The New York Underwater Photographic Society
Bonaire's Still There ! - Sept - Oct 2009
Flights – Delta - Newark – Atlanta – Bonaire. Reverse route back.
Uneventful both ways. Even though we departed Bonaire 1 hours late, we arrived in Atlanta only 5 minutes late and still made our connection with room to spare.
Stayed at our Divi timeshare – Refurbishing of the Studio units continues. Ours will likely be the last one done, but we did get a peek at the others – They are getting a nice freshening up including new kitchenettes and shower/sinks.
It was the usual enjoyable stay. It rained pretty hard for a couple of hours one morning and the power went out for about 4 hours but “Hey Mon, it’s the Caribbean.”
Diving with the crew at Divi was excellent as always. The dive dock is rebuilt and the new lockers are quite ingenious – As long as you are over 5 foot 5 inch tall (the latches are at the top).
Reef life: Shallows are recovering from the Omar damage, but below 30 feet, they look just fine.
Highlights of the dives were a 15-minute, arms-length encounter with an eagle ray who was feeding in the shallows off Klien. He was not bothered by us at all and let us stay within 3 feet. We ended up leaving him after finally getting bored with taking pictures. Observing the feeding behavior – Shoveling up the sand and sifting through it - was fascinating.
The other highlight was getting inside a couple of baitballs, (one of boga, and the other of big-eye scad) while jacks and barracuda were flashing through them. It was a bit intimidating, but offered some fantastic photo opportunities.
One thing struck me while thinking back on our 10+ years of diving in Bonaire. I remember we used to see 5-6 barracuda, 3-4 big grouper, and 2-3 lobsters each dive. This year we probably saw that many over the entire trip (30+ dives).
Where we did see grouper, barracuda, and lobster every night was on the restaurant menus. Hmm, I wonder if there’s a connection…
Restaurants – Cappriccio was closed again (but they always are around Regatta)
The rest of our favorites remained so: Patagonia, Mona Lisa, It Rains Fishes, La Guenerica (sp?), Wil’s Grill, Unbelievable (we heard some iffy reports about it this year, but we had an excellent meal there), and Richard’s
Pics are available at:
By John: http://gallery.me.com/j.ciurczak#100231
By Sue: http://gallery.me.com/j.ciurczak#100239
Can’t wait till next year….
Uneventful both ways. Even though we departed Bonaire 1 hours late, we arrived in Atlanta only 5 minutes late and still made our connection with room to spare.
Stayed at our Divi timeshare – Refurbishing of the Studio units continues. Ours will likely be the last one done, but we did get a peek at the others – They are getting a nice freshening up including new kitchenettes and shower/sinks.
It was the usual enjoyable stay. It rained pretty hard for a couple of hours one morning and the power went out for about 4 hours but “Hey Mon, it’s the Caribbean.”
Diving with the crew at Divi was excellent as always. The dive dock is rebuilt and the new lockers are quite ingenious – As long as you are over 5 foot 5 inch tall (the latches are at the top).
Reef life: Shallows are recovering from the Omar damage, but below 30 feet, they look just fine.
Highlights of the dives were a 15-minute, arms-length encounter with an eagle ray who was feeding in the shallows off Klien. He was not bothered by us at all and let us stay within 3 feet. We ended up leaving him after finally getting bored with taking pictures. Observing the feeding behavior – Shoveling up the sand and sifting through it - was fascinating.
The other highlight was getting inside a couple of baitballs, (one of boga, and the other of big-eye scad) while jacks and barracuda were flashing through them. It was a bit intimidating, but offered some fantastic photo opportunities.
One thing struck me while thinking back on our 10+ years of diving in Bonaire. I remember we used to see 5-6 barracuda, 3-4 big grouper, and 2-3 lobsters each dive. This year we probably saw that many over the entire trip (30+ dives).
Where we did see grouper, barracuda, and lobster every night was on the restaurant menus. Hmm, I wonder if there’s a connection…
Restaurants – Cappriccio was closed again (but they always are around Regatta)
The rest of our favorites remained so: Patagonia, Mona Lisa, It Rains Fishes, La Guenerica (sp?), Wil’s Grill, Unbelievable (we heard some iffy reports about it this year, but we had an excellent meal there), and Richard’s
Pics are available at:
By John: http://gallery.me.com/j.ciurczak#100231
By Sue: http://gallery.me.com/j.ciurczak#100239
Can’t wait till next year….
Tags: bonaire
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