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Captain Don’s Habitat, Bonaire
May 31st- June 8th 2002
by Jean Bishop and Robbie Wilson
Bonaire is part of the Netherlands Antilles and is located in the south west of the Caribbean next to Aruba and Curacao, 50 miles north of Venezuela and outside the hurricane belt. It is a small island with an uninhabited neighbour called Klein Bonaire. The island is surrounded by an impressive living coral reef with a vast array of fish life and has an ideal climate with a good mixture of sun, wind and rain. The water is warm (average 28 degrees), clear and calm and can be dived all year round. Bonaire seems to be an exception from most Caribbean islands as it has taken a serious long-term commitment to preserving its coral reefs and fish life - virtually the entire scuba zone is a protected marine park.
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The main export from the Island is salt and vast areas of the south of the island are given over to the salt flats, however the main economy is tourism. For non-divers, the bird-watching is rumoured to be impressive and there is a large flamingo sanctuary to the south. Many of the dive sites also make for excellent snorkelling.
We stayed at Captain Don’s Habitat, described as the home of "Diving Freedom"- 24 hrs a day, 365 days a year. There are various room options, we chose the Junior Suites because of the view (upper floor facing the sea and pool) and location near the main complex – the room was good, with air conditioning, TV and telephone, however overall we thought the hotel’s facilities could do with modernising – it wasn’t a problem for us though. The hotel restaurant (Rum Runners) was good quality, and dinner was usually $20 max per person. Breakfast was a buffet of breads, fruit, some cooked foods and a chef who cooked daily specialities as well as eggs done in any style you like. A short walk took us to neighbouring hotels and restaurants; we tried the Lions Den next door which was also very good, known for its range of English ales! The majority of people we met were American, with some Dutch and English thrown in to keep things sane.
....who you looking at?.....
The whole concept of diving with Captain Don’s is “relaxed diving, when you want, to your own abilities”. We found this to be very true – before each boat dive we were given a description of the site, and advised of the best route to take, but after that, we were free to follow the guide or do our own thing, for however long we wanted, whatever depth, route etc. As this point in our diving careers (75 dives, PADI Rescue Divers) we found this very welcome and refreshing and we gained a lot of valuable experience of planning and diving using our own initiative. In Bonaire, all the dive sites have permanent moorings and with one exception (the wreck of the “Hilma Hooker”) every mooring is limited to one boat, which means you have the reef to yourself on every dive. There was rarely any current and the seas were very calm during our stay.
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For boat diving, Captain Don’s has 4 boats that hold about 20 people max, and all the dive sites are within 30 minutes. There were quite a few dive guides for the boats and they came from all over – Bonaire, US, Holland, Germany etc. Tanks were preloaded and there wasn’t a problem with space so the trips were enjoyable. The system was run well – each diver is given a dive number on arrival at the hotel which is used for all bookings at the dive centre. Each day boards would be put up detailing the boat trips planned for the following day, and you simply chalked your dive number into an available space. If a boat filled, another board would be put up. If you didn’t turn up for the dive, you wouldn’t be charged. Divers were checked in and out on each trip.
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For shore diving, tanks were stacked and available for whenever you wanted to dive – either on the house reef at Captain Don’s (which was as good as a lot of the boat dives offered) or to take away in a hire vehicle.
The diving was priced at $25 per day for unlimited shore diving, $45 with one boat dive and $65 with two boat dives. We pre-paid for the diving (2 boats a day and unlimited shore) and this did work out slightly cheaper, but the flexibility is available if you want it.
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We also took the opportunity of doing the Underwater Naturalist speciality course – which was very worth while – learning about responsible interactions with the underwater world, the underwater ecosystem and also identification of different species. Ursula our instructor was very concerned about the environment and was impressive for the cause!
Bonaire isn’t really a destination for large fish encounters – sharks are very rare, as are manta rays and turtles; dolphins were not uncommon as we apparently missed a dive with a large pod. We were surprised to learn that some of our favourites were not present in the Caribbean, like lionfish and clownfish. But there were lots of smaller things to make up for this, and every dive site was covered in soft corals. Some of the things we encountered were: Seahorses (on half the dives), frogfish, Scorpionfish (most dives), moray eels (every dive, some free-swimming – mostly painted or chain morays, so very pretty), arrowcrabs, banded boxer shrimp and cleaning shrimp (everywhere you look if you look closely enough & these guys will give your fingers a manicure), fantastic spotted drums, fireworms, lots of other colourful reef fish, and coral everywhere (soft, hard, sponges, elephant ear, gorgonians, fans, black coral). One night dive we were tracked constantly by a 6 foot tarpon (think long, silver and ugly) called Charlie who got a little closer each time he swept by us. We also have a photo of a opportunistic moray eel who backed himself into a long tube sponge so that only his head emerged from the end! The perfect bed… or ambush?
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Of particular mention was a night dive we made on the “Town Pier” – a commercial pier in the main town Kralendijk, which requires prior permission arranged through a local dive guide who has to lead the dive. We were just 4 divers – ideal as it wasn’t a big pier! Every single pylon under the water was covered in orange cup coral, and every piece of “junk” on the floor hid a variety of animals doing their own little thing – we saw almost everything already listed above, plus brittlestars, several seahorses and an incredible decorator crab. Maximum depth was 8m and we stayed down for over an hour – this was by far our best ever night dive.
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Our last dive was reminiscent of a good dive in the Maldives – huge shoals of fish that parted just enough to let you through, hunting squid, peacock flounder, pretty shrimps, a snake eel and a huge oceanic triggerfish. We didn’t bother with a final shore dive after that!
*** We would highly recommend Bonaire for all divers, the diving is excellent with a focus on the reef and smaller animals – Captain Don’s Habitat would suit divers with some experience who want to do their own thing, and for newer divers who were travelling in a group with more experienced people. *** We felt the “diving freedom” probably wouldn’t provide enough structure for novice divers on their own – although you could pay extra for a guide on the shore diving (there’s always a guide on the boats). Captain Don’s would be ideal for taking a group from a dive club; while there we came across a group of 30 divers from Missouri, they generally had 2 boats to themselves and we just made sure we took the 3rd boat as much as possible!
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We met some people who had stayed the previous week in Curacao and they commented that they preferred Bonaire – our experience of an unplanned visit to Curacao airport certainly backed this up too! This was our only problem with the holiday – when we arrived at Bonaire airport to return home, we discovered KLM had overbooked the flight and of the 20 or so people waiting to go home, only 2 got on the flight (we were 3 & 4). In the end we had to travel to Curacao and catch a later flight, but our problems persisted in Amsterdam as KLM had no availability back to the UK – we ended up on a very welcome British Airways flight … but to Gatwick, not Heathrow as originally planned.
We booked our holiday through Divequest (who were excellent and very attentive) and flew KLM from Heathrow via Amsterdam. A week in Bonaire worked out just over £600 for the accommodation and all the diving, PLUS the flights started around £575 with KLM – there may be cheaper options through the US.
who are YOU calling Ugly!?
Further information:
“Diving Bonaire” by George Lewbel and Larry Martin – search on http://www.amazon.co.uk
Captain Don’s Habitat - http://www.habitatdiveresorts.com/bonaire/index.html
Divequest - http://www.divequest.co.uk/
Bonaire Webcams - http://www.bonairewebcams.com
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