Day 1
Checkout Dive
Early in February 2026 I went to Bonaire with Todd and my parents for a scuba trip. Bonaire is a small Dutch island which is part of the ABC island chain in the southern Caribbean Sea, and is well-known in the diving community as one of the best places for shore dives in the world. This is because the island has fringing reefs which are easily accessed from the coast.
There was a one-a-week direct flight from Toronto Pearson to the Flamingo International Airport in Kralendijk, Bonaire, which made it relatively easy for us to get to the island. My parents’ trip started the evening before us on a redeye Westjet flight from Calgary to Toronto, and we met them in Toronto Pearson Terminal 3 as the sun was rising the morning of February 3. Boarding the flight down to Bonaire was uneventful, and we pushed back from the gate on time. We had a quick deicing stop before departing on the 5 1/2 hour flight down. I kept myself occupied on the flight down reading the fifth book in the Wheel of Time series, The Fires of Heaven. I also watched the last couple of episodes of the Apple TV show ‘Murderbot’. The flight was smooth, and we arrived to a beautiful warm afternoon in Bonaire.
We stayed at the Buddy Dive resort. It caters to scuba divers, and offers trucks for rent which make it easy to bring gear and air tanks to the many shore dive sites around the island. It was a short, 15 minute shuttle ride from the airport to the resort, which made it very convenient after clearing customs. We rented a truck to make it easy to get around the island and to visit some of the shore dive sites.
The view from our balcony; including the pool and beach area
There are a half dozen dive boats
The truck we had, unfortunately I only remembered to get a photo on the last evening
Even the 'Do not disturb' signs are scuba-themed
Flowers
Scenes from the resort
While in Bonaire I dove 11 times, 4 of them from the shore and 7 of them from a boat. There was all sorts of sea life - many fish, a variety of eels, and some other fun creates like octopi, squid and crabs. The coral was looking healthy, and the visibility was great. Overall I understand why people enjoy diving so much in Bonaire. The shore dives were enjoyable, and it was also really neat to see the dives off Klein Bonaire.
Most of the photos were taken using a Pixel 6 Pro phone, in a Kraken KRH08 v2 underwater case; the photos I took while shore diving on Day 6 were taken using a SeaLife DC2000. This was the third dive trip I’d used the Kraken case, and while it worked well for many of the dives towards the end of the trip I ran into issues with the O-ring around the back seal and wasn’t able to use it on the last few dives. I borrowed my Dad’s SeaLife camera on our last day, while we were shore diving, and I found that it was easy to use, and took great photos as well.
We had an early morning flight back to Toronto on February 11, 2026. Getting from the resort to the airport was easy and quick - I was able to have one last omelette for breakfast before we had to leave at 7 AM for the airport. After arriving there was a long line to drop off our bags, however the line went smoothly and the security checkpoint didn’t have any complications. Boarding started on time at 8:20 AM, and we took off moments after our scheduled departure time of 9 AM AST. I had finished the fifth Wheel of Time book the evening before, and on the flight home I started reading book six - Lord of Chaos. The flight was smooth and we landed shortly before 1 PM EST, almost 30 minutes ahead of schedule.