Roatan vs. Bonaire

[pilot fish]

I have been to both locations more than once and will return to both.
Next time you visit notice something......

What kind of weapons does security at COCO View carry and what kind does security at Buddy Dive carry.

COCO View - Shotgun - 45 pistol - large flash lights that could double as a club
Buddy Dive - regular flashlight. (Don't know if there is anything in the guard shack)Just food for thought!

Security at Coco View was serious and "security" at Buddy's Dive was just for show?

 

[diversteve]

Security at BelMar - the other Buddy Dive location:

Butchie had a pocketknife - we used it to peel oranges one night...

I think somebody once posted that the security manager at Cocoview is ex-Honduran military. Probably explains a lot.

 

[scubadada]

I have been to both locations more than once and will return to both.
Next time you visit notice something......

What kind of weapons does security at COCO View carry and what kind does security at Buddy Dive carry.

COCO View - Shotgun - 45 pistol - large flash lights that could double as a club
Buddy Dive - regular flashlight. (Don't know if there is anything in the guard shack)

Just food for thought!

Perhaps it has to do with the perceived risk, eh?

Good diving, Craig

 

[buff]

All you have to do is venture into the city once on Roatan. I watched a night wedding, with dozens of locals, and was asked if I wanted to buy drugs by three different people. The poverty is terrible...but it's not the poverty but the disparity between the wealthy and the poor. This is perhaps the only city I have been in at night and was worried-and I have walked the south side of Dallas, Harlem, Watts...but man, did I get the willies in this town at night.
At Divi Flamingo in Bonaire, the dive guide said "you can keep your equipment in the shack at the end of the dock"..when I looked at him like "yeah....where should I expect to buy replacement gear tomorrow" he said "Oh, we don't have crime here like you do in the U.S." and they didn't.
I never had a truck broken into(I never left anything in one either).
The difference, I am guessing is the relationship of the dive operations to the local economy. It seemed in Roatan that the dive operations were NOT connected to the local economy-in fact, they are physically separated from the city . At our dive resort we had to take a boat to get to the island. There were tourists who went into the city, but not a great deal-everything was provided at the resort and most didn't go into town everyday and we only once, and as a group at night.
Bonaire's diving was integrated into the community. Locals lived in the community not in the all-inclusive resorts. Money that is made in the dive resorts is brought into town. That did not seem to be the case with Roatan.
The zip lines are fun in Roatan. I tipped our guide $20.00 at the end-he was nice and endured my really bad Spanish and quite frankly, $20.00 is not a huge amount of money to me. But it was to him..he acted like I descended from heaven and was so thankful-even bewildered. I thought I might have made a difference in his life with just that small amount of money-you see people living under aluminum lean tos on Roatan.

But in summation, I would dive Bonaire before Roatan-you can just rent a jeep, load up the tanks and tour the island in Bonaire to find your next dive location. I loved that vacation.

 

[doctormike]

The difference, I am guessing is the relationship of the dive operations to the local economy. It seemed in Roatan that the dive operations were NOT connected to the local economy-in fact, they are physically separated from the city . At our dive resort we had to take a boat to get to the island. There were tourists who went into the city, but not a great deal-everything was provided at the resort and most didn't go into town everyday and we only once, and as a group at night.
Bonaire's diving was integrated into the community. Locals lived in the community not in the all-inclusive resorts. Money that is made in the dive resorts is brought into town. That did not seem to be the case with Roatan.

This is an interesting point, and probably more in line with the OP question. This is one of the main differences between the two locations.

Bonaire is a municipality to itself - part of the Netherland Antilles, but basically an island with 12,000 people and local governance. The entire economy is pretty much built on diving (the license plates say "diver's paradise"). Aruba is now independent, I believe, and Curacao has about 10 times as many people as Bonaire, but still, the whole government unit is pretty much that of a small town. And it is a small town with a SCUBA tourism driven economy...

Honduras is a country of seven million people. The one time that I dove in Roatan was after a medical mission to Tegucigalpa (the capital)... this is a VERY different situation than Bonaire. Sure, the local dive resorts have a vested interest in making the island "dive friendly", but Roatan is a part of a MUCH larger country... and diving is a pretty minor part of that. Not to take anything away from Roatan - it is a beautiful place to dive... but something to consider with respect to the OP question, if that swings you either one way or the other...

 

[wierts]

Mike,
The govenmental situation of the ABC isles will and has changed.
Bonaire will become a 'speciale gemeente' sort of special county of the kingdom of the Netherlands.
The Netherlands will become responsible for most governmental activities.

Aruba and Curacao are different. They will be seperated from the kingdom and become autonomous.

 

[robint]

Security at Coco View was serious and "security" at Buddy's Dive was just for show?

At CCV most people don't even lock their rooms day or night. :shocked2: In fact, many people leave their keys stuck in the door while they are out diving! The security guards are only out at night on the pier (where the gear storage is and where a boat coming from the main island docks). Maybe they do walk around the grounds at night, but I never saw them, just saw the guy at the dock when coming back from a night dive around 9pm.

Pilot fish - you are only answering questions about crap you yourself have brought up in regarding the safety of Bonaire. Once again ---- the OP has been to Bonaire, he was asking to compare the DIVING on the two islands from those who had been to both. He wasn't looking to debate safety on Bonaire. YOU are the one who brought it up and it is of NO consequence to the OP's original questions.

 

[doctormike]

Mike,
The govenmental situation of the ABC isles will and has changed.
Bonaire will become a 'speciale gemeente' sort of special county of the kingdom of the Netherlands.
The Netherlands will become responsible for most governmental activities.

Aruba and Curacao are different. They will be seperated from the kingdom and become autonomous.

Aha... thanks for the clarification..! That makes sense.

Bonaire is, IMHO, very much a small town (notwithstanding their political relationship with Holland), while Roatan is geographically and socially part and parcel of a fairly large country. Not really a reason to favor one over the other, but something to note when making comparisons...

 

[pilot fish]

At CCV most people don't even lock their rooms day or night. :shocked2: In fact, many people leave their keys stuck in the door while they are out diving! The security guards are only out at night on the pier (where the gear storage is and where a boat coming from the main island docks). Maybe they do walk around the grounds at night, but I never saw them, just saw the guy at the dock when coming back from a night dive around 9pm.

yeah, I've never heard anything negative regarding crime in Roatan, vis a vis divers, but I'd be careful in other parts of Honduras. I did not lock my door at night in Roatan and even left my gear unlocked in the general storage area. The same could NOT be said for Bonaire.

 

[pilot fish]

"The Island Territory of Bonaire (pronounced /bɒˈnɛər/; Dutch: Eilandgebied Bonaire, Papiamento: Teritorio Insular di Boneiru) is one of five island areas (Eilandgebieden) of the Netherlands Antilles, consisting of the main island of Bonaire and, nestled in its western crescent, the uninhabited islet of Klein Bonaire. Together with Aruba and Curaçao it forms a group referred to as the ABC islands of the Leeward Antilles, the southern island chain of the Lesser Antilles.

As part of the Netherlands Antilles, Bonaire is also a part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The structure of the relationship between Bonaire, the Netherlands Antilles and the Kingdom is being considered for change under proposed legislation. The Netherlands Antilles was scheduled to be dissolved as a unified political entity on 15 December 2008, so that the five constituent islands would attain new constitutional statuses within the Kingdom of the Netherlands,[1] but this dissolution has been postponed to an indefinite future date.[2] As of December 15, 2008, legislation to amend the charter of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and to define the new status of Bonaire, Saba, and Sint Eustatius was still being reviewed." wik

Hope that also helps?

Aha... thanks for the clarification..! That makes sense.

Bonaire is, IMHO, very much a small town (notwithstanding their political relationship with Holland), while Roatan is geographically and socially part and parcel of a fairly large country. Not really a reason to favor one over the other, but something to note when making comparisons...