Where to Next?: Bonaire Again

We have traveled to Bonaire twice in the last few years. I guess I never posted about the first trip in December 2018 because we were soothing our hearts over the recent loss of a close family member. But apparently we liked it enough to visit again.

Travelling internationally in the time of Covid-19 is not for the weary. If you find navigating TSA and Immigration/Customs a challenge normally, you don't want to do it with additional protocols for Covid.

Bonaire is still part of the Kingdom of The Netherlands. Consequently the Dutch flock to Bonaire during the holidays jammed onto the daily 747 KLM flight. We also discovered that due to Covid, 'breakers' who are college grads right out of school, traditionally take a year off before joining the real world and places that were previously options for their sabbatical (Indonesia for example) are no longer available, so there are tons of them on Bonaire. This generally means lousy service in restaurants and lots of them don't speak fluent English or Spanish.

But enough of that.

1000 Steps

You go to Bonaire if you love the water, enjoy water sports or truly want a place to do almost nothing. It's a desert island and tourism is the #1 source of income, probably followed by the commercial salt business that has been going on there for centuries.

Salt Pier

Salt marker for ships

There's windsurfing, kitesurfing, snorkeling and scuba diving. We go for the latter two and a lot of the do almost nothing but relax.

Divers down!

The first trip in 2018 we stayed at The Bellafonte which are condos that are run like a luxury hotel. Fabulous location on the sea, large sunny dock that stretches out over the Caribbean with easy access into the water. There is a small pool and at the time, the property hosted regular happy hours. We stayed two weeks in a two bedroom/two bath unit on the second floor with a balcony where we spent a lot of our time. The property has a partnership with VIP Diving to supply dive tanks which are replenished daily, you make arrangements with the dive shop directly.

Bellafonte-Bonaire

The second trip in December 2021 we rented a villa a little farther down EEG Blvd. It was a double villa and because we initially planned to have both sides filled (but Covid 😡) we rented the entire property named Salt & Pepper for 18 days. It was next to the Ocean Oasis Beach Club and Flamingo Dive shop which was perfect, in theory, for our group. The view and in particular the sunsets were spectacular!

Salt & Pepper

The View

AS for food, well the Dutch are not known for their cuisine but we highly recommend El Mundo in downtown Kralendijk. It has much more of an island vibe, the food is great as is the service.

We also tried Sebastian's because we couldn't get a table when we visited in 2018 we reserved way in advance for 2022. It's a lot of hype IMO, food was ok, service was mediocre, but the sunset view is fabulous.

View from Sebastian's

Another dinner spot we tried was Joe's Restaurant which was nice. All outdoor seating and it's a training restaurant, or so the signage indicated. The food was good, service was good too. We would probably go back to Joe's over Sebastian's.

Joe's Restaurant

Our go-to really became The Beach. We ate here on our first trip and back then it was half the size, mismatched tables and chairs and a limited menu. But it was good food. Today it's grown across two lots, added swanky club style chairs, walkways, tons more seating and a much bigger menu.