Of interest, the spotted drum, and a tarpon hung out with us for a few minutes. We also saw a lion fish at the pier. I notified the dive shop, but they just collected sightings. There is an active campaign, so they said, but I saw the lion fish several more times.
We did not do any night snorkels, but 3 times snorkeled from an hour before, to an hour after sunset. A very neat time.
Day 2. Bari Reef again day and simi-night. Because there is no tricky reef to navigate, we could stay in to an hour after dark. Eels were everywhere, in fact, by day three, anytime I shut my eyes on land for a nap or whatever, I had visions of eels. Most feeding eels were accompanied by a few other fish hoping to get whatever the eel missed.
We were not positive we would need a car because we had not settled on a tour, dives or whatever. We ended up getting a car late in the evening. To explore, a car, or a truck in this case is the way to go. The island has no stop signs, just roundabouts. The way up the coast used to be one way, but with pull outs and caution it’s fine. This is how most do Bonaire, get a car, drive to the dive site, get out, dive, go to the next spot. The sticker on the car says, leave doors unlocked with windows rolled down at all dive sites, because there is a theft problem. We were the only ones who did this, and kinda felt foolish. At the airport, we heard a guy who didn’t do this, and lost gear he had locked up, plus the rental agency is charging him for the broken window.
Day 3 With the truck we headed up to the national park, we paid the $25 per person, which is also the diving tag fee and drove around. As something to do out of the water, nah, even then it’s about the rugged eastern coast or the calm North. Disclaimer, I may never have done this depending on if it breaks any laws. At one spot where we were seeing the waves crash, we became surrounded by medium iguanas. My wife may or may not have fed them with a can of shoestring potatoes. Here is an absolute though, we do not feed anything in the water.
About 1.5 hours into the park, we made it to the dive site Wayaca II. The picture of paradise. An absolutely calm bay with great shallow coral like Rotan. We got in and within 15 seconds my wife was saying hey look, hey look, hey look. They were, a small hawksbill turtle, maximum size midnight parrot fish, and a school of squid. On the third hey look, something flashed by and took some skin off of her hand. Could have been a mad damsel, but to pump her up, I say barracuda. We swam inside, outside and through this reef. The fish there, besides the one that bit my wife, didn’t seem to care one flip about us. That giant parrot fish was one of 6 or more, and between their swimming and my floating, we came within about one foot of each other, and he didn’t care. There is Wayaca I, II and III, plus some other North side reefs. This may be the best snorkeling environment in the island. The issue is that with dirt roads through the national park, it takes 30 min to an hour to get there, and they run you out at about 3:30 because the park closes at 5pm. We only spent about 1.5 hours there, and I really felt we left that site, un-done. I was inclined to just go back every day. My wife wanted to see the other sites outside the park, so that is what we did.
Day 4.
1000 steps. Beautiful place, listed among the best snorkel sites. You park at the top of a hill, and it’s 65 steps down, not 1000, to a secluded beach. The entry is over a dead coral beach, like most places it drops off quickly with a mostly sandy bottom, with some rock outcrops with coral attached. This seems to be bore of a scuba spot to me, because when you hit the drop off at 30 to 40 feet, there is some spectacular coral with pilliars and all sorts of formations. As a snorkeler, you are looking down from 40 feet above. I dove down a few times, not as easy as it used to be. I dove down once to had to be 50 plus feet to have my wife take a picture of me behind a pillar of coral. I wait and I think she took the picture. When I came up she says she was pressing the wrong button. First, there was only one button, and second it just wasn’t worth doing again. If we go back 1000 times, I won’t snorkel 1000 steps. It’s not bad, there are better places.
Day 5
Karpata and Jeff Davis Memorial.
Karpata is the furthest site along the coastal drive. It looks great. Typically along that coast, the road is about 20 ft above the water, and a each walk/climb to a coraly beach. They said there were pretty gorgonians there, well not so much in the shallows, but at the drop off they were the largest I have ever seen. Sea fans like bead sheets and others that are as big as trees. What we’d do is hit the shallows, then come back along the drop off looking for big things. There was a free swimming porcupine fish we followed for awhile, then as we were heading back, in 20 feet of water there was a large spotted eagle ray digging up the sand. We drifted close enough that we bothered him enough to leave, but to leave he casually swam around us in a complete circle getting within about 5 feet of us in 10 feet of water. That’s probably what you’ll see snorkeling these spots, a few neat things while you are checking out the usual things.
We did the Jeff Davis memorial after this. It is a long stretch of rock cliff that the waves have pounded out cave like overhangs. Nothing great here but we did follow a small pufferfish around.
Day 6
Oil Slick, Windsock, and from town pier to Bair Reef.
Oil Slick had a platform and ladder entry, again it was the usual, some coral shallow, to massive coral deep. None of it is bad snorkeling, but you’ve already seen it. On the way back I noticed some coral breathing, and it was a 5 foot octopus. It was fun to follow him around and see what he does for a living. I wanted to so much mess around him, and the eels at Bari, but I always keep our relationship at a respectable distance. He does his thing, and I watch.
Windsock is right next to the airport. This is a good snorkel. It has shallow coral and a ton of fish. Some large parrotfish, eel, all the usuals, but the coral near the surface make for a better snorkel. There was a cruising spotted eagle ray out along the drop off.
Back home at Bari reef, we swam against the slight current up to town pier entry, about ¾ mile, made it there at sunset, then headed back in the twilight.
That’s what we saw snorkeling. To go again, I might focus on more shallows, and there are plenty of other places, like Klein Bonaire. If I went with a couple, I’d rent a boat and do it all. Snorkeling did not seem like snorkeling in Bonaire. I was never an intruder, nothing feared me, and besides the obvious, I didn’t feel in any danger. Snorkeling was no different than a walk on the beach. It’s just what you do there.
A quick gear review, along with food review and where to stay to follow
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RE: Bonaire Snorkeling - My complete report - 6/19/2012 4:24:46 PM
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tmbutler
Posts: 2052
Joined: 11/16/2005
Status: offline
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How would you compare prices, say per week - akumal v Bonaire? incl Airfare?
TMB
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RE: Bonaire Snorkeling - My complete report - 6/26/2012 12:42:28 PM
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Gulfless
Posts: 102
Joined: 4/7/2008
Status: offline
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The price is similar to all inclusives I've been to but this was a condo without food.
It was as low as $1394 per person, but we managed to wait until it was about $1500.
A truck will run around $60 per day and they have weekly deals.
There are a couple of large groceries on the island, and multiple mom and pop groceries. Grocery prices are about 1.5 to U.S. prices.
Eating out, Burgers are $12.50 to $14. good meal is $20 each, this includes the catch of the day type stuff. Even a surf and turf on special is around $20 to $25. Lunch specials can be had for around $12.
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RE: Bonaire Snorkeling - My complete report - 7/5/2012 7:30:42 AM
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Bosco
Posts: 6895
Joined: 5/8/2006
From: Another day..another seedy hotel
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Nice detailed review of the snorkeling, Gulf.
Thanks!
_____________________________
A world of my own
I'll make it my home sweet home...
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RE: Bonaire Snorkeling - My complete report - 7/6/2012 10:19:00 AM
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Grant MacLeod
Posts: 113
Joined: 3/21/2011
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Thanks for the report! My wife and I spent a week in Bonaire about 13-14 years ago and really enjoyed it. This was before kids. We remember Bonaire as really really hot with a strong strong wind that kept it comfortable. Without the wind it would have been brutal. What was your weather like? Was our weather typical?
Grant
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Printable Version
There was a small mom & pop place that we could eat for $7 each within walking distance of our hotel. We saw a few others as well. 
