Excellent photography brings to life the character,the brilliance, and the lifestyle of the flamingo. Photos are the heart of the essay with accompanying text providing specific information and brief "editiorial" comments. A must-have for flamingo lovers.

I would bet a thousand chip at the casino that all of these perfect reviews were written by people who are affiliated with the guide and who stand to profit from it. Tell me I'm wrong. Look at the language in these reviews, it screams plant.

The first comprehensive guide to the popular ABC islands, located just off the Venezuelan coast. Discover the quiet life of Bonaire, gamble away at Aruba's casino, hit the high-style designer clothing stores in Curaçao, and relax on the glorious white beaches of all three! Here is the ultimate guide to discovering the high life and cool spots of the ABCs, written by authors who have sacrificed their vacations to research this book (poor things!). This Alive Guide focusses on shopping (snatch up some duty-free bargains), hotels (colorful local cuisine and fine dining alike) and restaurants, with special attention paid to the cream of the crop. Sightseeing, historical walking tours, wildlife discovery, and watersports are also covered. The activity-oriented Sunup to Sundown sections will fill your day with beaches, deep-sea fishing charters, diving excursions, moped rides and more, while After Dark tells you of the best Happy Hours, the liveliest clubs and the bars where things really hop! Handy A-Z sections for each island provide all the practical details - airline offices, banking hours and locations, emergency telephone numbers, shopping hours, tourist information booths.

"Written in a highly readable style, this guide seems to have omitted nothing." Pittsburgh Post

The book gives a good overview of some of the more popular dive sites listing type of entry, depth & current information. It also rates the dives as Novice, Intermediate, or Advanced. The photography is good as are the dive descriptions. However, the book is dated and the map of the dive sites is not numbered correctly and doesn't list the names of many of the sites on the southwest beaches. Also, two of the most popular dive sites, the Town Pier & Salt Pier now have some restrictions on them that are not listed in this book. Overall, I think it's a good general overview of the sites and attractions of Bonaire.

I was going to buy this book, but a new updated edition is supposed to be in the works. Per my Dive Shop, this is one of the Pisces dive guides, this one published in 1991. Apparently Lonley Planet bought the series and is updating and reissuing each book. The Bonaire book I'm told is due out in July of 2001.

Otherwise I have found this series to be excellent.

This is a very good introductory book for diving on Bonaire. It lists and describes several of the best dive sites on Bonaire and Klein Bonaire. It also provides some general tourist information for Bonaire, which many first-time Bonaire divers may find very interesting. The book is also compact and is great for traveling.

During our sailing trip from Martinique to Venezuela we used this book especially because of the detailed and useful information about small harbours and beautyful beaches. I can recommend it very strongly.

I really wanted to pan this small book. Austrian dive pioneer Hans Hass' characterizations of the thrills of skewering live reef fish on spears is about appropriate today as wearing a leopard coat to the opera or maintaining separate drinking fountains for different races. Haas' description of Kralendijk and the local government are extremely unflattering and smacks of the German nationalism of that era. But it is also about Hans Haas, a true innovator who might have become as famous as Jacques Cousteau had The Axis won WW-II. It also incorporates a somewhat aggrandizing history of the Bonaire Marine Park and the dive industry by the former Park Manager Kalli DeMeyer, which is chock full of the kind of details BMP visitors want to know. Haas was directed to Bonaire by Curaçao fishermen who told him that there "the reefs were more beautiful and the fish more plentiful." When he arrived in July 1936 he found especially prolific sea life in the Point Vierkant area (because the locals thought the fish from there was poisonous, according to Haas) and on Klein Bonaire around Carl's Hill. He lived for six weeks on Klein Bonaire living off speared fish and fruit and fresh water brought over from the main island. While there he tried underwater breathing apparatus and perfected techniques for underwater photography with a homemade camera. He recorded a Klein Bonaire quite different from today. Sharks, including Hammerheads, were common. They only bothered Hans and his friends when they had a live speared fish or were trailing a bleeding stringer of fish. At the start of the war, Hass returned to Europe. It wasn't until 1953 that he returned to Bonaire. By this time he had competed his doctoral thesis in biology and had at his disposal the three-masted schooner, Xarifa. The expedition's diving was done with oxygen rebreathers at shallow depths and compressed air for the deeps. Some of the first color underwater movies were taken during this visit. The book is filled with first hand experiences of Bonaire underwater more than 60 years ago. Hass never forgot Bonaire. Three years ago he penned a personal note pleading for the preservation of Klein Bonaire. The slim volume is an important historical document. Hass' dialogue is barely 20 pages long and includes some fascinating photos, but it's descriptions of the reef life redeems its flaws and makes the book worth reading.

Hans Haas and his Journeys to Bonaire, by Michael Jung with a History of the Bonaire Marine Park and the Development of the Dive Industry on Bonaire by Kalli DeMeyer.©1999 by Verlag Andrea Kriesbach-Jung Merzig ISBN 3-933234-03-4.

This book was published in 1991. Unfortunately in November 1999, Hurricane Lenny inflicted a massive underwater storm surge on Bonaire that destroyed many of the dive & snorkel sites referenced in this book. Many sites have nothing to look at until 30' depth. I also found this book to be lacking in local color.

The best book on Bonaire diving & snorkeling is "Shore Diving Made Easy" that you can buy for US$10 at the island dive shops. It is up to date with recommended entry/exit points and suggested landmarks while diving.

I bought both this book and the Schnabel "Diving and Snorkeling Guide to Bonaire." This book was by far the better of the two, with more information (both diving and non-diving), excellent pictures, and just overall a better guide to diving on Bonaire. If you only take one guide, this should be it.

I bought this book before going to Bonaire in the summer of 2002. Our group of 4 used it extensively during our stay there and found it very useful in describing the different dive sites. The book does a very good job of describing how to find the shore diving sites, where to park, how to enter the water and what to expect in the water. There is a good map and good broad overviews of the island, the culture, marine life, hotels and resturants. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone planning to go to Bonaire.

I ordered this book because I was planning a professional assignment to the ABC islands and had many questions to ask. Having previously reviewed other titles in this series with somewhat mixed results I had some idea of what to expect.

In addition to learning about the various Dive Sites, the information I require is; Something about the people - a potted history of the country and an insight into their language and customs etc, plus a few lines about shopping, how to get there, airlines, excess baggage, airport tax, tourist boards, hotels, time difference, local transport, currency, electricity, language, photography, diving facilities, safari boats, available equipment, what to bring, what to wear - and so forth. Thankfully, most of these questions (though not all) are answered with additional information on diving for the disabled and Nitrox. Furthermore, this is a destination with no direct flights from the UK - so the detailed variables of how I might get there were particularly valuable.

"The Dive Sites of Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao" is paperback measuring 9½in x 6½in containing over 170 pages. Commencing with a two-page explanation of the legends and symbols used throughout the book, we then have chapters on; An overall Introduction to the country, Travel, Diving and Snorkelling in general, Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao, the Marine Environment, Underwater Photography & Video and Health & Safety for Divers.

The first map is across pages 10 and 11 and shows the islands (there are actually 5 altogether), in relation to each other and the Caribbean. That and the first 3 chapters are a very good start. Now we get down to the diving found off each of the 3 main (and two smaller) islands and this is where the book could so easily be improved. Altogether, there are brief details on 180 dive sites but each chapter commences with "Site No 1" whereas it would be far more useful had they been numbered consecutively from beginning to end.

For each of the islands/island groups, only one map is required in order to demonstrate the approximate position of all the dive sites. Whilst this is used to good effect as far as Aruba is concerned, Bonaire and Curaçao are separated into 3 and 4 artificial divisions respectively. When studying the diving detail, it is always the little things which reveal the amount of research undertaken by any author. For many years Aruba has claimed that their shipwreck "Antilla" is "The largest shipwreck in the Caribbean." Whilst I can't fault any Tourist Board or local Diving Facility for making such a claim the Author should have known better. I know of at least 2 Cruise Liners found elsewhere in the Caribbean (Grenada and Mustique) that are easily 200 feet longer than this particular shipwreck and, for me, the diving detail is suspect.

My final criticism is reserved for the blatant advertising for "Captain Don's Habitat." This amounts to several photograph captions and a full-page feature article on this particular diver. I do appreciate that the Author's diving had to be sponsored by somebody, but subsequent reference to that sponsor should have remained limited to the acknowledgements page and, perhaps the occasional plug in one or two (and no more) photographs. If the Author wishes to write a testimonial to this Captain Don Stewart - fine by me, but included here, it gives the impression of being a Guide to the Diving provided by this particular facility - and nobody else.

Having said all that, almost all the information you are likely to want is there and that - coupled with a good cross-section of high-calibre photographs throughout make this the best diving guide to the entire ABC Islands I have yet to see. With a few improvements here and a few deletions there, this book could so easily have obtained a 5 star rating.

NM

I did not like this guide. It gives little sense of the "spirit" of each island, seeming rather to be a list of "drive here, drive there" with occasional useful information, but little commentary on the sights. Personally, I prefer a guidebook that will tell me what is tourist-hokey and what is worth seeing. No websites listed in the accommodations section (which is pretty sketchy). Look up "sailing" and it just lists names and phone numbers of boats -- no indication of available tours, prices, comparative quality. Ditto with snorkeling, a list of places to snorkel, no info on where to rent gear or tour options. Frommer's Caribbean was a better resource.