Bonaire Chamber

[KDAD]

What kind of dive profiles are everyone doing on Bonaire that they are getting bent all the time? I didn't even consider DCS when I was there.

 

[morecowbells]

I know this may be controversial, but I wonder if a chamber operated by a nurse with hyperbaric training coupled with a telehealth consult with a dive medicine physician would be a possibility. It may at least provide a service during the staffing issues.

What kind of dive profiles are everyone doing on Bonaire that they are getting bent all the time? I didn't even consider DCS when I was there.

Even though diving profiles in Bonaire are low risk and not aggressive in pushing NDL dives, the risk is always present. I have had two friends who dived conservative profiles and somehow ended up in the chamber. One with a newly diagnosed PFO, the other completely random. Both were women over 50. Even taking all the stated precautions to minimize risk, it can unfortunately happen.

 

[Jake 10]

I know this may be controversial, but I wonder if a chamber operated by a nurse with hyperbaric training coupled with a telehealth consult with a dive medicine physician would be a possibility. It may at least provide a service during the staffing issues.


Even though diving profiles in Bonaire are low risk and not aggressive in pushing NDL dives, the risk is always present. I have had two friends who dived conservative profiles and somehow ended up in the chamber. One with a newly diagnosed PFO, the other completely random. Both were women over 50. Even taking all the stated precautions to minimize risk, it can unfortunately happen.

staffing the clinic, is the issue

 

[rye_a]

Our family of five will be diving there in a few weeks. We will, of course, plan our dives conservatively but this is yet another reason to keep our DAN insurance up to date. I certainly hope we won’t be making any unplanned trips to Curacao…

 

[Searcaigh]

Bonaire gets about 16,000 tourists per month, according to the Tourist Board. They stay 1-2 weeks, mostly. Assume half of them dive, an average of 2 dives/day.

8,000 visiting divers on Bonaire at any one time, that's a very liberal assumption!

 

[tursiops]

8,000 visiting divers on Bonaire at any one time, that's a very liberal assumption!

Not at any one time. 16,000 tourists each month.

 

[Searcaigh]

Not at any one time. 16,000 tourists each month.

Okay, so around 266 people diving daily.

Never been there, so I don't know if that is realistic or not?

 

[tursiops]

Okay, so around 266 people diving daily.

Never been there, so I don't know if that is realistic or not?

Probably a huge underestimate. Each of those 16000 people stays 7-14 days.
Buddy Dive alone has about 100 bedrooms (mostly 2 people each), and they are all divers. Each diver does 2-4 dives a day, or more. The dive staff tells me they often fill a thousand tanks a day.....

 

[Jersey]

It's not just tourists taking hits. Don't forget all the people living and working there. I have several Bonaire friends who had to hang up the fins after hits. I think the research points to things like repetitive dives (which as a working Instructor or DM you would certainly have), alcohol, dehydration and lack of sleep as contributing factors as well as the dive itself. Not to mention personal factors like age and weight.

...Thinking about our Oct 2021 trip when we stumbled down during Tech week...as Bonaire becomes more a tech destination, will we see more incidents? We were hanging with folks who did multiple dives on the Windjammer/Mairi Bhan during their week. That's 60M. No thanks, I'll stick to rec stuff, and try to avoid all the above factors.

 

[Doctorfish]

Jersey brings up an interesting point. Does anyone have stats on whether tech divers are more likely to get bent than recreational NDL divers?