Requirements for diving (logs, cards, etc)

[SlopeBrooklyn]

Thank you to everyone for your thoughtful replies! This is very helpful.

We have no medical issues and are fit and healthy 45-yr olds.

We plan on doing a refresher and I very much like the idea of having a DM with us for the first two dives.

Now, I have to decide on a location! Totally flummoxed by the Bonaire / Guadeloupe options. Bonaire doesn't seem to have much going on topside. Guadeloupe looks to have TOO much going on!

 

[AdivingBel]

Bonaire doesn't seem to have much going on topside. Guadeloupe looks to have TOO much going on!

If you like the idea of Bonaire but want a bit more topside you might look at Curacao.​

 

[KathyV]

If you go to Bonaire, pick a dive resort/op that has a nice house reef that you can start with - diving from shore on an easy reef right in front of your lodgings is a great way to get back into diving.

 

[gypsyjim]

Topside is for eating and sleeping.
I do not need to spend good $ on a trip to go to nightspots, especially since that usually cuts into dive time the next day.

 

[SlopeBrooklyn]

Topside is for eating and sleeping.
I do not need to spend good $ on a trip to go to nightspots, especially since that usually cuts into dive time the next day.

By "topside" I mean hiking, beach time, etc. Those are important for us as well.

 

[Lorenzoid]

By "topside" I mean hiking, beach time, etc. Those are important for us as well.

AdivingBel's reply is still apt. Not much in the way of beach on Bonaire. The shore is mostly rocky (ironshore). For beach, go to Curacao. The national park is pretty to drive through, but I haven't hiked there. Bonaire is a desert climate, scrub vegetation, etc. To me, having lived a long time in the western US and seen my share of scrub vegetation, it's not all that pretty. We took a mangrove kayak trip once that was okay. There is a renowned windsailing place. But overall, there just isn't much topside to Bonaire. For most visitors, Bonaire is all about the diving. Curacao has more variety topside.

 

[tkaelin]

By "topside" I mean hiking, beach time, etc. Those are important for us as well.

If beach time as in often, every day or every other day Bon is not the place. One beach that I can recall over in Lac Bay where there is a nice tiki bar set up and windsurfers but could not see myself going there more than once in a trip and then after my diving is done. CUR much more to offer by way of beaches.

On hiking, depending on when you go I can't imagine spending much time hiking on Bon or Cur other than the first couple early hours of the morning before it gets real hot and even then it will be hot. All the hiking will be in a hot, arid and dry climate. Our adult kids and nieces hiked up Christofel and thoroughly enjoyed it but they went early am.