Bonaire first visit

[BigDaddyGlad]

Folks here will all have an island favourite, but I suspect there will be more than a couple recommendations for VIP Diving. Great staff, nice facility in a great location, and they've got a pool onsite to get the confined-water skills completed.

 

[Cornbread O'Malley]

Hello Bonaire Forum. Which SCUBA shop provides the best "Discover SCUBA Diving" course? I will be visiting Bonaire the last two weeks of June, 2025 with my family. I am an experienced diver. My husband and two teenage children want to take this course which allows them one dive after some course work and pool diving. Also, I will be renting a full set of gear and taking a few boat dives - any suggestions on which shop to use? Also, I will be looking for shore diving buddies; any advice on how to find someone? Thanks for any advice you can provide.

You can take a look at these dive shops and see if they have what you're looking for: AB Dive; Beyond the Corals; Dive Friends; Scuba Elite; Technical Dive Services Bonaire; VIP Diving; Wannadive; Xprodiver; 4 Wheel Diving.

 

[EricSm]

Hello Bonaire Forum. Which SCUBA shop provides the best "Discover SCUBA Diving" course? I will be visiting Bonaire the last two weeks of June, 2025 with my family. I am an experienced diver. My husband and two teenage children want to take this course which allows them one dive after some course work and pool diving. Also, I will be renting a full set of gear and taking a few boat dives - any suggestions on which shop to use? Also, I will be looking for shore diving buddies; any advice on how to find someone? Thanks for any advice you can provide.

I know of two resorts with dive shops built-in next door to one another with excellent access. Captain Don's Habitat and Buddy Dive Resort. They are on the same reef. Both have docks for boat diving and stairs down to a shallow lagoon. There may be other's with a similar setup. You couldn't design a better setup for SCUBA instruction. The lagoon area slowly slopes off from 3' to about 35' and it is all white sand. Then there is a mixed sand and coral section sloping from 35' to 60' then a wall that drops off to 130', the recreational limit. Current is usually very slow. There are enough people at the resorts that they should be able to find a partner for you. The water temperature regardless of winter or summer ranges from 78 to 81. I only saw 78 out deep on Salt pier.

I've been doing technical diving at Captain Don's (Technical Diving Services) and love it. We take a pickup truck to other shore diving locations around the island, but honestly the "house reef" at Captain Don's or Buddy Dive is pretty nice because you have stairs right to chest deep water and you aren't trying to walk over a coral beach and getting pounded by waves. I have seen a lot of initial scuba students go through Captain Don's from single instruction to big groups. That same house reef also slopes off to quite deep water and we've been able to do our 70m qualification further out from the same place. Captain Don's caters to both recreational and technical diving while Buddy Dive and most of the other shops are recreational.