Bonaire

Bonaire is a small, 21 mile long, island situated in the Dutch Antilles. Sat in the Caribbean Sea just 50 miles north of Venezuela it is outside the hurricane belt and has very low rainfall, just 22” a year. Bonaire offers dependably dry and warm weather. Above water the island is quite arid and desert like but the lack of rainfall means there is little run off and the sea is usually very clear. There is an abundance of marine life, including seahorses, frogfish, flamingo tongue shells, tarpon as well as all our usual fishy friends.

Apart from the great diving the island itself is interesting. The south end of the island has salt flats developed for commercial use in 1639 by the Dutch West India Company. These flats are now the home to 14,943 flamingos, (count them yourself if you don’t believe me), every evening at dusk the flamingos fly to Venezuela for the night, retuning for brine shrimp breakfast the next morning. The North of the Island is a national park. The area looks like the Arizona desert, complete with cactus trees and 180 species of tropical bird. Rare species include the Amazona Parrot, ruby-topaz humming birds, pearly-eyed thrashers, (yes, really), and Caribbean Parakeets, so don’t forget the binoculars.

Although a boat is best for a few of the dive sites most of them are most easily accessed from the shore. So our dive package includes 5 boat dives and unlimited shore diving..

The apartments are air-conditioned. The bedrooms have twin king or queen sized beds. There is a separate living are with cable TV phone and a large private patio or balcony. Available in the hotel grounds are 2 swimming pools, restaurant, BBQ, pool bar and a beach leading to the reef. The hotel is situated 15 minutes walk from the delightful Dutch style capital Kralendijk. Accommodation is in self-catered apartments in the hotel grounds