Advice for novice/beginner divers

[Arsalan Ahmed]

Thanks for all the great info. I'll try to budget the trips out and hopefully have some great diving this summer, where ever it may be. My first choice was always Turks and Caicos and try as I might, its just tooooo expensive to pull off.

 

[jimw]

Capt Don's Habitat is a good resort next to BuddyDive to the north and closer to a great shore dive, Cliff. Don's is usually cheaper than Buddy but not nearly as convenient for tank pickup/shore diving elsewhere. We usually do not rent a car, do many shore dives at the resort, and do 6 boat dives in a week. The older rooms at Habitat are in lousy shape and deserve the many complaints they get--those are the Oceanview Rooms, sounds great, right--not so great. The really GREAT rooms are the new Jr Suites near the dive shop. Check out their packages with 6 boat dives, room, and shore diving.........btw, I've been seeing some great airfares to Bonaire--so you may want to pick a week based on the air you find if that's possible. I use ITA Software by Google to find airfares for a month at a time. Look out of Newark, Houston, Atlanta, and Miami. I bought air fr Mia--Bon for $295. Similar prices were recently available from Houston and Newark. Check also from Charlotte as a local Curacao carrier, InselAir; now has service there.

Other nearby accommodations are Hamlet Oasis, Coral Paradise, and more across the road and off the shore. The Dive Friends store at Hamlet has good access to Cliff as well. A grocery store and several restaurants are nearby all of these places making a vehicle not needed unless you want to sightsee or shoredive elsewhere---I say as newbies--get a truck for a day or 3 after you have acclimated yourselves. I think you may want to dive Klien Bonaire at least 3 times and a boat is needed for that.

 

[dolesorchard]

Headed to Bonaire for the third time next week!!! We have found shore diving incredibly easy, Bonaire Shore Diving Made Easy is priceless for the first trip. VIP Divers does reasonably priced guided shore dives, both Bas Noij and Bas Tol are very good. If you get a calm day, be sure to get them for a dive at Lac Cai, its outstanding.

 

[Matt Clancy]

We booked a dive and drive package with wanna dive and stayed at the bridanda condos. While not directly on the water it cut down the cost significantly. Wanna dive has a chalk board you sign up on if you want a guided dive, otherwise, grab the tanks and go. We were nervous at first, since it was our first dives without a guide, but found the shore diving to be a blast and did 4-5 a day. The freedom to go when and where you want was great. If we pulled up to a site and looked like there were to many waves or to rocky, we would move down the road. Can't wait to go back.


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[lmorin]

First, when you go to Bonaire, it is often expected that you will do a check out dive just to re-acquaint yourself with your equipment and general procedures. Commonly, this is done at a resort on your own. If you are at a resort, do not be worried because there will be staff (and other experienced divers) around who will happy to assist you, if needed. All the dive resorts on Bonaire face west and the reef parallels the west coast.

A check out dive might be as follows: Gear up on the dock; giant stride or stair entry; submerge and swim around over sand in 5-10 ft of water; when you feel comfortable, venture downhill onto the reef (this will be westward); try to observe and remember some obvious landmarks that will be useful for the return swim; level out at 30-60 ft, as comfortable; swim around and enjoy yourself; return uphill (eastward) into shallow water; if you have memorized landmarks or there is an underwater guideline of some sort, follow them back to the dock; if there are no guides, memorized or other, return to the shallows, then surface, look around for the dock and return to the dock. Diving the house site a number of times builds confidence.

The same basic procedure is followed for most of the Bonaire shore dives, whether from rocky entries or dock entries. Compass direction may change a bit, but not too much for most dives. If you return in an eastward direction, you will run into the shore. Bottom line: most dives on Bonaire are very easy to navigate because the reef parallels the shore and even if you get "lost," you will generally be within an easy surface swim of your entry point. Just observe all the usual precautions if you do surface from depth while still out on the reef.

 

[DreaminOfSand&Salt]

My original trip was going to be Cozumel but its like i keep hearing of boats sinking and divers dying there, not to mention the strong currents that I've been looking at an alternative.

I would love to give advice on Bonaire ( it would mean I had been there ... maybe next year) but I can't - we do have some vey close friends that have been 3 times and stay at Den Laman - they love it.

I would also agree with Tunaman68, in that I would not rule out Coz because of a few incidents. My wife and I went last year and got in 18 dives ( 12 boat and 6 Shore ) we arrived in Coz with 11 in our log book! - The currents were no big deal as long as you didn't try to fight it and just enjoyed the ride.

We enjoyed it so much above and below the water we are going back in May!

Good luck with your decision ... so many places to dive and so little time and $ !

 

[LowVizWiz]

The house reef at plaza resort bonaire was actually quite good and extremely easy to navigate you could do something simple like a straight out and back pattern or you could stay shallow (right before the reef drops down) enter by the beach and exit by the pier.
The dive staff there was great, but the resort staff left much to be desire.

I imagine that most of the house reefs are very similar to the house reef at plaza resort so you could do simple dives like the ones I described to get your feet wet.

The salt pier is fairly simple if you just follow the structure in and back out.

 

[phoenix31tt]

Me and my wife had between 20-25 dives when we went Bonaire as well, having only done one real unguided dive before that. We also had AOW heading over to Bonaire.. if your training was adequate you should be able to plan your dive and dive your plan very easily... we had no issues in Bonaire, diving over there is extremely easy.

With the help of Bonaire shore diving made easy we stayed away from the sites with high current... every site is marked with a bouy... sometimes we would swim out and decend on the bouy, or take a compass heading and do an underwater swim to the bouy... when you reach the bouy just look at the familiar structures around the bouy as you decend down the slope... pick a direction that makes you swim into the current, turn at your agreed turn pressure and on your way back look for those familiar structures and the bouy shouldnt be to far away... even my initial "orientation" dive was unguided right infront the resort...

if you are comfortable diving and not actually relying on the guide for safety you should be good...

in my experience it was $25 extra for a guide, for one dive (I had asked about guides for salt pier incase i needed one, turns out i didnt )

 

[diverjen]

Best deal I've seen so far with a great house reef would be the studio package at Den Laman.

 

[wwguy]

First, when you go to Bonaire, it is often expected that you will do a check out dive just to re-acquaint yourself with your equipment and general procedures. Commonly, this is done at a resort on your own. If you are at a resort, do not be worried because there will be staff (and other experienced divers) around who will happy to assist you, if needed. All the dive resorts on Bonaire face west and the reef parallels the west coast.

The checkout dive is more than just expected. A mandatory supervised checkout dive is required by Bonaire National Marine Park regulations,​ even for repeat visitors. Sometimes "supervision" is interpreted loosely if the dive operator has reason to believe you're qualified to perform this dive on your own. In the case of the OP I would expect, and hope, that the dive would at least be monitored from shore by dive staff. It's helpful for the new Bonaire diver to have someone who can answer questions, observe dive preparations, and be available to hand out or retrieve extra weights if needed.