So we just returned from an amazing trip to Bonaire. Most people have never heard of the place but if you enjoy snorkeling as much as we do it would definitely be on your radar since it regularly gets rated as one of the top five places in the world to dive, snorkel, and windsurf. It had indeed been on my radar for years, in fact while planning this trip I came across old stuff that the Bonaire tourism office had sent me back when we lived in NYC but for some reason we always ended up going to other places. But now that the kids all love to snorkel and are completely comfortable in deep ocean water it was time to rethink Bonaire. Delta had also just recently added direct service out of Atlanta which meant that if you were on the 6 a.m. flight out of Cincy you could be in the water by 2:30 and indeed we were!
Since there are no major hotel chains on the island accommodations are really limited to rental properties with the exception of a few dive resorts that offer small rooms that cater to divers just looking for a place to lie their head down for the night. So I jumped on VRBO and found a perfect condo for us! Normally we stick to staying at resorts where you have all the amenities but after having good luck with this VRBO property, I may just have to look into them for future trips! This was our view from the balcony and the kids loved to have a pool that was always empty to hang out in after a day of snorkeling! I'm so bummed I didn't get any photos of the inside for memories sake...
The island is Dutch, the primary language is Dutch, most the people we met were Dutch, but interestingly enough their primary currency is the dollar and being that Bonaire sits just 50 miles off of Venezuela, you can find a lot of products from South America also in their grocery stores. We thought it was funny that you'd find a 2 liter of Coca Cola for $3 and right next to it another one for just over a $1. The packaging looked almost identical but one was packaged in Venezuela and the other in the states. We tested out the Venezuelan Coke and Sprite and determined that we preferred their Coke and our Sprite. Their Coke was made with the cane sugar and had a sweeter taste but their Sprite tasted like our Ginger Ale which is fine but just not the same lemon taste you expect when drinking a Sprite. With the exception of fresh milk that runs just under $8 for a gallon, the food prices weren't too bad. We did breakfasts and some lunches at the condo and took advantage of enjoying all the great restaurants for dinner.
First item to share was all the crazy creatures and wild life you'd find roaming around. It didn't take having to go to the actual donkey sanctuary on the island to find donkeys!!! There was also no shortage of iguanas. While we were eating at a local pizza joint someone pointed out these frogs sitting on this painting and of course there is a reason that the Bonaire airport is called Flamingo Airport! We loved seeing all the pink flamingos!
So here are some of the main highlights of our trip!
Jibe City at Lac Bay!!! I have to say if there is any water in the world that compares to the water of Bora Bora it would be here! We loved spending our day here. Had a great lunch at the beach cafe, kids enjoyed taking windsurfing lessons, rented some paddle boards, bought some fun jewelry, and just enjoyed the water!!!
Touring around the southern part of the island was quite amazing. We loved seeing the big mounds of sea salt and the pans of pink salt water. As you drive farther south you come across these tiny "slave huts" which sadly housed the slaves who worked in the salt industry back in the day. The huts were restored as a solemn reminder of some of the history of Bonaire. Between the pink shellfish and the pink water that the flamingoes eat and drink from you get pink flamingos!!! Who knew?! I was excited to get some nice sea salt to bring back with us but later learned that this salt is industrial grade...the stuff that much of the US ran out of last winter...
Next up, our Woodwind drift snorkel cruise! What a great day we had with Dee and her crew on this amazing snorkel journey along Klein Bonaire, a small uninhabited island just a couple miles off Bonaire. They took us to a section of the reef and you would just drift down, down, down to another section and the boat would meet up with you at that location. We snorkeled three different locations that focused on different types of things to see and different depths. By far the best snorkel cruise we've ever been on. What made it so nice was how educated she was on all the sea life. We learned stuff about fish that we had never heard in all our years of snorkeling and tours. From the lunch to the crew to the weather we couldn't have asked for a better time. We loved it so much that we hired her to take our family out on a private night snorkel later in the week.
Then it was on to spend a day snorkeling in the Washington-Slagbaai National Park! The park is located just outside the town of Rincon. Here is the photo we took of Rincon from the small lookout point on the way to the park.
Once at the park you find an information center where you pay your fee, a small food stand, gift shop and a one way dirt road that takes you through the park with the option of either taking a long route or a short route. Being the short route is 90 minutes excluding any stops and hits the best snorkel spots we were interested in, we chose that one. Our first stop was at the Wayaka dive site. The entrance was quite rocky but you could see the water was very clear and the reef right there. So in we went! As we snorkeled towards Wayaka 2 (the next dive site) we realized that site had a much easier sandy entrance into the water. There were also all these gigantic angelfish and parrot fish that were more than happy to come right up to your face before quickly turning the other direction. They also had no problem swarming around your feet at the shallow sandy shoreline. It was so funny. I don't know if the fish are used to divers feeding them or what but they were swarming around this alcove and you could see them from above the water. We quickly decided this was the place we wanted to spend our afternoon. Sandy with a reef and even a little cave where we could put all our stuff. Perfection! We also found on this part of the island a lot of fresh conch shells. Ty loved searching the ocean floor to try to find the nicest ones. Jack got the award though for finding the largest one!
After a fantastic afternoon here we made our way back to the entrance of the park! On the way we'd stop at cool spots to take a look around.
We passed this lake in the park and if you didn't know better you would have thought their had been a blanket of snow that had fallen earlier. Actually not even big rocks that the kids were throwing could break through this salt!!!
Now that's one big cactus!
The one photo I am missing from the park is that of our white truck after our puddle experience. Apparently they had gotten rain the night before because out of no where was this gigantic puddle in the middle of this dirt road. Without any hesitation Jack suddenly guns it through this gigantic puddle. We literally couldn't see a thing as mud covered the front windshield not to mention the rest of the truck. The kids were dying! Thankfully no windows were down or perhaps it wouldn't have been so funny. Needless to say our nice white truck was now brown!
That night we went on our awesome night snorkel. This was something Jack was really excited about but me...not so much. It turned out to be super fun. Dee had one of her crew members Emmanuelle join us who had been on our day snorkel and Sage was thrilled about that. She loved to hold her hand as we snorkeled in the dark ocean, sometimes even turning off our lights to watch as we moved around in the water and looked below the surface we'd see what looked like tons of fireflies going crazy in the water. It looked like something out of a movie. We saw more eels than I've seen in my life, octopuses, lobster, shrimp and all sorts of different things that we don't normally see.
Another highlight to the trip was the day we spent at 'No Name Beach' on Klein Bonaire. We packed a lunch and ice chest, took a water taxi over to the beach where they let us drop off all our stuff and then we jumped back on the boat so they could take us up the island where we'd jump in the water and to a drift snorkel on our own back to the beach where we had left our stuff. It took us almost two hours to drift down but you literally don't even have to kick much. You don't even realize that there is a current that takes you. For most of it we stayed on the deep side of the reef. I have to say how proud I am of our kids. They are all better snorkelers than me diving down deep to examine things closer and take photos and little Sagie is amazing. She has no problem going pretty deep, holding her breath quite a long time and then coming back up to blow out her snorkel. It's amazing! It's just so great to have a family hobby that everyone enjoys.
Ok, this blog entry is turning into a snoozer...wow. Hard to know which photos to leave out and sadly this is only a fraction of what we took. I guess that's what happens when you have two underwater cameras, our nice camera, and my phone camera... So the last things I'll add are a few random shots of random things we did, like Jack teaching Ty how to drive a stick (heaven knows the next time we'll ever own one), a cool beach shack, the kids getting there one and only chance to ride in the back of a truck, pink sand...you get the point! Random stuff...
Well the whole point of this vacation was to have an amazing time together as a family snorkeling our little hearts out. So it would be crazy not to include a few underwater photos! Instead of separating out all the fish photos by location I've just included a fraction of what we took and lumped them here. I don't want to even think about all the underwater video footage I've now got to deal with! Digital cameras are so awesome but boy the amount of photos we come home with is getting ridiculous!!! Also, a special shout out to Ty who quickly became the pro with close up underwater photography. He really has an eye for it although you'll never see all his cool photos because I'd probably freeze the whole blogger site if I tried to download them... Enjoy!
Well, we are sold on Bonaire...so much so that Jack contacted a realtor. Of course he got like this after going to Turks and Caicos. Then I just remind him we could vacation here twice a year for the next fifty years and still come out ahead without buying...silly boy! But boy come retirement though, I may be an easier sell...
So here are the after photos on the balcony! Until next time...
