Remembering Bonaire

It's always sad to leave Bonaire but it's slightly better because I know I'll be back.  Den Laman was definitely the best place I've stayed - beautiful waterfront apartment that was super spacious with a full kitchen, on-site dive shop, private pier with tanks and rinse tanks on the pier, waterfront restaurant and a friendly front desk staff.  I'll definitely stay there again.  Dive friends has been expanding and now in addition to having 5 locations for rentals/tanks there's also a retail shop - while overpriced compared to the US, is fully stocked with anything you might need for diving/snorkeling/swimming.  I love the convenience of Dive Friends and would definitely use them again.  I had booked my car through Avis via Expedia but that was a poor choice because Avis ran out of car and I had to get one from BP (Pays-Bas) which wasn't as nice though the line was faster.

Sebastian's was a fantastic restaurant - that's where we had dinner the final night.  The food was great. My favorite was the octopus quesadillas. The waterfront seating was fantastic and it's location was secluded and beautiful.  I'll have to book extra early next time to get the pier table.  I also really liked La Cantina. The prices for the fish market fresh catches were great and my whole snapper was super delicious as were our amuse bouches.  The salt-encrusted dorade at Ingridients was just as good as I remembered it.  The food at Breeze 'n Bites (on-site restaurant at Den Laman) was ok but the location was great.

view from our table at Sebastian's

really yummy octopus quesadillas 

tuna steak

red snapper

mango souflee with pepper ice cream

 Some final views of the island:

Dive Day 6 - last day of diving for this trip :(b

2-17-17: Dive 1 The Lake, Dive 2 Salt Pier

Dive 1 - I think I've only been to the Lake once before.  It's towards the northern end of the double reef system and the sandy area between the 2 reefs opens up to appear like a lake.  It's a really beautiful formation underwater.  We saw 4 very large baracudas and 3 drumfish. I saw a spotted snake eel out and about with a friend.  It was a great dive. 

Dive 2 - When I went to talk to the dive shop about dive sites, I was told that we're allowed to dive the salt pier whenever there's no boat docked there (I don't know if I've forgotten that info or if I never knew that.) so I really wanted to explore it. I've only been to the Salt Pier at night before and it was a great dive.  I was hoping for turtles but we didn't see any :( (though the people coming up did - just missed it again) I'm thinking I used up my quota of turtles by going to the east side :P  We saw  innumerable baracudas though! The dive was really amazing.  Around the supports of the salt pier, there were so many schools of fish!  It was really beautiful watching them schooling and playing around the posts.  The coolest thing however was this HUGE green moray eel that was freely swimming over the deeper part of the reef.  We were able to watch him for minutes and I got a picture but from a bit away so it's hard to see him. It was one of the most incredible things I've seen.  I am really happy to have ended my dives at this spot. It was a really new and special experience, would definitely go again!!

baracuda

drumfish

Queen Angelfish

French Angelfish

spotted snake eel with friend

cool coral formation at salt pier

free swimming giant green moray eel!!

schooling

trunkfish

filefish

queen parrotfish (I'm sorry I've been calling this a stoplight parrotfish but I just found out it's a queen instead)

Dive day 5

2/16/17 - Dive 1 Karpata, Dive 2 Boka Slaghbai, Dive 3 - night dive at Bari's Reef

Today we went to Karpata. The entry was annoying as usual but not the great difficulty everyone makes it out to be.  It was beautiful as always. I saw many lettuce slugs. They were beautiful! I saw a large lionfish, porcupinefish, and a very large grouper.  But the schools of fish were beautiful. As soon as we got out this guy saw a little turtle :(

Then we drove up into the protected park up north for our second dive.  We saw flamingoes finally (I didn't see any one the trip down south though I saw a couple in flight during my dives on the east coast.  We dove Boka Slagbai.  The drive was much worse than I remembered it.  The last bit was horrible - I kept asking when it would be over.  I thought we were going to break an axle!

The dive itself was ok.  Initially I thought it was crap because the landscape was pretty barren but then we turned a corner and saw all the nice coral.  We saw a scorpionfish, some really big fish I didn't recognize, brittle stars and a flounder.

The final dive was a night dive.  No octopus :( We did see some spotted morays, a lobster, many arrow crabs and a hermit crab.  We also saw a variety of sea cucumbers.

 Feeding Frenzy

 Lionfish

Lettuce slug

scorpionfish

brittle star starfish

Schooling

A gaggle of flamingoes

one after another

spotted moray eel

Arrow crab vanishing

lobster

Catch a tiger by the tail

Cowfish

Updated with commentary - Dive days 3 and 4

2/14/17 - Dive 1 Angel City, Dive 2 Bari's Reef

We had a great dive at Angel City and the double reef system there.  We so so many porcupinefish (my favorite because of their puppy dog eyes and their little constant smile - really hard to take a picture of that smile).  There were tons of schools of fish and the terrain was just very pretty.  I was looking out for creature in the sandy areas but didn't find any.

Bari's Reef was good and so simple because we just walked right off the pier in front of Den Laman.  We saw a couple porcupinefish again, a spotted snake eel, an arrow crab hiding in some coral and a big fat black sea cucumber.  

So many porcupinefish today!

Stoplight parrotfish

 Arrow crab

So many cowfish and trunfish today!

 Snake eel

Baby trunkfish

 Sea cucumber

 Curious Iguana after dive

2/15/17 - Dive 1 Andrea II, Dive 2 Something Special, Dive 3 Pink Beach

Dive 1 - I spent the whole time looking for seahorses (because this couple said they had seen 3) but came up empty :( I did see a lot of trunkfish and filefish and a drumfish.

Dive 2 - Something Special is always a great dive.  The colors and coral are just great.  There were so many shrimp some even accidentally ended up in some of my photos.  I saw my favorite shrimp - the Pederson Cleaning Shrimp.  As I was trying to point it out to my dive buddy, a fish tried to take a bite out of my finger - can you believe that ?! It was a small fish too. What was it thinking? Then immediately afterwards, we saw a tiny spotted moray eel swim out in the open and then disappear into coral (too fast for a photo).  We saw a second drumfish.

Dive 3 - This was an afternoon dive.  The afternoon sun make the colors really vibrant. I saw a peacock flounder swimming out in the open - first time I've seen it so far off the sand (maybe 2 feet) - it was cool to watch it move. We also saw a big baracuda and the largest trumpetfish I've ever seen (maybe 3-4 ft?).

Filefish

Cool looking anemone with hidden shrimp

 Hogfish

 Funny looking anemone with Pederson Cleaning Shrimp

 Butterflyfish posing

Drumfish