Need help planning a dive vacation

[jepuskar]

Sandy and I want to go diving for a week...tiz a diving vacation. We don't really care about much else...our goal is to dive dive dive. Ok, I made that clear.

Now, I know Bonaire very well and that would give us our diving freedom, but are there any other places with 24/7 diving freedom? I would like to go some place else besides Bonaire, not that I wouldn;t mind going back as there are several dive sites to be had.

Cozumel is great, but we are limited to 3 boat dives a day and maybe not even the sites we want to visit. Belize seems to be mostly boat diving also....Hawaii seems like a waste to go for just a week and besides diving would take a back seat a day or two to explore the land.

Not sure if I could handle going to Aruba or Curaceo as that is too close to Bonaire...might as well go there then.

Do we have options other than Bonaire for non-stop diving?

Thanks,

Jason

 

[parrotheaddiver]

There is only one answer. The shore diving at CoCo View is fantastic. "The Front Yard" as it is fondly called is great lots of critters and you can spend every day there and see something differant. If you venture out to CoCo View wall or Newmans wall it only gets better. Did I mention there is The Prince Albert ship sunk out there as well. All this and you haven't even stepped on a boat yet. I'm sure other posters will 2nd this destination as well. :fro: Roatanman are you out there. Help jepuskar out.

 

[Damselfish]

Do we have options other than Bonaire for non-stop diving?

Thanks,

Jason

Not 24/7, but many will get you 5 a day.

 

[TedJ]

My suggestion is to go to www.shorediving.com and evaluate the spots that seem to have the best shore diving opportunities. My wife and I went to Curacao this past fall, after having gone to Bonaire for the last three years at the same time, and we found it different. It may have been that the island is much larger, but there was more variation in the diving as well. There is a lot of shore diving that is done on the island, with a number of shops that are at various outposts. This is unlike Bonaire where the shops are all fairly close together. We rented tanks at All West in the west, Jan Thiel Beach in the east and Bob the Fish Dive on Blue Bay in the middle. Go to my website to see a map with some of the sites and photos that my wife and I took. All you need is a car and your personal gear. I think Curacao is just realizing that it can compete with Bonaire and other islands for a share of the diving community. If you want to do boat dives, we found Seascapes at the Hilton to be very good. We dove with them for a week. We enjoyed it very much.

 

[DiverDave76]

Several of the local Hotels along Seven Mile beach in Grand Cayman have unlimited beach diving.

Dave

 

[Doc]

There is only one answer. The shore diving at CoCo View is fantastic. "The Front Yard" as it is fondly called is great lots of critters and you can spend every day there and see something differant. If you venture out to CoCo View wall or Newmans wall it only gets better. Did I mention there is The Prince Albert ship sunk out there as well. All this and you haven't even stepped on a boat yet. I'm sure other posters will 2nd this destination as well. :fro: Roatanman are you out there. Help jepuskar out.

Previous posters including this have described tings pretty well. A liveaboard, a well selected one, can also be a dive dive dive kind of thing, my favorite is the Nekton Fleet, far and away.

Parrothead said all there is to say about CoCoView. It is easily arguable the best resort based shore dive in the Caribbean, certainly the only one of note on Roatan. It is literaly one step outside your room. It is 24/7.

The CCV boats run at 0830 and 1400, giving you a moored dive and a "drop off" dive that allows you to SCUBA a reef on the way in to your shore exit. Go look at http://www.cocoviewresort.com and click on the discussion group for more info.

 

[divegeek]

... My wife and I went to Curacao this past fall, after having gone to Bonaire for the last three years at the same time, and we found it different...

I've only been to Curacao (over Christmas). I found the reefs really nice, but not as much fish life as I expected. How does curacao compare to Bonair? I was thinking about that for my next trip.

http://www.habergroup.com/CH_Dives/CH_Dives.htm

 

[caymaniac]

Sandy and I want to go diving for a week...tiz a diving vacation. We don't really care about much else...our goal is to dive dive dive. Ok, I made that clear.
Do we have options other than Bonaire for non-stop diving?

Thanks,

Jason

Yes Jason, the answer is to go on a liveaboard! There are plenty of them out there. You have to try it at least once.
I did and I'll do it again. Our next trip will be land based though, I can't afford a liveaboard every time.

Back to the Brac,
Caymaniac

 

[jepuskar]

Yes I did forget about the liveaboard option, which then brings me to my next point..price. I know liveaboards are expensive and I'm not sure if I'm ready for all of that yet.

When Sandy and I where in Bonaire in October we made our own schedule, dove the sites we wanted to dive, dove the profiles we wanted, re-visited a couple sites....

I thought about it today and there really is no reason why we shouldnt go back...price is fair, I'm very familar with the diving, there are plenty of sites I havent dove though. More importantly we know what to expect from the diving and will not be dissapointed......
I still wouldnt mind going to Cozumel again also, but we wont dive as much.

ughhh, anything is better than here right now. Hey wait a minute...look for our pool trip report on Sunday or Monday.

WOOHOO

 

[DandyDon]

CCV has its fan club, and right across the channel is Fantasy Island, which also has 24 hour diving. 3 boat dives a day, unlimited shore dives. The Prince Albert is a boring wreck dive, but fish do come in on it; supposed to be a resident moray, but I missed him.

I've a lot of good about CCV, but there's a few things I like about Fantasy Island better: AC Rooms with TV & Phones - in case you're ill or something; life preservers on boats - which CCV didn't have last July, anway; and WILLY & ROBERT running the dive shop!

But either would be good choices, with the seclusion that AKR and West End lack, and the wall dives on the south side are wonderful.

Oh, Roatan is usually discussed in the Central America forum...

don