My wife and I learned to dive on Bonaire and were shore diving solo the first trip. The secret is that Bonaire, especially the northern resorts like Den Laman/Sanddollar Buddys, Capt Dons etc. have a near perfect set up for shore diving that keeps you in a comfort zone. The dock entry drops you down into 5' to 7' of gin clear water with sandy bottom and all kind of underwater landmarks to guide you such as cement block moorings, boats, PVC pipes, coral debris piles (which full of life such as scorpion fish, octopi, etc) and marker buoys. The sandy bottom gently slopes down to 15' to 20' until at around 50 yards out, the reef starts and rolls down to about 110'. The sandy slope allows you a perfect opportunity to check out your gear and your buoyancy in the shallows with a sand bottom under you before heading on the reef. You also can use the sandy area at the top of the reef for safety stops as it is at the perfect depth and there are all kinds of littles things to check out.
Because the reef runs parallel with the shore, generally 50 to 100 yards out and there plenty of landmarks, you cannot get lost and are never more than 100 yards from the shore or someones dock. Also, because it gently slopes down, you can choose any dive profile you want from 30' to 100'. So if you want to you can start off with a shallow check out dive to get into your comfort zone and then go deeper.
As mentioned earlier, you can arrange anything for diving on Bonaire. I believe the going price for a private DM is $25 per dive; however, you can always find divers who will let you glom on with them on any of the many resort docks. I'm betting after your check out dives, you will feel alot more confident about self guided shore dives.
