Bonaire Diving
The Bluewater description on this site is absolutely accurate. Bonaire is just amazing for scuba diving! Our most recent visit in April 2013 found calm seas and 80 plus visibility at all sites. It's the perfect place for beginning divers to gain experience while still entertaining more advanced divers with frogfish, sea horse and eagle rays as well as the usual Caribbean fish and inverts. We saw lots of turtles, barracuda, and one manta that made several shore passes near Buddy Dive and Kallis. The Hilma Hooker will interest wreck enthusiasts and Salt Pier is a fun night dive with lots of fish life around the towering structure. There's lots of wide angle or macro ops for underwater photographers and the topside salt works are a great surface interval. You will see the big white mounds and heavy equipment operation with acres of salt ponds. Not far away are the slave hut sites with the original quarters and colorful markers for more topside photos. I was also enthralled with the pink flamingos that populate the inland water ponds near the airport and at Slagbaai Park.
Bonaire has accommodations for everyone's preferences. You can choose an all inclusive dive resort and be pampered a bit; or, you can find delightful cottages a bit cheaper where you have facilities to prepare your own meals. There are lots of good restaurants around town and also markets for shopping. My sister got fresh catch from local fisherman for dinner! Most dive packages include a dive truck making it convenient to shop and shore dive anywhere you want. There's always an accessible site with good conditions. Unlimited fill stations are included at many of the resorts for shore diving.
Our favorite sites were Small Wall and Karpata, and anyplace on Klein Bonaire! Karpata is a bit deeper with a great old anchor embedded in the reef and can be reached from shore or boat. Small Wall had free swimming eels that we followed for great video pics. Klein has more variety and a bit more clarity than the main island, but requires a short boat trip. You can arrange any type of diving to fit your budget and interests. That's the best thing about scuba diving in Bonaire!