Stuart,
I'd recommend a power strip but nothing else should be needed for electronics. We were over at Divi more near "downtown" and that was sufficient. For the trekking pole, I don't think it's necessary but to each their own. After the trip can you post something talking about what gear you rented/brought and how the not staying at buddy dive CCR support is? We are eyeing a similar trip to build rEvo hours, been busy trying to finish an instructor course though. Are you doing sorb through buddy or shipping some in advance?
I got back from the trip last Monday. I did bring a couple of power strips. I only used one. Not sure if it was necessary or not, other than needing a number of outlets for various chargers.
I took all my own gear, except for cylinders and sorb. That included all my own BO regs and rigging for 3 x AL80 BO cylinders. I have the rEvo travel fixations for tanks, which I used. The cylinders provided by Buddy did not have any fixations on them and I did not ask if they had rEvo fixations available there. I suspect they do not. The 40s they provided for BO had rigging on them (standard BM OC-style - not SM-style). Some of the 80s they provided had the same style of rigging on them. 2 of the 80s did not, which was fine, as I preferred to put my own on anyway, as mine is SM-style. On my deep dive, the 3rd 80 they provided for me did have rigging, which I took off and replaced with my own.
I did take 2 trekking poles. I never used them. But, I did crash and burn 3 different times trying to get in or out. Each time, I had my rEvo on my back, an AL40 clipped on for bail out, my fins either clipped on or in my hand, and my camera rig (which is big and heavy). I probably should have put more effort into figuring out how to carry and use a trekking pole, but it just seemed like too much to deal with, with all the other stuff. And with generally diving solo when carrying my camera. By the end of the week, I had broken 3 fiber optic cables, but fortunately nothing worse.
Also by the end of the week, I quit carrying my camera in on shore dives. We had boat dives booked for every afternoon, so I was only taking the camera in for those, the last 2 or 3 days. Which was fine, as I didn't really see much that I wanted to shoot anyway. The reef was beautiful, but some dives there were very few fish at all. Others, there were lots of tropical fish, but those aren't really my "thing" for photography. I never saw any sharks, no octopi, no nudibranchs, no seahorses, no stingrays or eagle rays. I saw 2 small turtles and 1 green moray eel. I did see a manta ray, but it was going by at a distance too far to get any good photos.
We tried to arrange to dive the Windjammer wreck, but ended up being told we could only dive it on Saturday and only from a boat, and that it would cost $220 per diver. I passed on that, as did everyone, in the end. We did one dive on the Hilma Hooker. I swam out with my camera. When the hull came into view, I started prepping my camera to shoot and immediately noticed that the leak detector was flashing yellow, so I turned around and got out without actually really seeing the wreck. Which reminds of one of the frustrating parts of diving in Bonaire. I would have gotten out, locked my camera in my vehicle, and gotten back in to do the dive without the camera. But, I couldn't because of the theft issues in Bonaire. I would have rented one of those Ultimate Dive Trucks, if one were available. That would have made things a LOT more convenient. Then I think I could have locked my camera away while diving. Fortunately, my camera did not actually flood. I think what happened was I prepped it in my room, where I had the AC set as cold as it would go. I suspect that when I got in the water, it was warm enough to warm the air inside the housing enough that the vacuum pressure inside reduced just enough to set off the leak detector.
We stayed at Eden Beach Resort, which was something like 0.4 miles from Buddy Dive Resort. My thoughts on using Buddy for CCR support can be summarized very simply: Were I to go again and take my CCR, I would use Technical Diving Services for CCR support. TDS is located at Captain Don's Habitat, which is the next property to the north from Buddy Dive (i.e. right next door). I did not get pricing from TDS, so I should say that I would use them assuming pricing was reasonably close.
And I got a trekking pole to take. We'll see how that works out...
