eFoil around Kralendijk, from a boat or off the beach
Bonaire's eFoil offers all sit on the west coast, the lee side where Kralendijk lies and the trade wind blows off the land. E-foil Bonaire takes its riders out by boat, from Watersport Center Bonaire in Kralendijk or from a pick-up point you arrange. The boards are Fliteboards, plus a Flitescooter, and you steer with a handheld wireless remote. Once it flies, the board sits about 80 cm above the water.
Every lesson is private, for one to six riders, and lasts one to three hours depending on the size of the group. You need to be over 10. The booking covers a certified instructor, the board or scooter, a helmet, an impact vest and a waterproof communication headset, so the instructor's voice stays in your ear on the first flight. Bring a towel, sunscreen and a bathing suit. Friends who only want to watch can ride along on the boat, as long as the whole group stays at eight or fewer.
Salu Watersports is a second name on the same offer as E-foil Bonaire. Salu chooses its spot each day by the conditions, takes riders from 10 years and works with several eFoil brands. Groups stop at four. Experienced riders can rent, and there are sunrise and sunset sessions. Salu publishes no prices.
Wave & Wheels starts its riders from the sand. This authorized Flite reseller on the beach in Kralendijk lists a FLITE duo lesson at $85 and a Fliteboard Solo Experience at $95 on its English shop. On the duo lesson each rider gets a Fliteboard of their own, an impact vest, a helmet and a certified Flite instructor. No lesson length is published, so ask before you set it against a boat session. The board itself is described on our Fliteboard page.
What an eFoil session on Bonaire costs per booking
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| Operator and session | Riders and length | List price |
|---|---|---|
| E-foil Bonaire, private lesson | 1 person | $150 |
| E-foil Bonaire, private lesson | 2 people, one shared board or one extra | $250 |
| E-foil Bonaire, private group lesson | 3 people | $340 |
| E-foil Bonaire, private group lesson | 4 people | $430 |
| E-foil Bonaire, private group lesson | 5 people | $520 |
| E-foil Bonaire, private group lesson | 6 people | $600 |
| E-foil Bonaire, guided rental or private lesson | 45 minutes | $140 |
| E-foil Bonaire, rental for experienced riders | 45 minutes | $100 |
| E-foil Bonaire, boating add-on | Per hour | +$50 |
| Watersport Center Bonaire, lesson and boat tour | 1 person, 1 hour | $200 |
| Watersport Center Bonaire, lesson and boat tour | 2 persons, 1.5 hours | $250 |
| Watersport Center Bonaire, lesson and boat tour | 3 persons, 2 hours | $300 |
| Watersport Center Bonaire, lesson and boat tour | 4 persons, 2.5 hours | $360 |
| Watersport Center Bonaire, lesson and boat tour | 5 persons, 3 hours | $400 |
| Watersport Center Bonaire, extra board or extra hour | - | $100 |
| Wave & Wheels, FLITE duo lesson | - | $85 |
| Wave & Wheels, Fliteboard Solo Experience | - | $95 |
Shared out, E-foil Bonaire comes to $150 for one rider, $125 each for two and close to $100 each for six. Watersport Center Bonaire's list starts at $200 for one rider and one hour and adds half an hour for each extra person. Both lists lead to one dock, so ask which one your booking runs on.
Past the beginner stage, the 45 minute guided session at $140 keeps an instructor beside you. If you foil safely on your own, the $100 rental is the one to book. What a first lesson teaches, and what a school expects before it rents out a board, is in our eFoil lessons and eFoil rental guides.
Flying off the west coast, where the wind blows out to sea
A ride off Kralendijk starts slowly, by law. Within 75 m of the low-water line no vessel may go faster than 10 km/h, under article 2 of the Eilandsverordening tot bevordering van de veiligheid te water, the island ordinance on safety on the water. Fliteboard puts the speed a board needs to hydrofoil at around 20 km/h. In our reading the ordinance treats an eFoil as a vessel, so you idle out through that strip and only fly beyond it. STINAPA, which manages the marine park, allows surfing with a foil in the dark blue water at least 75 m from shore.
Out there, keep close to the instructor or the boat. At Kralendijk the trade wind blows off the land, and a rider who comes off the board drifts seaward, away from the beach. Currents along this coast rarely exceed 0.5 m per second and set mostly north.
Boats in the park are asked to keep to 10 km/h, to slow to 5 km/h through mooring fields and to pass a moored boat at 50 m or more. The park's management plan warns that a hydrofoil can kill a turtle, which is unlikely to hear it coming, and that fast foils in shallow water are a safety problem. A policy for foils, with zones and rules, is planned.
E-foil Bonaire's sunrise and sunset tours leave from Delfins Beach Resort, last around two hours and take intermediate riders and above. The sunset tour stops at Karels Pier. No tour price is listed.
Wing foiling at Sorobon on Lac Bay
Lac Bay lies on the east coast, some 7 km southeast of Kralendijk, on the windward side of the island. A reef across its mouth keeps the lagoon flat, and behind the reef lie seagrass meadows and the largest mangrove forest in the Dutch Caribbean. The wind sports gather at Sorobon, where four windsurf centers share the beach. Dunkerbeck Pro Center calls it a warm, shallow lagoon with no ocean swell, ridden without a wetsuit all year.
Part of the bay is deep, part about waist deep, and at low tide the shallows hold only a few feet of water. In many places you can stand up after a fall and go again.
Dunkerbeck Pro Center, inside Sorobon Luxury Beach Resort, is the one center on the bay that prints wing prices. It sells an intro wingsurf session and a foiling lesson that puts wing and foil together, on new wingfoil gear for complete beginners and up.
Bonaire Windsurf Place and The Frans Paradise also teach wing foiling and list no wing price; The Frans Paradise takes kids. Jibe City, the fourth center, names no wing lessons. It teaches windsurfing, and its introduction to windfoiling is for riders who can already windsurf.
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| Center and lesson | Format | List price |
|---|---|---|
| Dunkerbeck Pro Center, intro wingsurf | 1 hour with an instructor, 1 hour without | $100 per person |
| Dunkerbeck Pro Center, foiling lesson (wing and foil) | 1 hour with an instructor, max. 2 people | $165 per person |
| Dunkerbeck Pro Center, private lesson | Per person | $100, or $80 each for 2 or more |
| Bonaire Windsurf Place, wing foil lesson | - | - |
| Bonaire Windsurf Place, windsurf beginner group | 2 hours, max. 5 | $50 |
| Bonaire Windsurf Place, windsurf private lesson | Per hour | $80 |
| The Frans Paradise, wing foil or windsurf lesson | Beginner, group, private, kids | - |
| Jibe City, introduction to windfoiling | Basic windsurf skills required | $150 per person |
Foiling in Lac is tolerated for now. STINAPA writes that windsurfing with a foil is currently condoned in Lac because the bay has not been zoned for it, and that talks on a new zoning are under way. Wing foiling gets no line of its own. The Eilandsbesluit onderwaterpark Bonaire of 25 August 2010 (no. 2) bans kites in Lac outright (article 39), and its 75 m rule in article 3(3) speaks of moving attached by a line to a kite. A handheld wing has no line, so in our reading neither article covers it and STINAPA's foil guidance is what applies. The basics are in our wing foiling guide and on the wing foil lessons page.
Atlantis Beach belongs to the kites
Kitesurfing inside the marine park is allowed only at the entry and exit zone at Atlantis, Kite Beach on the southern lee shore. Article 3(3) of the Eilandsbesluit onderwaterpark Bonaire of 25 August 2010 (no. 2) forbids moving over the water attached by a line to a kite within 75 m of the coast, except where the park manager designates a place. Atlantis is that place.
Kiteboarding Bonaire teaches there with IKO instructors and boat support, never more than two students to one instructor. A three hour IKO Level 1 first lesson costs $290, a block of three $670 and a block of five $990. Pay the nature fee before you go in. The school teaches no wing or foil, and STINAPA names only kites for Atlantis, so a wing belongs in Lac Bay. Foil technique for kiters is on our kitefoil page.
Klein Bonaire, some 2 km west of Kralendijk, is closed to kites and windsurfers, with a 500 m buffer and no starting or landing there. Downwinders need STINAPA's written consent.
The trade wind peaks in May and June and sags in October
Bonaire is semi-arid. Moderate to fresh easterlies blow steadily, the dry season runs from February to May, the rains from October to January, and July to September sit in between. The 1991 to 2020 averages give 514 mm of rain a year and a mean air temperature of 28.5 °C. The sea stays at about 26 to 28 °C all year.
The long-term wind figures for the region come from Hato airport on Curaçao, the next island west.
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| Month | Mean wind (knots) |
|---|---|
| January | 11.3 |
| February | 12.2 |
| March | 11.9 |
| April | 11.8 |
| May | 12.4 |
| June | 12.7 |
| July | 11.8 |
| August | 11.4 |
| September | 10.5 |
| October | 9.5 |
| November | 9.7 |
| December | 11.2 |
| Year | 11.4 |
For a wing foiler that makes May and June the windiest months and September to November the lightest, with October lowest of all. An eFoil needs no wind.
The Atlantic hurricane season runs from 1 June to 30 November and peaks from August to October. Bonaire sits on the southern edge of the hurricane region. Direct hits are relatively rare, and no major hurricane has made landfall on the island.
Bonaire National Marine Park law for boards and schools
The whole coast is park water. Under article 1(2) of the Eilandsverordening instelling onderwaterpark Bonaire of 27 March 2018 (no. 11), the marine park runs from the high-tide line to the 60 m depth line around Bonaire and Klein Bonaire, about 27 km² by STINAPA's count. Every eFoil session off Kralendijk happens inside it.
The detailed rules sit in the Eilandsbesluit onderwaterpark Bonaire of 25 August 2010 (no. 2). Article 3(1) and (2) close two marine reserves on the northwest coast to anyone without a permit, far from the eFoil bases. Article 5 bans anchoring in park water, with narrow exceptions. In Lac, article 37(1) holds motorboats to two knots (about 4 km/h) outside the buoyed Cai to Sorobon channel and four knots (about 7 km/h) inside, and article 38 bans jet skis. Read as a motorboat, an eFoil cannot lift at those speeds, and the schools keep their boards out of Lac.
Schools have duties of their own. Article 14(1) requires a permit from the island executive for commercial instruction, transport or equipment hire in the park, and article 19(3) obliges a business to tell its clients the park rules.
Dutch law reaches Bonaire only in part. The island has been a public body of the Netherlands since 10 October 2010, yet European Dutch laws do not apply there automatically. At sea, the Wet maritiem beheer BES (article 15(1) and (3)) applies the international collision regulations. In our reading the Dutch inland boating license and speed rules stop short of the island.
STINAPA's rule is that nothing may be taken out of the marine park or put into it. Divers are asked to disinfect their gear before the first dive and after the last, against stony coral tissue loss disease, whose bacteria survive well on rubber and neoprene.
This is our reading of the published texts, not legal advice; on the water, the instructor's word is the one that counts. How other countries treat an eFoil is in our eFoil rules guide.
The $40 nature fee, the $75 entry tax and the dollar
The Eilandsbesluit natuurbeheer Bonaire of 25 August 2010 (no. 3, article 2 and annex) sets the nature fee at $40 per user per calendar year. STINAPA charges it to every visitor who goes into the sea, and it runs from 1 January to 31 December. Article 3(2) exempts children under 13, residents of Bonaire, Curaçao, Aruba, Sint Maarten, Sint Eustatius and Saba, and stays of 24 hours or less.
Pay online at bonairenaturefee.org and the QR code arrives by e-mail. A school must collect the fee or check that you have paid (article 4(4)), and you wear the tag where it can be seen and show it on request (article 6(5) and (6)).
The entry tax is separate. Since 1 July 2024 it is $75 per person per visit, valid for one month, and $10 for listed groups such as residents of Aruba, Curaçao, Saba, Sint Eustatius and Sint Maarten and children under 13 (Toeristenbelastingverordening Bonaire 2022, A.B. 2022 no. 11, article 5(1) and (2)). Both charges are in US dollars, Bonaire's legal currency under article 2(1) of the Wet geldstelsel BES.
Flights from Miami, Toronto and Amsterdam, and no battery in the hold
American Airlines flies to Bonaire from Miami, Delta from Atlanta, United from Newark and Houston and WestJet from Toronto. Corendon, KLM and TUI fly from Amsterdam, the natural connection from the UK. Z Air, WinAir and Divi Divi Air link the island daily with Aruba and Curaçao.
Your own board is not coming. Fliteboard states that electric vehicle batteries are not permitted on passenger aircraft, so the eFoil stays in the garage and the riding gets booked with a school on the island. The eFoil battery guide explains what sits inside the pack.
Bonaire, Aruba or Curaçao for a foil holiday
One trade wind and one warm sea serve all three islands. Bonaire has eFoil from a few bases round Kralendijk and four wind centers on Lac Bay, three of them teaching wing.
Aruba has one eFoil school, Vela Sports Aruba at Fisherman's Huts (Hadicurari) next to the Ritz-Carlton, and it sells lessons only. A private 1.5 hour lesson costs $195, two people on one board pay $245, and two boards $345. Its wing lessons last two hours with a boat nearby, $190 private or $130 each for two. The slow zone there is 50 m (article 15 of the Landsbesluit openbare wateren en stranden, 23 November 1987, AB 1987 no. 124), against 75 m on Bonaire, and visitors pay a $20 Sustainability Fee. More on our Aruba eFoil page.
Curaçao has wing foiling and no eFoil school. Surfspot Curaçao at Spanish Water starts wing students on a wide windsurf board, then tows them behind a boat on a foilboard. For an eFoil, take the short flight to Bonaire or Aruba.
At list price a first private eFoil lesson costs less on Bonaire, $150 against $195 on Aruba, and Lac Bay adds a wing day without another flight. Other Caribbean schools are compared in our Caribbean eFoil overview, and every country guide is listed under eFoil spots.
