Bonaire Dive & Adventure, any recent experiences?

[DPJ]

We are making our first trip to Bonaire this year. After searching we have decided to stay at Den Laman. The local shop is Bonaire Dive & Adventure. The one thing I noticed about the dive shop is open from 8:30 to 4:30. Does anyone have experience with getting more than one tank at 4:30, if you want to do a night dive then an early morning dive? These hours seem like they would be inconvenient.

 

[Lowrider Steve]

We are going to be in/on/under? Bonaire one week from today! Staying at Buddy Dive (~ ~ ~ Buddy Dive Resort, Bonaire ~ ~ ~). Never been before, but are really looking forward to it.

 

[DiveMaven]

I believe that air tanks are available until 9:00pm, it's only the nitrox tanks that are available until 4:30. BDA provides tank lockers where you can put away a couple of tanks before they close if you want to do late night or early dives, or use nitrox after 4:30. We're planning to bring a padlock so we can keep a couple of nitrox tanks squirreled away for when we want to do night or dawn dives.

When are you going? We'll be staying at Den Laman the first couple of weeks in July and can't wait!!

 

[piikki]

We have stayed there twice, two weeks ago was the latest trip. Bring a padlock/s and hog a locker or two the first day (there aren't so many functional ones though there were fixing them in the end of our stay).

We used to reserve nitrox tanks for night dives plus early morning dives before tanks got locked up. They do not like you to leave them in trucks but lockers are ok as long as you do not take dozens. We always left before shop opened in the morning, so we always had 2/diver in the locker overnight and nobody gave us any trouble for it. Do not hoard tanks that you took in lockers for days - they actually track the numbers under your name in the office...

(And remember to give feedback that the 4:30 pm closing sucks, maybe they'll change it in future!)

 

[alashas]

We stayed at Den Laman and dove with BDA last April - May, so some are able to post more recent info. The 3 of us dove nitrox every dive and we were always able to get the tanks we needed. We did not do dives in the morning any earlier than 8:30 - 9, so the tanks were readily available. We used the lockers toward the dock to store our tanks for our night dives from the dock there, but we did not use locks. We loaded them in our truck during the afternoon if we were diving at another site.

We had a good relationship with the BDA folks, and really enjoyed Den Laman. The staff there was great and the food at the restaurant was outstanding, some of the best on the entire island. The condos are well furnished and we ate all of our breakfasts and some of our lunches in the condo. Great views.

Here are some land photos: honeymoon2 : photos : Bonaire 2007- powered by SmugMug

Cheers, alashas

 

[ShoeAddict]

Thanks for the great pictures. We are headed to Bonaire and staying at Den Laman in early March. We will post a trip report when we return. Can't wait to go and leave the ice and snow.. signing off from Massachusetts!