CCR diving on Bonaire- under one roof

[craig haymaker]

After finishing up six weeks of CCR diving here on Grand Cayman, I want to plan our next trip to Bonaire, for a two week’s stay. If possible and for booking simplicity, I’m thinking that everything under one provider’s roof sounds like the best plan !
It looks like Buddies and Captain Don’s are my choices for what I am looking for.
Our must haves (my bride is a non-diver).
- A nice room with cooling throughout.
- A vehicle for shore diving
- And obviously on-site CCR consumables support.
Please don’t tell me your five year old horror stories, but just the latest valuable information that will help me choose wisely.
Thanks All, Craig H.

 

[Brett Hatch]

Hi Craig,

I should start with, I don't dive a CCR. But I did stay at Buddy Dive for a week just before the pandemic started. They're a full tech shop including support for CCR and trimix. At the time He was available, but I can't speak to recently, might be a good idea to call if that is a dealbreaker. I went with a group of 15 or 20, and 3 of us were diving CCR, and every time I saw them they had a smile on their face, so the rebreather support seemed good from my limited perspective.

As for the other requirements: the rooms are nice, but not palatial, the emphasis is on function. I stayed in a 3 bedroom apartment, and it had an A/C unit in each bedroom, plus a 4th one in the common area. We cooked several meals in the kitchen. Depending on the package you buy, the vehicles are either included or can be rented cheaply. The vehicles have been through a lot, so they're not pretty to look at, but are functional and safe. Most rentals (and all rentals from Buddy Dive, as of early 2020) are manual transmission, but my understanding is that if you need automatic, it can be found on the island.

There's an in-house dive shop on a dock just above the water, where you can grab an OC cylinder, analyze it, and jump in from the dock for their house reef, which is worth doing. The tech / CCR area is on the other side of the resort, kind of a drive-in mini tech shop where you can get your O2 and dil fills, rinse off your gear, that sort of thing. The rebreather divers I was with would then take down and rebuild their rigs in their apartment each night, which seemed to work well.

By the way, one of my dive buddies showed up with an ear infection, so could not dive for several days, until it cleared up about halfway through the week. So we did some non-diving stuff as well, like windsurfing down on the South side of the island, and kayaking in the mangroves of Lac Bay on the SE side. Since your partner is not a diver, I highly recommend the kayaking -- you paddle out for an hour or so, then snorkel in waist-deep water for an hour or so, and then paddle back. It was the most fun I had down there besides the diving.

Hope this helps, and I hope you enjoy your trip. I know I did, and am eager to return

 

[RIHappyDiver]

Hello Craig,

If I’m remembering correctly, the info towards the end of this thread might be helpful Bonaire, Mar 14 - 21. Questions. @stuartv was diving CCR there is March, had some questions before hand, and a review after, all in the same thread.

Let us know how the trip was,

Erik

 

[beester]

I know that Buddy diving is used by the GUE community for (technical diving) and that GUE instructors also use it as a base to give their JJ CCR classes, so I'm quite sure that they have all the consumables and gear needed for rebreather diving. If you have a JJ probably also quite some spareparts.

 

[rddvet]

3 years ago before the pandemic my wife and I used Buddy dive for our CCR diving. We didn't stay there as I have a very strong distaste for all inclusives. We rented a house. That being said, we had no issues with Buddy dive. Just be aware that the technical diving center is separate from the main business and is run by Mr. G. So when you contact Buddy dive they will forward your info to Mr G. He is a little slower than them at getting back to you, but if you remember he's on island time then you won't get frustrated. We set everything up with him via email and when we were there there were no issues. You won't be using the same drive through service as everyone else. You will arrive, check in at main Buddy Dive, they'll track down Mr. G and he'll come and take you to the tech shack. He set aside two sets of onboard tanks for my wife and I each and had a stage bottle ready for each of us for bailout (and dil in our case). We took 1 set of onboard tanks with us for the day, at the end of the day we took the other set that he would have pre-filled, and then we'd drop off the used ones. We never had to wait for fills or anything. Tanks were just magically waiting for us. It was actually nice to be so self-service.
CCR diving on Bonaire is amazing. Firstly your interactions with marine life are much better than others. Secondly, we would hear people talking about their days and how they'd do a 45minute dive at one site, change tanks to do the next site, go get tanks changed out, then go to the next site. We would do 1-2 dives a day but they were all 3+ hour dives and we would see 3-4 dive sites in one dive. I thought getting that far from our entry point would be hard to navigate but it wasn't. We always surfaced in the general vicinity of where we entered.

 

[craig haymaker]

3 years ago before the pandemic my wife and I used Buddy dive for our CCR diving. We didn't stay there as I have a very strong distaste for all inclusives. We rented a house. That being said, we had no issues with Buddy dive. Just be aware that the technical diving center is separate from the main business and is run by Mr. G. So when you contact Buddy dive they will forward your info to Mr G. He is a little slower than them at getting back to you, but if you remember he's on island time then you won't get frustrated. We set everything up with him via email and when we were there there were no issues. You won't be using the same drive through service as everyone else. You will arrive, check in at main Buddy Dive, they'll track down Mr. G and he'll come and take you to the tech shack. He set aside two sets of onboard tanks for my wife and I each and had a stage bottle ready for each of us for bailout (and dil in our case). We took 1 set of onboard tanks with us for the day, at the end of the day we took the other set that he would have pre-filled, and then we'd drop off the used ones. We never had to wait for fills or anything. Tanks were just magically waiting for us. It was actually nice to be so self-service.
CCR diving on Bonaire is amazing. Firstly your interactions with marine life are much better than others. Secondly, we would hear people talking about their days and how they'd do a 45minute dive at one site, change tanks to do the next site, go get tanks changed out, then go to the next site. We would do 1-2 dives a day but they were all 3+ hour dives and we would see 3-4 dive sites in one dive. I thought getting that far from our entry point would be hard to navigate but it wasn't. We always surfaced in the general vicinity of where we entered.

Thanks rddvet, that Sir is what I am looking for, Lol !

 

[tursiops]

3 years ago before the pandemic my wife and I used Buddy dive for our CCR diving. We didn't stay there as I have a very strong distaste for all inclusives.

???Buddy dive is not all inclusive. Breakfast yes, but that's it.

 

[ScubaSquatch]

Call Zach or Lucia at TDS Bonaire

 

[rddvet]

???Buddy dive is not all inclusive. Breakfast yes, but that's it.

I categorize those places as all inclusive. It’s like not a Mexican mega resort. But it’s still food, lodging, dive gear, car rental, and tanks all under one roof. That’s pretty close to all inclusive in my book. But it’s all about what semantic you’re ok with.
Personally I don’t like staying in hotels, especially ones filled with a ton of other divers or tourists. I like my solitude and not having to make chit chat with people i don’t know about trivial stuff. I prefer to see as much locals only stuff as possible.

 

[azstinger11]

Perhaps this thread and post will be relevant, Bonaire, Mar 14 - 21. Questions to my knowledge the most recent CCR trip report to Bonaire available.