Bonaire (6) Klein Bonaire

I’m always fascinated by the amazing under sea world, no matter it is swimming among the fish, chasing a turtle, or diving down to examine a cave in the corals — you name it! There are quietness, sereneness, and vastness down there. It is beautiful and full of hopes when you see the sunbeams penetrating the water!

Bonaire is an excellent place for snorkelers and divers. There are a total of 61 dive sites on the island and 26 dive sites on the Klein Bonaire, forming the Bonaire Marine National Park. “Klein” in dutch means “small, little”. This island is the only small island of Bonaire and about 20 minutes boat ride away from the main island. There are no people living here, but some small huts. In the old days, those huts were used for quarantining slaves shipped overseas. Nowadays, water taxi and boats send tourists to the beach in the mornings and take them back little after sunset.

Because of the current, people do drift snorkeling around Klein Bonaire. The boat drops you down at one location and pick you up at another, so you don’t have to swimming back in the current. For this reason, People typically rent a boat instead of taking a water taxi for snorkeling. This is one of best snorkeling site I have been to. It is around 10-20 feet deep near the shore. The sunlight hit the bottom at places and you can easily dive down. See this beautiful lettuce coral and blue fish at the bottom.

Near the shore, there are many corals, so fish hang around here. We found a giant puffer fish!

This area is full of corals, vegetation and rocks. Turtles are often hiding in the grass. We found one sleeping down there.

Swimming a little out, you see a sharp drop and there is a cliff diving into the deep ocean. At the edge, there are many travelers. See this giant group of black fish and a few angel fish on the horizon?!

There are two types of boats on the water. We went with Aqua Fun Bonaire. They go out with small boats of 8-10 people (on the left below) with a guide to take you around underwater. They are very fast on what’s app and flexible if you want to change time. There are also sail boats (on the right), which is big and take more people, but they communicate via emails once a day.

I have been to the Greater Barrier Reef twice. The first time, we went with the famous QuickerSilver and they took us out to their platform, where the coral and fish were gorgeous but located in a small area and there were many people. Compared to this experience, Bonaire has a much larger and natural area of corals, the fish is not concentrated at one place, and they are everywhere, living their happy life. There are a lot of different terrains under the sea, and it makes a real marine “park”. The second time I went to the Greater Barrier Reef with a smaller boat, which was a more nature area, but many corals were bleached :(. The water was not warm and calm like Caribbean. In Bonaire, you ride boat only 20 minutes not 2 hours, certainly more pleasant and cheaper.

Love a tourist destination that still has so much nature and wonder in it. I was already thinking when to come back when I was in the water with the fish 😀