where to stay in Bonaire

spyder · Joined: 24 Sep 1996 Posts: 2790 Location: oahu

Ive been there a number of times, but yrs ago. I thought all the places I stayed were really nice, I never heard of any bad ones. Generally all the places are on the leeward side, and you have to drive over the main road to the windward side. But there is one place called Lac Bay Resort, at Lac Bay. Thats very cool. I liked staying near town though, the drive is not long, and pretty fun to see the flamingos and iguanas all over.

Are you doing Windsurf Place or Jibe City?

spyder · Joined: 24 Sep 1996 Posts: 2790 Location: oahu

bring all your big sails!
My experience is the wind cycles in 1 meter steps, so it might be 5.0 one day, then 6.0, then 7.0, then 8.0.

Generally I was on a 6.5 or 5.5. But sailed 8.3 and 4.5 in the same week.

spyder · Joined: 24 Sep 1996 Posts: 2790 Location: oahu

oh and a few more things:

1). you can sail over at Pink Beach. That is on the leeward side. No one sails there, cuz there is no rental gear that people can take around the island, but the windsurfing is GREAT there! It may be a lot closer to your hotel.

2). To launch at Lac Bay, there used to be another windsurf place called the castle, but it got torn down. However, now its a great little private launch now. You just go past Jibe city, past Windsurf Place, and around the bend. Just park down there and you can see where to launch. Watch out there can be some sand bars that pop up.

mike · Joined: 03 Jan 1998 Posts: 1

I went to Bonaire for the first time last year. We stayed at Buddys and sailed at Lac Bay at Jibe City. I would not particularly recommend Buddys, kind of expensive. I think you can get a house or condo on the beach for $$50-75/day vs $100 at Buddys. I would however highly recommend Jibe City at Lac Bay. It is tops. A real low key place and Ernst the owner is a good guy. Lots of nice folks go there and some of the female types dont wear tops. Lots of gear, all new and absolutely no reason to bring anything but a harness and booties and sunscreen and a shirt to keep from being burned to a crisp. Price for gear for a week pretty cheap.....might have been about $265. I think there is a website.

Have fun!

Mike

long4wind · Joined: 17 May 1998 Posts: 8

I stayed in Bonaire about a year and a half ago.

As mentioned by others, Jibe City is an excellent place to rent equipment and learn the sport. I highly recommend it.

However, I cannot recommend Lac Bay Resort. Its a good 15 to 20 minute drive from civilization and still at least a mile from the windsurfing launch. I was somehow mislead by the pictures that I would have a great view of Lac Bay from my second story window. What I got instead was view of the desert, where if I hung my head out the porch and rotated my head 90 degrees, I could see about 1/4 of the bay half mile away. This was not what I had hoped for.

I also didnt like the fact that our king size bed was really 2 twins with king size bed sheets. I kept waking up in the morning sliding between them. The airconditioner was old and extremely noisy.