AOWD Course Sites in Bonaire

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adutto

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Scuba Instructor
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Location
Aventura, FL / Cordoba, Argentina
Guys,
I'm traveling with 3 AOWD students to Bonaire and, of course, they'll do their adventure dives in the Island.
The dives that they selected are:

- Fish ID
- Wreck
- Drift
- Deep (Mandatory)
- Navigation (Mandatory)

((I know, there is no night dive... what can I say :confused:))

As I have been there only once, I wanted to hear from the community any specific recommendations that you may have on the sites that I should pick for the dives.

Thanks!

Alejandro
 
admit have never done my AOW but maybe soon. Anyway I am going to say Hilmer Hooker for deep dive. its about 100 feet at base of the ship. A very popular dive site. anyway will be curious as seriously thinking of doing my AOW on my next winter trip (march) to Bonaire.
 
I agree that the Hooker is a good deep dive. It is also possibly the best wreck dive for recreational divers. The exit can be very tricky. I cannot do it alone without getting bashed on the rocks. If anyone has physical challenges (I have two artificial hips), be prepared to help or do it as a boat dive.

Just about anywhere for fish ID, i have seen more spotted eagle rays, plus one manta ray on the southern sites, Margate Bay is my favorite, its unmarked but easy to find.

You really should encourage them to get a night dive. I like to night dive in front of Capt Dons. The suit up area and dock are well lit. There is a line from the dock all the way to the bottom at 130 ft. So you can just swim against the current until your turnaround time then drift back until you get to the line and follow it to the dock. The tarpon hang out in the shallow areas and will follow you around if you use your light to spot small fish for them. Not to be missed.
 
Agree, they may want to substitute night for drift. Great night dive sites but not really any true drift dives that I know of. Many of the sites have reefs that reach to 100+ then can use Hilma Hooker for wreck. Margate, Salt Pier or Bari for fish ID. Navigation at one of the southern sites. Most of these have plenty of good sandy stretches between shore and reef.
 
Possibly Hands Off at Klein for the drift dive - we went there specifically at the DM's suggestion. It wasn't exactly ripping though - I think the boat was mostly idling overhead.

Sometimes the far south sites near Vista Blue have ripping currents in the afternoon. We were in one there that was folding the soft corals over flat. Heading into it was futile, after a couple minutes we gave up and drifted back to our exit point.

Anything in that area is marked Advanced - sites 56-60 here: Info Bonaire - Map of All Bonaire Dive Sites

See the entry points here: Scuba Shore Diving Site Listing for: Bonaire South, ABC Islands

If conditions were right maybe start at Margate Bay? or Atlantis? and exit at Vista Blue. We parked the truck behind the entry shown in the site description - good marker since from water level it's hard to spot the breaks in the ironshore. It all looks pretty much the same offshore. I don't recall the distances involved between the sites clearly.

The other problem is that visibly you can't tell if the current is running till someone goes out and takes a look. It was perfectly calm at the surface yet ripping at 60'.

I've also heard of people drifting south from Cliff. We went north to it from Habitat and the current helped us back. But not what I'd call a drift dive. If it was running, you could start there and drift back to one of resorts so you'd have a lot of places to get out. There's a small parking area just north of Habitat - take the first left towards Hamlet. I think that's the entry for Cliff.

Bari Reef is the obvious choice for Fish ID - in one dive my buddy counted 185 species for a REEF survey - one dive.

Selected data taken from the REEF website on Project Statistics for the entire Tropical Western Atlantic.

Total Number of Surveys: 92955
Total Number of Species: 759

Top 10 Sites for Species Richness:

Bari Reef, Bonaire (368)
Tori's Reef, Bonaire (333)
Something Special, Bonaire (328)
Front Porch (Sunset Beach), Bonaire (311)
Commercial Pier Reefs/Datura Ave. 1st and 2nd Reef, Jupiter Inlet to Key Biscayne (308)
The Invisibles, Bonaire (292)
Green/Yellow Submarine, Bonaire (292)
Red Slave, Bonaire (290)
Molasses Reef, Key Largo Oceanside (273)
Calabas 11, Bonaire (265)

Bonaire Dive and Adventure - Bari Reef
 
Agree, they may want to substitute night for drift. Great night dive sites but not really any true drift dives that I know of. Many of the sites have reefs that reach to 100+ then can use Hilma Hooker for wreck. Margate, Salt Pier or Bari for fish ID. Navigation at one of the southern sites. Most of these have plenty of good sandy stretches between shore and reef.

Great tips! I'm afraid that if there is no drift we'll need to change to yet another adventure... There a couple of ladies that are really scared about night diving. Too bad, I don't want to force it, but I'll give it a try at "late afternoon" at least.
 
Great tips! I'm afraid that if there is no drift we'll need to change to yet another adventure... There a couple of ladies that are really scared about night diving. Too bad, I don't want to force it, but I'll give it a try at "late afternoon" at least.

Obviously don't push them but I can't think of a better place to learn to night dive. They could enter from shore at twilight, stay relatively shallow, watch the light gently fade as the night creatures emerge...

OK. I'm ready to go diving now!!!

My dive buddy is not a fan of night dives either but he loves this dive at Bonaire. I would recommend Bari for an easy night dive or perhaps the house reef depending on where you are staying. And to get to do their first night dive under supervision is much preferable to doing it on there own later, especially if they are apprehensive about it. Reassure them some apprehension is normal and even desirable when trying something new.
 
The Hilma hooker is a fairly easy dive and can be used for both wreck and deep... depth is about 90 ft to the sand and if you go under the bow in the washed out area you can just push 100 ft. The wreck has some very easy penetration points- huge cargo bay opening into the cargo bay, pass through either of 2 interior doors (at least 4x8 ft wide), into the ajoining cargo bay and out the cargo hatch. You never lose sight of light and there is zero chance of siltout.
A drift dive is really a waste, there is rarely enough current to call a dive a "drift dive". A much better choice would be navigation, which can also be done on the hooker. Shoot a course from the entry point and navigate to and from it underwater...I do that all the time, not as a course but just the way I prefer to dive it.
 
My wife and I did our AOW at Capt Don's in 2008. Drift wasn't offered as one of the adventure dives, and we weren't surprised, never having encountered much current in Bonaire. (Neither was Altitude diver, Drysuit diver, DPV, Cavern, and ... wait for it ... Ice diver).

But when we went next, in 2010, we took the three-tank national park trip offered by Buddy Dive, and two of those dives, at sites called Playa Funchi and Tailor Made, were done as drift dives, and the current justified it. The third, at Boka Slagbaii, was a little sheltered and not a drift dive.

We were going to do a night dive, but we'd already done a half dozen of them, and our instructor suggested we'd get more out of peak performance buoyancy. Done seriously, with some focus on trim as well as just buoyancy, it can be a worthwhile addition to one's training.
 
Well yeah, Drift Dive in Bonaire is a hard call. And then I would not take my students for a first drift dive to thge places where we know currents can occur here in Bonaire, as someone say before those sites are marked as for Advanced Divers.

I don't know where are you going to be staying but most of the resorts have easy acces to the ocean and the dive sites next to them are easy to dive at day or night things like buoys, underwater lines, lights, etc make your life easier getting in and out. So switching the Drift for a Night Diving experience could be a good one. Other than that I would also suggest doing the PPB, by experience I know, that when PPB is done seriously, is one of the most useful and rewarding experiences for my students.

Since I live here in Bonaire I might bve able to help you a bit with your questions so don't hesitate to contact me by PM, it can be in spanish also.

Good luck!
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/

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