Were there many Italians this time at FIBR?
Can you explain your point about shore diving there? We found it pretty easy. You just have to tell your divemaster you need tanks and they will bring the tanks to Gazebo. Since mostly shore dived before the breakfast, we didn't forget to tell them when we returned from the late afternoon dive and it worked fine. Then you wake up, get there with your stuff, put your stuff on and jump in. We even took weight belts and fins to Gazebo in the evening, to carry less in the mornings.
Yes, I do believe there was a decent population of Italians. Most of them did not seem to be divers, either. Now I'm curious why you ask?
In regards to the shore diving, good question.
The first thing to realize is, as I said, I was being nitpicky trying to find something to complain about. The end result for the shore diving still passes with high marks. With that said, I just found the shore diving to be a bit of a chore. It went something like this for me, obviously your mileage will vary:
1. Return from 3rd dive. Unload gear into my locker. Sign-up on shore-diving sheet.
2. Return to my room to swap batteries in camera (I stayed in the rooms on the far side of the resort so I conveniently walked past the gazebo repeatedly).
3. Return to dive shop with camera in hand, long ago passing the gazebo by foot.
4. Wait for boat to ready. This was *constantly* an issue during my stay as the engine was having trouble with the water pump and stalling/not starting.
5. Load gear onto boat. Ride to gazebo by boat, unload gear from boat, make a time arrangement to be picked-up.
6. Dive.
7. Return to gazebo. Boat isn't there. Call. Wait.
8. Load gear into boat. Return to dock, unload gear from boat, rinse gear, stow gear in locker.
All in all I found on average my 1 hour shore dive took roughly 2 hours from start to finish, several times longer, with most of that excess time me just sitting and waiting on FIBR employees. One night dive it took 50 minutes for the boat to come pick us up due to engine trouble. That was nearly a 3 hour adventure for a shore dive. Our average boat dive times were shorter than my shore dives.
Now if I compare it to Scuba Club Cozumel.
1. Return from boat dive and unload gear into oceanside locker. Return to room.
2. Leave room, grab air tank, walk to locker, walk 5 yards away from locker and dive.
3. Finish diving and stow gear in locker 5 yards from exit point or grab another can of air and get back down.
My 1 hour shore dive will take me about 1 hour 20 minutes to complete, the 20 minutes mostly time spent gearing up/down and rinsing gear.
Plaza Resort Bonaire isn't much different, but it is larger like FIBR so there is more walking and the lockers aren't 5 yards from the water so you have to carry gear, but again you are in control of what you need, unlike FIBR where you wait on staff. The gazebo at Plaza is never without full air tanks, for example. You just walk up with your gear and jump in 24 hours a day.
How can FIBR streamline the shore diving process? I'm not exactly sure. I have a few ideas, but none of them are quick, cheap fixes (and thus likely unrealistic). I think the easist way would be assigned lockers to your room number (side rant: one thing I didn't like about the FIBR lockers was the free-for-all atmosphere of finding a locker) and have the ability to call from my room and ask them to meet me at the gazebo with my gear and can of air. After the dive having the ability to leave the gear and air tank there and walk away is huge so maybe a staff member assigned to the gazebo to simply sit there and keep gear in check until a boat returns for it.
Like I said, I was just nitpicking, but I do think spending 2 hours per shore dive is long and could be streamlined somehow, especially when most that time is me either loading or unloading gear from a boat or waiting on staff.
HTH
worth every penny!
