Here's a few windsurfing tips that might be useful to you if you plan to ride in Bonaire this winter. Not the freshest news since I was there 6 months ago but I bet many things are still the same. I tried only 2 places. There are a couple more you can go for, but they tend to have less gear and less options.

Dunkerbeck Pro Center:
FRIENDLYNESS 2/5
HELPFULNESS 4/5
• The staff shows tourist fatigue: Mood is down, and they didn’t feel like they cared much about customers.
• Needed some convincing for them to let me use better gear than what was available (see below)

BOARDS
CHOICE 4/5
CONDITION 5/5
AVAILABILITY 4/5
• Plenty of choice for freeride, freerace and freewave boards of all sizes.
• Slalom board Starboard Isonics isn’t for rent contrary to what is said on their website. (Reason: “For staff only!”
• 135l Goya Proton is the only slalom board avail.
• Luckily, Starboard people came for photoshoot just before and left behind a brand new 2024 120l Futura! Really fast and speed close to slalom board when trimmed right with a race fin (That was fun!).

RIGS
CHOICE 3/5
CONDITIONS 5/5:
AVAILABILITY 2/5
• Mostly average freeride/freewave sails. No fast rigs.
• A few Severne race/freerace rigs but "for staff only" (again!)
• I got them to pull from storage and rig a couple of older Simmer 4-cam race sail (that saved the week!)

OVERAL:
• Not as friendly as it used to be during the 2 first years of operation.
• OK place for leisure freeriding with fairly recent equipment.
• For Race or Freerace performance stuff, it might be a crapshoot.
• I got lucky this time with the gear I managed to ride.
• They will let you use your own fin if you ask.


JibeCity:
FRIENDLYNESS 3/5
HELPFULNESS 5/5
• Laidback and efficient front desk staff.
• Good vibes from beach staff (will bring your rig to you).
• However, the owner is rude and impatient especially after he figured I came from the US…

BOARDS
CHOICE 5/5
CONDITION 5/5
AVAILABILITY 5/5
• Plenty of choice, type, size and quantity.
• Boards are mostly from the current year or the year before; all in great condition - many equipped with a nose protector though.

RIGS
CHOICE 5/5
CONDITIONS 5/5
AVAILABILITY 1/5 (Race/Freerace)
• Top of the line rigs of different brands but too few of the same in large sizes.
• Almost everyone fighting for the few 7.0 and above Freerace and Race sails.

OVERAL:
• With more available rigs, the place would have been great (everyone “fighting” for the same sails).
• The place is very busy. My advice: Show up slightly before they open and get what you want before you check in at the front desk.
• Avoid engaging with the owner. The interaction is neither friendly nor satisfying. Everyone else is great.
• Forget about installing your own fin: Owner will discourage you.

THE SPOT:
• Best time to ride is early morning and late afternoon when there’s less people on the water and when the wind is stronger.
• The south shallow end of the lagoon isn’t usually as windy as the deeper north side.
• Watch for sea turtles in the deeper water area (Quite a few).
• Watch the tied and ride when deep enough for your fin size or switch for a wave gear and ride shallower fins.
• Watch also for the local racers: They “own” the spot and tend to play chicken with anyone in their way (crossing or passing way to close to the windsurfing “tourists”). They are not joking - not friendly…
• If your app is showing 15-20kn, the actual wind is more like 12-17kn, or even lower. All apps forecasts are optimistic by a wide margin. You will need a bigger rig than you think.
• If you see a big dark rain cloud coming your way, switch quickly for a smaller rig and ride the storm: Gusty but powered! If too strong, step off the board and wait for it to pass while in the shallows.

Questions: Just ask.

The biggest problem with Bonaire is GETTING THERE. Flights from the US just suk. I would have gone right after christmas, but it was just.....IMPOSSIBLE!!! Every airline seems to make it an overnight stay just to get there.

Eric Raven wrote:
True. It takes a bit of time to get there and the layover costs of an extra night in a hotel near the airport.
I highly discourage using Newark as your layover airport: The place is notorious for late and canceled flights by the dozen on a very regular basis. Best is layover in Atlanta or Huston. AA also flies out of Miami.

If you can use reward travel (Like with Delta Skymiles) you could score a trip in Feb. for about 70,000 Miles. Not bad.

I've been to Bonaire just once, and only used gear from the Windsurf Place, so my baseline scoring may be different from Greg's...

Windsurf Place:
FRIENDLYNESS 5/5
HELPFULNESS 5/5
• Laidback and friendly staff all around. Happy to help you choose gear and get it to the water (only 10 feet away!)
• They were 100% happy with you coming in to swap board or sail.
• The owner (Roger who used to run a place in Aruba) is totally cool and friendly guy. We talked for a good hour late Friday (my last day) about everything from wooden booms to kiters and the Caribbean.

BOARDS
CHOICE 4/5
CONDITION 4/5
AVAILABILITY 5/5
• Far more boards that I expected. Starboard and RRD. New and old. Not really any full-on "race" gear, but plenty of free-race and free-ride.
• Boards spanned about 6 years, but mostly from the current year or the year before. Some of the older boards were a bit rough, but there were plenty of newer ones.
• I used an 95 liter RRD wave board one day, and various 100-120 liter boards the others (Kode, Firemove, Atom)

RIGS
CHOICE 5/5
CONDITIONS 5/5
AVAILABILITY 5/5 (unless you want Race gear!)
• All HotSailsMaui (my favorite) I used a 5.5 Firelight one day, and GPX 6-7.5 on the other days.
• No sails that were full-on race sails. Which didn't bother me a bit

OVERALL:
• Maybe they have busier weeks, but there was always way more gear available than necessary.
• Prices were great. On the last day (my birthday) I sailed 6 hours and it was $75 (full insurance included).
• The entire staff is cool. They seemed to truly enjoy interaction with their customers. You can trade gear as often as you want, they'd just smile and say "I told you that 7 was going to be too big!"
• They have a really nice covered & raised deck with tables and chairs. There is a grill/bar (good grub!) 15 feet away so you had an excellent spot to have some lunch and get out of the sun, either at the bar or on the Windsurf Place deck.

And if you go, don't skip the snorkeling, it's awesome. My favorites were the Salt Pier, Klein Bonaire Island, and the inside of the Lac Bay reef.
I would love to go every spring. Great way to jump-start the season



Drew

Andrew Scheidler wrote:
Very true: Windsurf Place is certainly a place to check. I didn't mention it as I rented from them back in 2017 and couldn't tell how it is has turned out recently. Back in July 2023, they seemed a lot less busy than the other rental places - maybe due to the fact that the season was winding down? Definitely a place to check if you are looking for great freeriding stuff at a competitive rate. Like you mentioned, I really liked their shaded deck to chill and chat with fellow windsurfers between sessions. Definitely a plus if you go there by yourself and crave a bit of social interaction.

One last place to check that seems to pick-up nicely is The Frans Paradise. That's my next place to try if I go there once more: That have slalom gear! and are the best to go to if Winging is your thing!

Good point regarding snorkeling. 100s of good, right off the shore, places for that. Back in July when the wind was light, I did a couple of mornings of scuba-diving with my son. We went to DIVE FRIENDS BONAIRE, and they were fantastic. Absolutely worth it and doable by most even if you never scuba-dived before.

Greg,

Does Dunkerbeck still have extended hours relative to the other rental shops? Rented from them in 2019 and early morning/late afternoon sailing was a significant bonus.

Also any tips for getting access to the better equipment? I was stoked to try some racier gear and bummed to learn they don’t really have the the stuff advertised on the “pro” tier.

And in other years I remember being over finned on high wind days. Leaving today - too late to bring my own fins. Will they swap out for something else they have on hand hand there? Guessing no. I also found friendliness/customer service to be somewhat lacking last time, but wasn’t dissatisfied overall.

Thanks for the review!

Hey Chris,
Not sure this will be useful since you seem to be already on you way there.

Hours of operation: I think Dunkerbeck is still the place that offers the extended hours but check with others as I think the difference is not that significant.

When I was there last July, the people at Dunkerbeck didn’t care too much to make me feel welcome. Maybe you’ll be able to tell us if that has improved.

About their Pro stuff, I’d point to their website and tell them you want to use this or that listed on the web page and see what they say.
I would also check at the end of the “rental strip” at the Fran’s paradise for race-ish gear: seems like they got new equipment this year, notably FuturFly boards and Point7 sails! Stuff we don’t get here in the US. Looking at their videos, the Fran’s look like a more fun and engaging place!

Regarding fins at Dunkerbeck, I can’t say if they’ll swap fins for you. I would ask and tell them you tailwalk and would like a smaller fin and see if they can help!. I came with my own fins and I did the swap myself. They were not too excited about that but with a bit of persuasion and a smile, they let me do it anyway.

Have fun!

I always bring my own fin. Granted, it's usually a 19 cm freestyle fin (very small), but a mediocre fin will RUIN your sailing. Fins are pretty easy to pack and VERY durable.

Belated thanks for the responses re Dunkerbeck.

My experience this time was pretty good. Staff was friendly on the whole. They do in fact open earlier than the other shops - 7:30 - and it’s a real treat to be out there before the heat of the day with that gorgeous bay almost entirely to yourself. I distinctly remember being out later in the evening last time, but now they close at 6. The website still says you can access gear at anytime - moonlight or dawn sail referenced - but that idea must have been scrapped early on.

Unfortunately the wind wasn’t great. Lots of 8-12 days and probably nothing above an occasional gust of 17 or so the entire trip. Not horrible and plenty of planing to enjoy, but a lot of slogging at times. Atypical in my experience but most of my other trips have been earlier in the spring.

Sails were mostly Severne Gator and NCX. I preferred the NCX but they were often unavailable in the size I wanted. They had a few Simmer Style 2 cam “race”sails, but the one tried seemed kind of old and felt weird to me. Not sure what was wrong but felt ridiculously backhanded even with the lines moved way back.

They had a fair selection of newish Severne Fox boards and some Dynos, which I tried but ended back on the older but more familiar Goya Bolts. Not too old, maybe 2023/2022, but some seemed to worn to the point of being a little slippery. The “pro” boards were just a few Simmer Style Monster and 3XS. All kind of large for me - I think smallest was around 120.

Not to complain too much but rental gear is always going to be somewhat of a compromise even if high quality. Lots of fiddling around with lines, boom height, straps etc each and every time out to get things even close to right. And - at least for me, normal sail adjustments like downhaul/out haul -forget about it in a rental setting with an unfamiliar sail. And though I always adjust foot strap size, changing position is impractical.

In past years we’ve tried Windsurf Place and they’ve always been great. But 9:30 open is too late and since we’ve been staying at Sorobon Dunkerbeck is far more convenient and also discounted for guests. My wife mostly windsurfs but took a couple wing foiling lessons at Frans and had nothing but good things to say about the experience.

Bonaire is perhaps a little more crowded than it used to be, but still relatively unspoiled with lots to explore off the beaten track. There’s a lot to love generally beyond windsurfing/water and I imagine I’ll keep returning.