Am I crazy? First time shore diver in Bonaire..

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scoobajay

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Location
Houston, Texas, United States
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I'm a PADI AOW diver with only about 50-75 dives logged (I realize it's the experience that makes you advanced, rather than the certification, so this essentially mean nothing :wink: ). I have done 7 shore dives before, but the rest boat dives and always with a guide and very competent dive buddy. A friend and I are toying with the idea of going to Bonaire for some shore diving in May.

Here is my question: Am I crazy to think we can handle shore diving in Bonaire without a dive guide? Subsequently, if we choose beginner dive sites, how difficult will it actually be to conduct our own dives? I'm talking about navigation, currents, entry and exits, actually finding the landmarks, etc. NOT about actual dive planning, which I'm perfectly comfortable doing.

Any insight would be appreciated :)
 
Our first ocean dives were on Bonaire unguided. With your experience I think you would be fine. The navigation is incredibly easy there. I would highly recommend Bonaire Shore Diving Made Easy the book to help with planning which sites to hit. Bonaire is totally setup for easy shore diving. The book will let you know which sites have more difficult entries/exits and has recommendations. Basically the middle of the island has easier diving with the far north and far south sites being more difficult depending on the weather. The currents we experienced there were mostly light to non existant at times and had a little bit of zip a few times, but nothing you can't handle and it is rare for them to change direction on you during the dive. Also I highly recommend making either Bari Reef (Sand Dollar or Den Laman or surrounding) or Cliff (Hamlet Oasis or Bamboo Bali) your house reef, they are great.

I really think you will be fine. We have done two trips there and love the dive freedom!
 
You ask two questions.
"Am I crazy to think we can handle shore diving in Bonaire without a dive guide?"
No, absolutely not. there may not be a simpler place on the planet to do shore diving without a dive guide.

"Subsequently, if we choose beginner dive sites, how difficult will it actually be to conduct our own dives? I'm talking about navigation, currents, entry and exits, actually finding the landmarks, etc."
Not difficult at all. Navigation is trivial (although basic compass skills are always nice...what you did on your Nav dive for AOW is plenty); currents are nil, entries are well-marked and exits are where you went in, or nearby, and the best landmark is often a mooring that you swim to on the way out, and back from at the end of the dive.
 
This is from a word doc I did for a first-timer some time ago. Therefore, some references are out-dated, i.e. Chat-n-Browse. This was cut-and-pasted, so forgive the ugly formatting...

Diving


I’m assuming you are going to have a truck and plan on doing primarily/exclusively shore dives. The Island is oriented North/South, with most of the diving done on the west (lee) shore. When I say “North” below I mean the “north end of the west side” and likewise “south end of the west side”.

There are three distinct zones on Bonaire:

1. East (wild) side I’ve never dove the east side, so can’t say anything about it. Some dive ops run boats to the east side, and a couple of ops run guided shore dives (VIP and Wannadive, I think). It looks too much like work to me, and there is just too much easy, good diving on the west side.


2. North Drop off starts close to shore, mostly really easy entries. One thing to keep in mind: The road past 1000 Steps turns to one-way north bound. This means if you go to Ol Blue, Karpata, etc. then you must return via Rincon. When go up there we take lots of tanks and make a day of it. There is a short-cut dirt road over the mountain that gets you back on the two-way road, it used to be a goat-track, but “they” say it is improved.


3. South Longer swims out over a sandy bottom to the reefs. By long I mean a couple hundred yards. We do it as a surface swim, then drop on the reef. Return is done underneath because we get an extended safety stop, and sometimes there are cool creatures in the sand. Some sites in the south also have a “double reef”, that is a shallow reef topping out at about 30-40 ft, a sand valley, then a second reef topping out at about 60 ft.


Since I’m directionally challenged: I define “North” as the center of Kralendijk thru the Slaagbai Park. “South” is the center of Kralendijk to the Willemstoren Lighthouse.


Winds from the south means limited site selection (windsock, and those right along there), or maybe the ones in town, from the Plaza up to about Yacht Harbor, and maybe the northern hotel/resort sites.
Winds from the east (normal) go anywhere north or south.
Winds from the west (very abnormal when we’ve been there), sleep in, recline in a lounge chair, drink beer. Or book a boat trip to the east side. I’ve heard of people who shore dive the east when the wind is out of the west. I haven’t done either of those things, so don’t know about it.


Boats to Klein Bonaire can usually find a lee without regard to wind direction.


There is a book called “Bonaire Shore Diving Made Easy”. It is available at almost any dive store on Bon. They’ll probably have it at BD. If not, walk next door. Buy it if you don’t already have it. About $15 I think. At the worst, go to Chat n Browse, they’ll have it.


Entries and Exits



Don’t get hung up on the difficulty of this. It’s not. Our first trip my two daughters were 12 & 13, and both had absolutely no difficulty on any of the dives we did.


The northern sites are characterized by dirt/rock paths down to the water’s edge, then entry thru coral rubble that has a tendency to shift under your feet. Once you’re in the water it is mostly sandy, with a few exceptions.


On most of the way-southern sites the entry is ironshore with a stepdown to sand/rock.


At some of the marked sites the dive ops have marked the best entry/exit spots with a pair of painted rocks. Go in between the markers – easiest, and confines damage.


Back your truck as close as you can to the entry, gear up on the tailgate. Carry your fins and wade in until about waist/chest deep, put on fins and go. I usually get in first, out first so I can give my bride a hand if she needs it. Also, don’t hesitate once you start in/out – just go. Don’t hurry, but don’t stop either. I try to plan where I’m putting my feet before I ever start, sometimes even do a trial run without gear. There will probably be big rocks and holes to trip you, so slide your feet and move on out to deeper water.


If it looks too rough, just go somewhere else – no sense in getting beat up.

Navigation and the reefs



The reefs run parallel to the shore, and start in about 30’ of water. The drop-off is fairly steep, but not a wall, down to about 100’-130’ to a sandy bottom. At some sites in the south, there is a “double reef”, that is, another reef that parallels shore past a sandy flat. We almost never go to the second reef, too far to swim. You probably should, at least once so you can say you did. Take a compass heading (sometimes vis is not good enough to see across the chute) and strike out.


Here’s how we actually do a dive, north or south:


I’m an anally retentive engineer, so I like to return to the same spot I left from. Besides pleasing me, it amazes my children that we can swim around (seemingly) randomly for an hour, then surface at exactly the spot we started from.


I stand on shore and take a compass heading perpendicular to the shore line. Sometimes there are buoys (dive boats tie up to them) that you can use as a target. Get in, then surface swim out on the compass heading. I lay on my back and use a marker on shore to counteract drift/surface currents. Once you’re out as far as you want (to the edge of the reef) we descend and I find a marker (I’ve seen people use a fishing float with a short piece of line tied to a weight) - some prominent topo feature (coral head, sponges, etc) at 30ish ft.

On our return I find this marker and then turn toward shore on the reciprocal compass heading. Once we descend, I check the current (it will run parallel to the reefs/shore, usually weakly) and head into it at whatever depth you like. We generally keep it pretty shallow, 40-60 ft. After about ½ the air is gone, or I get cold, we turn, ascend to 30 ft or so, and ride the current back to my marker, turn and head in. We go in on the bottom following the compass heading. There is a good opportunity to see octopi, eagle rays, peacock flounder, etc. in the sand flats, and you get a good safety stop. It’s not uncommon for our dives to exceed an hour in duration.


Like I said, this is how we do it. Other people go until they’re ready to quit, surface, look around and swim back to the truck. Or go until they’re ready to quit, swim to shore, leave the gear and send somebody back to get the truck. Whatever works for you.
 
Thanks so much y'all. You boost my confidence. I've already purchased BSDME :)

---------- Post added December 29th, 2014 at 01:24 PM ----------

Wow, thank you! This helps tremendously. I've done several dive trips in Cozumel and I guess I was imagining having currents that take you a mile away from your drop in site and having to navigate your way back :p Apparently the currents are not as strong on Bonaire. lol.
 
We've never had problems navigating while shore diving on Bonaire. One time my husband had an equipment problem and we came up further away from our entry point than convenient. We just swam to shore and I stayed with our gear so that he could walk back to our car and drive it closer to the new location. At many sites the reef is close to shore (and the road) and often there is little or no current. The only times I remember having issues with currents is when we were diving while the sun came up or set. The current can change direction on you suddenly but it still wasn't like the strong currents we've experienced off Cozumel. Have fun!
 
If you want it, the rest of the document has stuff about resorts, truck rental, restaurants, etc. PM me a real email address so I can attach it.

Warning: some of it is out-dated, especially the restaurant stuff, and I'm too lazy to update it...

Danger: If you go to Bon you will be hooked, and wind up spending all your $ going back.
 
Except for the far north and far south sites, there's not a lot of current anywhere. Even those aren't bad, we got caught in a ripping current one afternoon as we dropped down, wore ourselves out trying to swim into it, surfaced and found we were the other direction from our entry point. So we just swam in to shallower water and surface swam back. That was at Vista Blue - one of the advanced sites far south.

If there is any current, start into and let it help you back. I don't own/use a compass and had no problems. It's really simple navigation, the reef parallels the shore in all but a handful of dive sites and there's not much to see deeper so no point in swimming out from the island much past where it drops off. Except for the south sites since many of them are on the double reef which is often a little deeper. I'm also the navigator in our group though so have very good situational awareness.

One trick on the south side dives - the ironshore from the water level looks very similar. But there's definitely better entry points. Since there's no landmarks behind most of them, park the truck behind it if possible.

Don't do the East Side dives by yourselves. A guide is generally the best way to get you out over the shallow coral and find something worth looking at. That's about the only place similar to Coz also, some of those sites see some current and are live boat drops from East Side Diving's zodiac.

I know several people with less dives than you who've done fine there. Can't emphasize enough the need for good boots though - most of the sites are ironshore on-shore, coral rubble in the surf line, and ironshore or coral rubble in the surf line extending out till you're swimming in some areas as well.

Site pictures/descriptions here: http://www.shorediving.com/Earth/ABC/index.htm
 
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Excellent information from the above posters! Two dives stand out as ideal starting points for a shore diving novice. 1) 'The Cliff' which is at the Hamlet Oasis site is not only one of my favorite dives with the interesting wall and coral formations, but a metal pipe(or a cable?) which lies on the sandy bottom, starts at the entry and extends out to sea at a northwest angle makes finding entry/exit landmarks incredibly easy. 2) 'Bari Reef' which is in front of Den Laman and Sand Dollar condominiums. Den Laman has a Pier* and Sand Dollar has a wonderful small sandy beach. At about 30 feet deep you will see a large wheel and metal cog. A great spot for finding frog fish and makes an easy and obvious landmark. Once you are comfortable with shore diving navigation and logistics, you can venture out to other sites. The Lake and Angel City are beautiful dives, but part of a double reef system. Definitely doable, but I would start out with some easier sites first. Take caution with the sites on the far south end of the island. My husband and I went to dive at 'White Slave'. Entry was fairly straight forward, however while we were diving strong winds moved in along with a very choppy sea. Exiting was a bear. I was lucky that I only suffered a scrapped chin. In retrospect, we should have been more vigilant in checking weather conditions before embarking on this particular dive. Definitely a learning experience:)

*Bonaire Dive and Adventure(BDA) owns the pier in front of Den Laman. I have friends who swear by BDA and have nothing but praise for them. However, if you are not using them as your dive op(we used Dive Friends Bonaire), do not even think of using the pier. Not only will you get the stink eye for even looking at it, but the owner will get downright A-holish if you even swim under or near the pier...:cussing:
 
It could not be easier. Quite a few sites are missing the marker buoy so I carry my own marker (10 feet of 1-2" yellow plastic tape with a float on one end and about 5 feet of cord on the other end. Find an entry (exit) point that looks good, Shoot a compass heading away from shore, work your way in to 3 to 4 feet of water and finish gearing up. We then follow compass heading for 100 to 400 feet to where the bottom starts dropping off quickly in 20 to 30 feet of water, note depth and tie off the marker. If soft corals indicate a current (you may have to look close) we drop down to 35 - 40 feet and run along the drop-off until turn pressure (we usually use 1500 psi). At turn pressure we ascend to about 25 ft and head back looking for the marker. Between the shallower depth and the slight current aiding the return trip, we usually spend another 5 to 10 minutes around the marker before we pick it up and head in at about 500 psi on the reverse heading.

Enjoy

EDIT: The Cliff is a great dive but the entry is not easy. Use the large rock at the water's edge to steady you and then pick you way carefully to at least 3 feet of water and make some room for your buddy. There are a number of large rocks UW that want to trip you up. Follow the pipe and then turn south to a series of small vertical cliffs (30 +/- feet). Go south along the face and back north along the top.
 
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