We'd been to Bonaire back in 1998 and enjoyed the diving immensely, so given the chance we booked another week's diving at Captain Don's Habitat. We arrived early Saturday morning from our stopover at Curacao, and checked in. At Capt Don's you have to sit through a short lecture about the marine park with the usual 'don't touch the coral' stuff, then pay $10 each which goes towards the marine park upkeep. This is all worthwhile as the coral is generally in excellent condition, especially on the island of Klein Bonaire. Boats are only allowed to moor at specific mooring points, so no anchors to rip up the coral.
Bonaire
is off the coast of Venezuala, and outside the normal hurricane belt, although
one did hit a couple of years back. In Jan/Feb the water temperature was 26C
and the air about 28C, a bit cooler in the evenings, although still pleasant.
There are a few mosquitos so take some repellant. We dived in 3mm full length
wetsuits which were fine although sometimes towards the end of a second or third
dive we'd feel a little cool.
At Capt Don's the whole idea is diving freedom. You can dive when and where you want. So it you suddenly have the urge to get up at 3am, you can go diving, as there are plenty of filled cylinders put out for anyone to take. The house reef 'La Machaca' is excellent and we dived it several times. It starts about 30-40m from the shore at a general depth of 6-8m, and slopes steeply down to a sandy seabed in 40m. There is a rope from the pier over the reef right down to the bottom which can be used for navigation - swim out along the reef, turn round when you're ready, then swim back until you see the rope. At the bottom of the reef is the wreck of a small fishing boat 'Hesper' in 40m. Not a lot to see except for garden eels poking their heads out from the white sand. From the wreck you can then swim up the reef where there is plenty of life including morays, sea horses and fish of all descriptions.
Another
nice wreck is the 'Hilma Hooker', a cargo ship sunk deliberately after it was
confiscated when found smuggling cannabis. It lies in 30m of water in a double
reef system on a sandy bottom. The wreck lies on its starboard side and it is
possible to penetrate the holds and get into the bridge if you have a decent
torch. Wearing gloves is useful on this dive as some of the metal is rather
sharp. As Capt Don's do nitrox I did this on 32% to get loads of no-deco time.
Air divers were being told they should dive for a maximum of 20mins, however
the DM on the boat looked at my nitrox tank and said 'you can stay down as long
as you want'! In the end we came up the shot at the end after 40 mins and did
about 5 mins stops.
In addition to Nitrox, Capt Don's now has Drager Dolphin SCR's for those who want to sneak up close to the fish and photograph them. There is a camera shop where you can hire Sea & Sea cameras for the day, and torches if you want to do night dives and forgot to bring your own. We booked a 2 boat dive/day package, which also allows you unlimited shore diving, or if you've hired a car you can take cylinders and dive around the island - sites are marked by yellow painted stones by the road. With 60 sites on the mainland and 26 on Klein Bonaire you are not short of choice.
Capt Don's has a bar - the Deco Stop bar - which does nice cocktails, just the thing after a day's diving, and then there is a restaurant 'Rum Runners' which does pretty good food. We'd booked a half board package so we ate there every night - Bonaire is not exactly noted for restaurants, but Rum Runners offered some excellent local seafood and has certainly got better since our last visit.
We certainly enjoyed our stay in Bonaire and I can't wait to go back. It has to be some of the best diving in the world, and certainly the most relaxed. If only it wasn't such a hassle flying there...
(c) Keith S. 2002