Rebreather support on Bonarie

[rddvet]

I'll be going back to Bonaire in september, diving CCRs. We were last there a year before COVID and used Mr G at Buddy Dive for our bailout tanks and onboard bottles. I know Mr G left Buddy dive and has his own thing going right now. I also saw one other shop supposedly supporting ccr when I did a google search. I plan on emailing Mr G and the other shop (wish I could remember the name off the top of my head) to get more info. Just wanted to see if anyone else had shops they've used for ccr and had good experience with. We aren't doing any tech diving, just basic shore dives (but damn is it nice to do one 4 hour dive a day and hit a ton of sites instead of changing tanks).

 

[BoltSnap]

nice to do one 4 hour dive a day

What are you going to do for the rest of the day? Why not two 4 hour dives a day, one in the morning and one in afternoon?

 

[scubadada]

Home - TDSbon

Technical Diving Services is located on Bonaire in the Dutch Caribbean, also known as “Diver’s Paradise”.

www.tdsbonaire.com

 

[rddvet]

What are you going to do for the rest of the day? Why not two 4 hour dives a day, one in the morning and one in afternoon?

Rest and relax (which I'm not very good at when at home). But we will do multiple dives, just not every day. We'll sleep in, be lazy making breakfast, head out around 11 or noon, dive till 2-4ish, then relax. Or if we've got lots of energy, we'll go do a short night or evening dive with the scrubber time we have left. But after one continuous 4 hour dive you're pretty damn tuckered out for the day. It's very cool to be able to see multiple dive sites on one dive and have the fish in your face cause they're not scared of exhaust.

 

[rddvet]

Home - TDSbon

Technical Diving Services is located on Bonaire in the Dutch Caribbean, also known as “Diver’s Paradise”.

www.tdsbonaire.com

That's the other one I saw. Do you have any experience with them? I'm always afraid of using "tech" shops in primarily rec diving areas because they're definition of "tech" and mine are often very different and can lead to not actually having the stuff you need. I'm likely going to use Mr G if he has the gear for us since he's a great guy and knows tech/ccr diving. Unfortunately when we used him at Buddy he was great, but his staff weren't as great. I assume that was just a buddy dive thing, but I wanted to get other options in case its the same old same old at his new endeavour.

 

[azstinger11]

Capt Don's does tech diving support, Technical Diving Services | Captain Don's Habitat Bonaire

I think also of interest to you would be this thread Bonaire, Mar 14 - 21. Questions

 

[Sevenrider860]

+1 for TDS.

I took my Choptima to Bonaire last November. Zack Richardson at TDS had everything waiting (Al13 of O2, 21/35 and EAC). Very simple and easy to deal with.

 

[rddvet]

Capt Don's does tech diving support, Technical Diving Services | Captain Don's Habitat Bonaire

I think also of interest to you would be this thread Bonaire, Mar 14 - 21. Questions

I saw that as well. I was told by a few people there's some mixed reviews of capt don's

Edit: Just realized that TDS is on Capt Don's property

+1 for TDS.

I took my Choptima to Bonaire last November. Zack Richardson at TDS had everything waiting (Al13 of O2, 21/35 and EAC). Very simple and easy to deal with.

Thank you for giving me your experience. That's what I was looking for. Sounds like I definitely have two viable options (them and mr g).

 

[LFMarm]

How does diving work with TDS? Are they guiding or just providing gas and tech support?

 

[Sevenrider860]

How does diving work with TDS? Are they guiding or just providing gas and tech support?

I used them to provide cylinders, gas, and supplies (EAC) and dived on my own. However they do show that they offer both recreational and technical guided dives on their website.