Shore diving in bonaire

[TheWizard]

I would 2nd the recommendation of going with open-heel fins and hard-sole booties exclusively on Bonaire.
I've also dove Curacao (last March) and the swimouts on Bonaire are much shorter.
We also never do discrete Safety Stops on Bonaire. The plan is always to swim u/w all the way back to shore, as the depth gradually decreases down to waist-deep.
I would recommend doing easier dive sites for the first day or two, as you get coordinated on the concept again.

One of the trickier dive sites (up North) for exiting is either Witches Hut or the one just south of it. You can't see your truck from the water and the ironshore cliff is 6-8 feet high and rather uniform looking for 100 yards north and south of the actual entry point. So it would be good to bring some bright colored object to leave right on shore as a marker...

 

[DazedAndConfuzed]

Thanks for all the info. Since I have 11 boat dives in my package, I probably wouldn't be doing the really out of the way or hard to get to shore dives this time. Maybe we will try to request those hard to get to shore dives as a boat dive, or are there dive sites that could only be accessed by boat?

 

[jcroy66]

There are some dive sites only accessible by boat. All the ones on Klein Bonaire, for instance. A few on the main island too, such as Rappel (I still really want to do that one). And across from the marine park headquarters (I don't remember the dive site name, but it's south of Oil Slick and north of Andrea II). And then there are some that you *can* shore dive, but it's a lot easier to boat dive. The ones in Washington-Slagbaii and the East Coast dives come to mind (I doubt your package will do either of those, as both are "upcharge dives" and run by only 1-2 dive ops). Of course, we always shore-dive the ones in Washington-Slagbaii anyway, because it's a beautiful area to visit.

Our dive package at Plaza last year included 11 boat dives. I think we used 6 of them. Their boats usually took 18 divers. YUCK. To me, a 10-diver boat is crowded, so 18 is torture. And then half the time, other divers requested sites that are easy to shore dive, like the Hilma Hooker. What a complete waste. So any day they were doing sites that you could shore dive, we just skipped the prepaid boat dives, and went somewhere on our own.

 

[Diver DennisP]

Lwang- My wife and I worried about a lot of the same things on our first trip (this last march) to Bonaire. After getting into the water the first day at Buddy's Reef, all concerns went out the window. We had only had about 20 dives under our weight belts (sorry bad pun ) and doubled that total while we were there. We took a lot of tips from the board here and made the most of it.

We got to each site and did the following
Looked at the surface- try to see the direction of the current. Swim into it the first half, drift/swim with it on the way back.
Some dives we headed all the way out to the bouy on the surface, caught our breath, relaxed and decended. Others we swam through the shallows looking for garden eels, rays, seahorses, staghorn corals, etc.
It was said earlier to find a "unique" coral formation and look at it from a couple of different angles. I whole heartedly agree. take a look back at that same coral formation once you get into your dive. It looks a lot different from 75' away than it does up close.

We didn't do any boat dives, but next time we will include that into our package. It would have been nice to get to klein and a couple of the northern sites that arent really accessible. Natl. park dives, small wall, cliff, rapel.

The only time we got a little turned around is when we were on one of the double reefs, swimming from inner to outer and back and got mixed up at which direction we were faceing. Take a look at your compass when you get in and see which direction is land. No big deal really.

Have fun, leave the truck windows down, a couple of bottles of water and a wet seat is all that you should leave in it.

 

[DazedAndConfuzed]

DennisP, thanks for the reassurance. I guess it is all the reading of these things. Usually, I just make the trip and wing it. But this time, since I just came back from Saba, am still kind of active on the forum reading into Saba sites that I went to when the next trip came about, and so I kind of moved into the forum of the next place I am going, and the more I read, the more I think about it (lol, especially with the leaving the truck window open and what kind of things they will take and what they will not want).

 

[Diver DennisP]

We didn't have any issues with theft. We left lunch, drinks, old t-shirts, tanks, and a solar camping shower in/on/in back of the truck. Nothing of any value that would catch someones eye. I kept my sunglasses ($10 value) and sandals between the rear wheel and the truck frame. Might have been overkill, but no issues.

 

[redacted]

The Bonaire park folks do not seem to be putting any resources into buoy maintenance so don't count on buoys at all sites. Some of the southern sites that still have buoys may require a 150 meter swim to reach them. Use your compass and consider carrying your own UW marker .

 

[DazedAndConfuzed]

What's a good marker? sausage hooked to a weight?

 

[DiverVince]

Lwang..There is absolutely no need to use an artificial marker on Bonaire's reefs. Leave the sausage & weights attached to it at home. You're much better off relying on your UW acumen, use your gauges, compass, watch and your eyes to discern differences in the UW topography.

 

[Jersey]

No markers needed, if you can't figure out where you are at the end of the dive, pop up and take a look. Most shore dives end with one long safety stop and are shallow, not a DCS type issue. Improve your natural navigation using topography. To give you an idea Invisibles has rockfall scars near the buoy (I think South, would have to check log). They start at the top of the reef and run down - 2 big, nasty gashes about 20- 25 feet apart, maybe 30 feet of water. Natural marker, they aren't moving. When you hit them, look for the rope on the buoy, back at starting point! Another southern site - Margate or Angel - my buddy found a big elkhorn at 30 feet that looked just like Bullwinkle (old cartoon character) right next to a purple sponge the shape of a cactus. On the way back we swam along at 25 feet and BANG right into the elkhorn. If you don't think you can remember, carry a slate, sketch it and write down the depth. Old tires can be markers. From there, take a heading back in. Watch your depth, sand ridges and position of sun during your dive, all these help in natural navigation. Not sure if it was said before, some sites have piles of stones divers have set up on the beach to aid in visual reference from the water. Check out shoreline indicators before dropping down. As you head in, take into account the water will be pushing or pulling you, so adjust plan accordingly. Usually not ripping currents, but if the current is pushing you, come up a bit short and let it push you as opposed to a dead on aim, overshooting, then having to fight back. Dive smarter - not harder.