TabeaK
Contributor
Morning dives are two tank at Buddy.
Boat diving at Buddy Dive, is it worth it?
- Thread starter Scoooter961
- Start date
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You didn't mention your experience level or I missed it, with that in mind, our first trip to Bonaire we were pretty dry behind the ears, 50 dives or so. We stayed at Buddy's bought a package, and did a lot of boat dives, and a few shore dives. After the first few shore dives our confidence level increased, by the end of the week we were regretting locking into the boat schedule. Every trip since it's been almost exclusively shore with a two tanker to Klein mid week if available.
Doctorfish
Contributor
In the past, (pre covid), morning boat dives at Buddy's were one or 2 tank with a sign up board. afternoons were one tank. Their web site should have current scheduling. I will be there in the winter and do a trip report on return.
Boat dives are cheap a la carte at Buddy's so one option is to buy a dive and drive package including 6 boat dives for one of your party, and a package without boat dives for the other. That way you can each do 3 boat dives together and if you like what you are experiencing, buy more for the rest of your stay.
My own practice is to do a boat dive in the AM, early lunch, shore dive by truck, late afternoon or night dive at the house reef. This is a lazy man's approach to Bonaire, but I have learned that if I load up the truck with tanks, drive all over the island, blow my brains out trying to squeeze in as much varied diving as possible, it makes for a less enjoyable holiday than if I just pace myself. Besides, my wife/dive buddy won't put up with a frenetic schedule.
Different strokes for different folks. There are many ways to approach a Bonaire diving holiday with many threads on this board reflecting options. There is no wrong way to dive Bonaire, just differences in style.
Boat dives are cheap a la carte at Buddy's so one option is to buy a dive and drive package including 6 boat dives for one of your party, and a package without boat dives for the other. That way you can each do 3 boat dives together and if you like what you are experiencing, buy more for the rest of your stay.
My own practice is to do a boat dive in the AM, early lunch, shore dive by truck, late afternoon or night dive at the house reef. This is a lazy man's approach to Bonaire, but I have learned that if I load up the truck with tanks, drive all over the island, blow my brains out trying to squeeze in as much varied diving as possible, it makes for a less enjoyable holiday than if I just pace myself. Besides, my wife/dive buddy won't put up with a frenetic schedule.
Different strokes for different folks. There are many ways to approach a Bonaire diving holiday with many threads on this board reflecting options. There is no wrong way to dive Bonaire, just differences in style.
OP
Scoooter961
Contributor
Thanks everyone, we booked the boat dives.
OP
Scoooter961
Contributor
TabeaK
Contributor
That was not the case on my recent (as in 3 weeks ago) stay. Morning boat dives were all two tankers, boat returned around 12-1pm.
Awesome. Enjoy!!!!
OMyMyOHellYes
Contributor
There at the end of Nov '21. They do both two-tank and single-tank dives in the morning. Check in the dive shop and sign up for what you want. I am not sure, but I think the afternoon dives are single-tank. They had tour groups that kind of did their own thing schedule-wise on the boats, and they also hosted boat dives for cruise passengers. These were separate and independent from the resort boat dives.
I was there by myself - did a class the first half of the week and leisure diving the second half.
Finding a dive buddy was not always the easiest proposition so I did mostly boat vs shore dives. I still enjoyed the boat dives. They were mostly to less accessible shore dive sites or Klein. In every case, the crew polled the group on the dock as to the desire for which sites. They tended to stay away from the easy shore dive sites and explained that philosophy if someone suggested one.
- OMM
Since you are not going until the summer. There is something else, you might also want to consider. That is the east coast diving. They have a very large inflatable that does dives from Lac Bay. They are a bit expensive but the quality of diving is better than anything you are likely to see from the area north of the city. If the weather is good, there is a dive that includes both White Hole (look it up on Wikipedia) and Turtle City. I think I stop counting after about 70 turtles on that dive.
OP
Scoooter961
Contributor
When you say "they" do you mean Buddy Dive?
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