Bonaire car/truck security ideas pls...

[Ministryofgiraffes]

I'm not getting much luck with my correspondence with diveshops and i know there are a lot of bonaire experts here who can answer closer to realtime....so:

ok, so i need to come up with a solution for the 'never leave anything in the truck when diving' in bonaire issue. I'm going to need to leave some stuff in the truck...i know its not a good idea blah, blah, but let's just say i have no choice.

has anyone taken a pelican with padlocks and locked it to the car with bicycle locks or chains etc and left the windows rolled down etc? I will also be diving dual sidemount this time round and was wondering if anyone has any insight into how the rental goes when you need multiple tanks?

i.e i plan to do a lot of nightdiving and will want to take likely 6 tanks overnight. how do the diveshops price that out as opposed to 3 people renting 2 tanks each?

thanks!

 

[diversteve]

Depending on which diveshop they likely won't even notice - or care. We drove around every day with 4-6 of Toucan's tanks and no one mentioned it all they offered was use of a cart since we parked a short distance away. We only paid our package rate but to be correct that included 3-4 days of morning boat dives also. Unlimited tanks for shore dives really was.

I might have heard Dive Friends has a limitation but check with them to b sure.

The kids are going to have an hour to defeat whatever you come up with and they have lumps of hard coral at a minimum to bust open the Pelican case. I would think elaborate precautions would pique their interest and have the opposite effect of what you intend. After the 1st day of diving we started leaving all cases/bags/spares at the condo - the back seat was good for everything we used, tanks in the bed No one takes tanks since they can't get them filled except at the marked shop.

Where are you staying? Some of the resorts are almost street side and unless you go up into the park - all within about 10mins. drive - north/south is a little farther We drove by our condo so many times that we started leaving things there to pick up between dives. Near the end of the week we figured our alternating dive sites north/south allowed us to pack up and move to the 2nd site using up our surface interval along the way - and often stopping for lunch or new tanks/batteries at our resort.

The only gotcha is the one way on the way to the Karpata area - that requires about a 30 min detour thru Rincon to get back to town.

Also Dive Friends seems a good option with their multiple tank pickup locations.Several of their locations you can drive up to the yard, their Hamlet location is a drive-thru except it's a u-turn.

Buddy's has the drive-thru but they're north of town. You might be able to exchange at BelMar also - the other Buddy location. Actually it's better than Buddy's since they keep the tanks in an area about 20' from the street.

I believe WannaDive also does tank exchange at one of the south sites in Belnem but it's at a counter at a dive site that's staffed only during the day afaik. You also have to park at Eden Beach and walk a short distance in to their main shop IIRC - I haven't been there since EB remodeled.

 

[noj3333]

I have no clue about securing valuables...

I will say I used VIP Diving for my last trip... they had no issue with my wife and I taking 4 or 5 tanks each at a time. They only have one location, but it's in town, so without any hassle we were able to plan our dives in a manner where we had to drive by the shop. If that doesn't work they also have a delivery service for a small surcharge.

 

[dmaziuk]

We used this https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07DRDMKG4/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 last time, it (barely) fits the car key and a credit card. I'm sure bigger ones exist.

 

[drrich2]

A lot depends on what you are inexplicably determined to leave in the truck. A piece of seldom needed but potentially emergent medical equipment? A cell phone in case you break down somewhere & need to call for help?

A 'dry box' product you can take on the dive with you is a good approach for small items. If the item in question is particularly valuable (e.g.: new iPhone), perhaps you'd want two, so you could put the phone in one, then that within another, and have 'double-sealed' protection?

The other question is, whatever it is you intend to leave, is it all that valuable? Are we talking something that'd be a major issue if it did get stolen? Are we talking lunch, sunglasses, sandals or what?

 

[Ministryofgiraffes]

batteries/divelights/memorycards. 'possiby' wetlenses....the hypothetical is a situation where i'm not having to return to delfins inbetween dives to swapout charged videolight batteries. let's just hypothetically say i'm doing 5 dives between 9pm and 6am and for a specific reason i want to be at a specific site a long way from delfins for the dives.

i'm not sure i want to carry the batteries on me underwater, seems like the tanks are no issue, but i dont want to be 'out of the water, rinse my camera and rig, drive all the way back to delfins, swap out batteries, blah, blah, drive all the way back to divesite etc...' it's going to eat into divetime if i am more than 15 mins away from delfins..

 

[drrich2]

Okay, that helps. If the batteries are non-proprietary (e.g.: pack of AA's), might be worth hiding them inside the truck somewhere and hoping you stay lucky. Up under the seat, that sort of thing. If they're expensive and proprietary, could be another story, although my 'Big Blue' light's battery is small enough it could go in a dry box on my person.

Are your dive lights small enough for BCD pockets? Bonaire's viz. hasn't required canister lights, etc..., that I've seen (was last there in 2014).

Memory cards these days are pretty cheap for high capacities. I use one, and download off it nightly to an iPhone, and don't erase it till I get home from a trip (so I've got a backup), but I don't shoot video. If you do, that's another story. But SD and micro-SD cards are small enough to hide pretty well. Maybe in a little plastic case duct taped to the underside of something?

Wet lenses? Don't know about that.

Tell us brands & #'s of battery, light, etc..., and maybe that'll help narrow the options down.

 

[diversteve]

memory cards could go in a case like this around your neck - I have one and used it on Bonaire. Maybe the batteries also in a slightly bigger one.
Witz - Buy at LeisurePro

Bonaire after dark is generally pretty dead so I might take a chance later at night with simply hiding stuff in the truck or nearby in the bushes (depends on the site).

Maybe hang a flashing strobe on the mirror - it will discourage anyone from approaching (or attract attention - your call..) and help you find the exit at night - there's no lights at any dive site except the resorts. We parked the truck behind the exit point when possible - from the water most of the south sites look pretty similar - even during the day.

 

[Lorenzoid]

Are the batteries really expensive? Keep in mind that while theft from trucks is a problem, the odds of your vehicle getting hit is, well, you can think about it and come to your own conclusion. If I had an important but not super-expensive item of which I could leave a backup back at my room, I might just risk the theft and lost dive time. Insurance claim?

 

[Ministryofgiraffes]

batteries are around $500 each. memory cards run around $200 each