Bonaire solo diving and thefts

[loady]

Will the Bonaire dive rental shops check people are diving with a buddy? I’d be solo. Are spare tanks stolen from vehicles while diving? Do you need to get a filled tank after every dive to not have your extra tank stolen? Thanks

 

[emoreira]

I visited Bonaire in March 2024 with 7 more divers. We were in Buddy Dive Resort. As part of the deal we had 2 Renault OROCH vans. We loaded 8 tanks in each van for 2 dives in the morning. At each dive site we geared and the empty dive bags were left in the van interior with the doors unlocked and the windows a little opened. Valuables were left in the Resort (phones and documents). We did the same in the afternoon after lunch.
Nothing was touched in the 5 diving days.
We usually see three or more vans or cars in each dive site we visited.

 

[arew+4]

Tanks will be fine in a vehicle, I would presume don't ask / don't tell would be the way it works some shops rent pony bottles.

 

[TNEngineer]

Tank theft is the least of your worries on Bonaire. Tanks are so commonplace that they don't have unique value, and they're all labeled anyway. It's a small island - where's the black market for stolen tanks? The only thing I can imagine is some tourist deciding they "need" an extra tank and snagging one at random, but I've literally never heard of that happening.

Like most others, we've also never had anything stolen from our vehicles at dive sites. But apparently it can be a thing, so the above advice is spot-on: Doors unlocked, windows down a bit, nothing valuable in sight.

I personally had worse luck at the Enterprise rental car station near LAX at the start of a recent trip. My backpack got separated from me on the shuttle bus and when I got it back, I had been relieved of everything electronic: Laptop, tablet, cables, headphones, TG-6 dive camera (but not its waterproof housing nor wet lens!), and $450 in cash that was squirreled away in a deep, deep pocket inside. The idiots didn't take the laptop's unique charger so that became useless in a few hours of them struggling to get past login security, they didn't take the camera's batteries nor chargers, didn't take my US Passport, etc. They WERE clever enough to take my prescription sunglasses with my rather strong -4.x prescription! They "made" $450 and an outdated Samsung tablet, but caused me a ton of grief resourcing everything I'd lost.

 

[loady]

I visited Bonaire in March 2024 with 7 more divers. We were in Buddy Dive Resort. As part of the deal we had 2 Renault OROCH vans. We loaded 8 tanks in each van for 2 dives in the morning. At each dive site we geared and the empty dive bags were left in the van interior with the doors unlocked and the windows a little opened. Valuables were left in the Resort (phones and documents). We did the same in the afternoon after lunch.
Nothing was touched in the 5 diving days.
We usually see three or more vans or cars in each dive site we visited.

Did you leave tanks in the vehicles? I imagine I’d rent two, do two dives, have lunch then get the tanks filled or exchange them so always be leaving one in the truck. Thanks

 

[TNEngineer]

I'm not @emoreira, but standard practice is to leave your full and empty tanks in the open truck bed. They provide tank racks to keep them from rolling/shifting around back there. As I said above, no theft problems with respect to tanks on this smallish island.

 

[loady]

Tank theft is the least of your worries on Bonaire. Tanks are so commonplace that they don't have unique value, and they're all labeled anyway. It's a small island - where's the black market for stolen tanks? The only thing I can imagine is some tourist deciding they "need" an extra tank and snagging one at random, but I've literally never heard of that happening.

Like most others, we've also never had anything stolen from our vehicles at dive sites. But apparently it can be a thing, so the above advice is spot-on: Doors unlocked, windows down a bit, nothing valuable in sight.

I personally had worse luck at the Enterprise rental car station near LAX at the start of a recent trip. My backpack got separated from me on the shuttle bus and when I got it back, I had been relieved of everything electronic: Laptop, tablet, cables, headphones, TG-6 dive camera (but not its waterproof housing nor wet lens!), and $450 in cash that was squirreled away in a deep, deep pocket inside. The idiots didn't take the laptop's unique charger so that became useless in a few hours of them struggling to get past login security, they didn't take the camera's batteries nor chargers, didn't take my US Passport, etc. They WERE clever enough to take my prescription sunglasses with my rather strong -4.x prescription! They "made" $450 and an outdated Samsung tablet, but caused me a ton of grief resourcing everything I'd lost.

I’m sorry to hear that. Theft is a real worry with Travel. Whenever is think I’m paranoid I think of stories like this or worse, robberies by force. I remember aggressively yelling at wanna be thieves swarming me in Rome many years ago. In Thailand I woke up to a person coming in my beach shack window on Ko Tao Island. I yelled , he yelled and ran off. Did your insurance replace it all or were you out of pocket a lot of money?