Travelogue: a day of diving on Bonaire
Bonaire is known for its unique drive & dive concept. Instead of doing each dive with a boat, here you rent a pick-up, pick up tanks at the dive center and drive yourself to the dive site. No set times or schedules: you completely decide what your dive day looks like. In this trip report we take you on a typical day: a reef dive at Slagbaai in Washington Slagbaai National Park and in the evening a special night dive in search of ostracods.
Margriet works at EWDR as a marketing and content specialist. She is also an avid diver and diving instructor. In this report, she takes you through a diving day of her diving trip to Bonaire. Perhaps one of the best days, because this day the program includes the special night dive: ostracods!
08:30 – Breakfast & tank pickup
We start the day quietly with breakfast in our accommodation. Since we do not have to keep a set time at the dive center, we can stay in bed longer than during the average dive trip. After breakfast we load our diving gear into the car and drive to the dive center to pick up the tanks. As usual, we check ourselves that the bottles have at least 200 bar. Inside we also ask about the conditions of the dive sites, as wind and currents can vary greatly from day to day. Today we have Slagbaai in mind, one of Bonaire’s northernmost spots and one of the island’s calmer reefs.
10:00 – Arrival at Washington Slagbaai National Park.
From Kralendijk it takes about three quarters of an hour to get to the park entrance, and then another hour or so through the park itself. Along the way, the landscape slowly changes from the flat south to the rugged, arid north coast. Along the way, we stop briefly at Salina Matijs, where there is a large group of flamingos in the salt flats. Then we drive past Playa Chikitu, a beach formed by hard waves and wind, and an important nesting site for turtles. Now is not the right season, but it is where turtles come to lay their eggs and so you can eventually see baby turtles crawling to the sea. At Seru Grandi we enjoy a beautiful view of the north coast, then the water gushes up with force through the Suplado blowhole. We drive on to the northernmost point of the park at Seru Bentana Lighthouse, a peaceful spot with breathtaking views of the Atlantic Ocean. Another brief stop at Malmok, which houses the ruins of a lighthouse that was never used, and we have a quick lunch at Playa Funchi, with views of flamingos and the tranquility of the park all around us. It feels like we have the entire park to ourselves; we have encountered 2 other people during this entire one-hour drive.
12:30 – Diving at Slagbaai
Upon arrival at Boka Slagbaai , we park the car and take a quick look at the bay. There is a sheltered bay where you can walk into the water. The water is calm and conditions look good, so we head back to the car to prepare our dive gear. Again, you just do that from the pickup, putting it on and putting it on easily. It also makes a big difference that these are aluminum tanks here, so they’re hearty light.
Once we have done our buddy check we walk back to the bay and are ready for our first dive today! The reef slopes gradually and the current is calm today, ideal for enjoying the underwater world. The sand along the reef is interspersed with colorful coral blocks, where parrotfish are busy and doctor fish pass by in schools. Here and there a barracuda hangs silently above the reef, while large sponges and fan corals complete the scene. The reef slopes down to about thirty meters, but we find most life between ten and twenty meters. For over an hour we enjoy this relaxing dive and the clarity of the water typical of Bonaire.
14:00 – Return to the hotel & lunch
After the dive, we drive back to Kralendijk. We first make a stop downtown for a smoothie at Rumba Café, perfect after a dive! We rinse off the dive gear at the hotel and then put it back in the car. Then we have plenty of time to dive into the pool, have lunch and rest. Tonight we have something special planned. We deliberately did only one dive today, because we also have the night dive. And so now we also had plenty of time to enjoy Park Slagbaai itself.
18:30 – Night dive: ostracods
As the sun begins to set, we get ready for a night dive. Tonight’s target: ostracods, tiny crustaceans that appear shortly after sunset and put on a magical light show. The males produce bioluminescent points of light to lure females, making the water seem full of tiny green dots floating around. During the dive we also see nocturnal animals such as a large lobster, a frogfish perfectly camouflaged on a sponge and a spotted moray eel carefully emerging from its burrow. Then we turn off our lights and linger silently; slowly the dots of light from the ostracods appear everywhere, as if looking at a starry sky underwater. It’s very difficult to capture, and videos you see online do absolutely no credit to what it looks like in real life. Below is a video of the phenomenon, not made by myself for but to give you an idea of what it roughly looks like. It was truly extraordinary. The only drawback was that our dive was quite short because someone in the group ran out of air quickly. In fact, we do the night dive with a dive guide and a group. It is the only organized dive of the trip, but absolutely worth it!
8:30 p.m. – Dinner at Rumba Café.
After the night dive, we drive back to Kralendijk and end the day at Rumba Café, a cozy seaside spot where many divers gather after a day of adventure. Over drinks, we look back on a perfect day: a road trip through the national park, a relaxing reef dive at Slagbaai and a night dive that felt almost magical. Tomorrow we will dive again!
Traveling to Bonaire?
Would you also like to dive Bonaire’s famous coral reefs? We offer year-round trips to Bonaire. The high season is from December to May, when it is dry and sunny, but actually you can dive well here all year round. The water temperature is around 26-29°C and the air temperature varies between 28 and 32°C.
