Deep Blue View from above:

At first, being driven up, up, up, and around lots of curves to our bed and breakfast, I had some second thoughts. Why on earth were we staying up away from the beach? Why didn’t we just book a bungalow at Captain Don’s Diving Habitat, or Buddy Dive? We’d be walking distance from diving, surrounded by other divers, and no doubt there would be food and snack shops around.

Ben had been the one to come across Deep Blue View online. He’s a big fan of smaller, more personal places to stay, and this one came highly recommended from everyone who’d stayed there. It’s a four-bedroom B&B run by Menno and Esther, who moved to Bonaire from Holland 4 years ago. They run the place entirely by themselves, cooking guests breakfast, running dive and snorkel trips, and playing concierge to guests who know nothing about getting around the island.

We arrived late at night, so I didn’t really get a good look at the place. It felt isolated, which I wasn’t sure I liked. But the rooms were pretty, tiled (good for wet people), clean, and air conditioned, so I figured so far, so good.

By the light of day, we were even more impressed. The guest rooms are adjacent to a big patio area, with a huge teak dining table and chairs, gigantic hammocks, and a shallow pool. Menno and Esther have two black labs, one of whom is particularly friendly. He also loves the water; there were a few times when I was in the pool and he’d leap in to join me. He’d start dog-paddling towards me, all the while lapping up pool water to drink (ugh). I admit, it’s a bit disconcerting having a large dog swimming determinedly towards you, lap, lap, lapping up water, and finally winding up lapping your face with his paws on your shoulders. Cute, though.

Menno and Esther could not possibly have been more amazing hosts. I don’t know how they’ve done it by themselves all this time. Even though there are never more than 8 people staying, it felt like we made plenty of work for them! They were always there to answer our questions (“Menno, what’s a good place for our first night dive from shore? Esther, where can we get pizza? How can we mail these Christmas cards to the US?”.) Esther had a really cute way of asking if anyone was interested in breakfast: “Jeff, are you in for some eggs?” Menno was a wonderful, laid-back dive guide (not that there’s any such thing as a dive guide who’s NOT laid back), very patient and sympathetic with all our camera issues!

The other guests were fun to have around, too. For the first half of our time, there were two other young, diving couples staying there. We sort of naturally divided into groups of 4 and 4 for all the diving, but we constantly traded recommendations for dive sites and restaurants. By the end of the week, Sally and Ernie had arrived, who I’ve already written about.

By the end of our trip, Jeff and I were glad we’d let Ben handle the accomodations. A bigger place might have been more convenient for food-getting and ocean-access, but Deep Blue View was just such a nice place to return “home” to every day. And I can’t imagine the staff at any of the larger resorts would have been able to socialize with us as much as Esther and Menno did, or to show us around as thoroughly.

We both agree that when we go back to Bonaire, we’ll stay there again, and I hope we can send some more business their way with our good reviews!