September Caribbean Dive Trip Recs?

[Ontwreckdiver]

Quite a few Curacao votes, have any of you done Bonaire to and can compare?

Curacao for sure! Went to Bonaire in 2006 and have never returned, the most boring & repetitive diving I have done. Also Curacao is a lot nicer and has way more things to do top side.

 

[lexvil]

Quite a few Curacao votes, have any of you done Bonaire to and can compare?

For diving Bonaire is pretty great but curaçao has more topside, lots and lots of choices for eating stuff to look at and many vrbo houses to choose from and it has the dive bus for a dive shop. I don’t do resorts and I don’t like to be shackled to someone else’s schedule for boat diving. Bonaire has a really nice pizza place, can’t remember the name. Bonaire has more easier to find dive sites, curacao has beaches. If you want to try different places do Bonaire first because after Curaçao you won’t go back.

 

[tkaelin]

I have done both many times. Can’t go wrong with either. Based upon your post I would recommend buddys or Capt dons on Bonaire

 

[smashweights]

Leaning towards Bonaire this year mainly because we don't need as much topside and we have some friends who don't dive who love Curacao so might try to convince them to take a joint vacation there next year.

If we stay at Capt Don's or Buddy Dive, it seems like most of the time you rent a car and drive to shore dive spots. How do you keep your non-dive gear safe? Wallets, car keys, phones, etc? Or do most just shore dive within the area of the resort?

 

[tkaelin]

some people rent trucks and do mostly shore diving and maybe some boat dives. Others may do most their diving at the resort with a combo of boat and house reef shore diving. It depends on on your preference.

If you do shore diving by truck the rule of thumb is don’t leave anything of value in the truck and leave the truck unlocked. Crappy sandals towel and old sunglasses can be left and likely to be left alone. We don’t bring phones or wallets. Lots of discussion on sb about what people do. I put the key, drivers license and maybe some cash or credit card in a small waterproof otter box that gets attached to to my bc and zipped in a bc pocket.

 

[2New2Scuba]

Quite a few Curacao votes, have any of you done Bonaire to and can compare?

Done both. Now we do a month in Bonaire and a week in Curacao. Rent local truck. Very safe, small population of 25,000 people vs 250,000 on Curacao. Don't leave things in the truck, doors unlocked. If you want to hide a key most put it in the sand, under a bush. We put ours in a small box with magnets and stick it up in the rear wheel well. Holds our phone, DL, money, and keys.

You can use Buddy and other resorts facilities without staying there. Can just walk in and use their parking lot and dive docks with ladders. Down town Buddy shop offers 12 tank card (Nitrox or Air) for $100, good for a year. I'm 76 and so far no problems with entry. Lots of videos on best place to enter and how, and a rock at most showing that entry point.
We spent an hour just snorkeling at 1000 steps (64 actually) and saw the following in one hour:
- 6 foot Nurse shark swam under me
- Octopus
- 2 Squid
- Spotted Moray eel
- Whitespotted Filefish
- Peacock Flounder
- Blue and brown Cherub fish
- Rock beauty
- Sergeant Majors
- 4 to 5 green turtles (swam right with us)
- Bluehead Wrasse
- Black Hamlets
- Schoolmaster Snappers
- French Grunts
- Blue Striped Grunts
- Striped Parrotfish
- Juvenile Parrotfish (totally different)|
- Banded Butterflyfish
- Sand Perch
- French Angelfish
- Stoplight Parrotfish
- Queen Angelfish
- Surgeonfish
- Spanish Houndfish
- Blue Parrotfish
- Yellow striped Snappers
- Yellowhead Wrasse
- Beaugregory Damselfish
- Bicolor Damselfish
- Yellowfin Mojarra
- Whitespotted Filefish
- Yellow Goatfish
- Fairy Basslet
- Blue Chromis
- Atlantic Trumpetfish
- Smooth Trunkfish
- Spotted Stingray

And scores more we couldn't I.D. When we got here we couldn't name any. Now we're slowly getting a handle on the most common ones.

Just our experience.

 

[smashweights]

Ok so now we're committed. Booked flights to Bonaire and a week Drive and Dive package with Buddy Dive. Working on ordering a few dive essentials to build the wife's kit and getting her Nitrox cert.

I'll re ask if anyone has specific recs for either a scuba safe box for the truck stuff (keys, credit card, phone, etc or another safe option as well as recs for where to dive. Would love to keep things extra easy the first few days until my wife gets more comfortable as she only has a handful of dives and her last was about 2 years ago. There's reef to dive from the resort itself with no driving right?

Any other Bonaire recs would be great especially for any non-dive activities. We will be flying out on a Saturday mid-afternoon so will probably need a Friday afternoon non dive activity to occupy our preflight no diving time

 

[Ontwreckdiver]

I'll re ask if anyone has specific recs for either a scuba safe box for the truck stuff (keys, credit card, phone, etc or another safe option as well as recs for where to dive.

I recommend Nanuk waterproof cases, they come in a mulitude of shapes & sizes.
NANUK Hard Cases - Durable, Protective Cases for Your Gear
I have the 903 for my dive computer, sun glasses, resort key, etc while I'm on the dive boat.

NANUK 903

Perfect for organizing, protecting and carrying your most important smaller gear, the NANUK 903 waterproof hard case is impenetrable and indestructibl... | Shop Now at Nanuk

nanuk.com

 

[smashweights]

I recommend Nanuk waterproof cases, they come in a mulitude of shapes & sizes.
NANUK Hard Cases - Durable, Protective Cases for Your Gear
I have the 903 for my dive computer, sun glasses, resort key, etc while I'm on the dive boat.

NANUK 903

Perfect for organizing, protecting and carrying your most important smaller gear, the NANUK 903 waterproof hard case is impenetrable and indestructibl... | Shop Now at Nanuk

nanuk.com

Sorry, I meant like a submersible box to take the few items we can't leave in the truck safely. Not sure if we're going to do any boat diving

 

[TNEngineer]

Buddy Dive provides a waterproof dive holder for the truck key. You can probably fit your license and some currency in it too. Clip or pocket it to your BCD, and splash!

Buddy Dive has an unbeatable setup. You'll be very happy. Their one failing is their boat diving strongly favors Klein Bonaire. You can "vote" to go elsewhere but we've only been successful a couple of times. Many of Bonaire's shore dive spots have rocky access and can be nicer to access via boat, but they always seem to want to go to Klein.

You'll have a great time... report back!