Bonaire (never been) or Roatan again?

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Hello,
I go to Bonaire every year and have dove every marked dive site on the map as well as many that haven't been marked. I have also dove many of the places you have mentioned above. I can tell you that Bonaire is without question one of the best dives locations I have been to. The shore diving is second to none. The fish life is excellent is almost every location. I stay at the Plaza Resort and would highly recommend it, and I would recommend the DMs Sherman and Jackson. They both grew up in Bonaire and can take you to the very best sites. As far as boat diving I would recommend going to Klein Bonaire, the island off of Bonaire, since you can shore dive nearly every other location. You can easily see turtles, spotted eagle rays, eels, occtupi and a ton of other fish species in Bonaire. I can even give you maps to locate frog fish/and sea horse locations.
The lion fish count has been increasing, but it hasn't affected the fish count yet, and aggresive steps have been started to reduce their numbers. The only short fall I would say is the lack of large fish and sharks. Although you can occasionally seen reef sharks and hammerheads.
If you would like any addition information or pics I will be pleased to help you.

Eric
 
I am in Roatan now. After trips to Bonaire each of the last two years, I would choose Bonaire over Roatan. The reef here is prettier with more color but there are far fewer fish and fewer species of fish. More seahorses here though, had four on one dive yesterday. It is also quite cool here for the past two days. Watre temp is low 80s with air temp low 70s yesterday and today with high winds. If you go to Bonaire, I can highly recommend VIP Divers. They guide shore dives all over the island and are quite good. Did a few dives with them both years on both sides of the island. Bas Noij is on here and you could contact him for more info on VIP.

Between the two, I would almost always choose Bonaire over Roatan but I agree with a comment in this post about seahorses. We have seen many - many more diving in Roatan.
 
I would recommend the DMs Sherman and Jackson.

Eric

Hey Caileon, have you ever gotten those two freely talking? They both like their drinking time. I think it was Jackson who everyday was giving us his blow by blow on his drinking the night before. They both like to knock back entire bottles of scotch now and then when they can get them. They were both cracking me up the entire time we dove with them. Their typical island divers, born and raised in the islands, pretty much dived all their lives with a lot of crazy stories about diving to nasty depths on regular basis. We really enjoyed their hi-jinks and stories.
 
Wow, thanks for all of the replies. usually I get an email that there are posts related to the original, but got none and hadn't checked back for awhile. We did decide on Roatan as the places we checked in Bonaire were booked. We procrastinated planning our trip this year. Thanks for the advice on getting more training and not being dependent on the DM. I usually feel pretty comfortable diving and do trust my buddy but could for sure increase my confidence with more training. I appreciate the comments.
 
Bonaire is the place that we measure all other dive spots by - it is our gold standard. As others mentioned, you can always hire a DM there. I'd vote Bonaire!
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/teric/

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