diverrex
Contributor
There seems to be lots of info about the popular dive ops on Bonaire like Buddys, Plaza and Capt. Dons and not as much about the others. We made our second trip to Bonaire in December and dived with Dive Friends so I figure I’ll give it a quick review. Our first trip was this past June and we stayed at Vince’s Vinibu unit at Bellevue but unfortunately that unit was booked all December so we ended up staying at the OceanVista unit at Port Bonaire this trip, not as nice as Vinibu and the Bellevue complex but still a very nice unit. Since Dive Friends has a shop right at Port Bonaire we figured we’d give it a try.
Pros:
· All the staff was very friendly and accommodating
· Nitrox at no additional charge on a 6 day package
· Always lots of nitrox tanks including the little 63’s my wife likes
· Parking right next to the tank pickup, almost as good as a drive-thru
· You can drop off or pickup tanks at any of their four locations
· With only 5 divers on the boat it was very roomy, it was still ok with 12 divers
· 60 minute dives on boat dives and you could dive your own profile without the DM
· Rinse tank, outdoor shower and restrooms at the dive shop
Cons:
· On boat dives we left Port Bonaire then went to Dive Inn and then Yellow Submarine to pick up other staff or divers, and of course reversed that on the route back. This added about an hour compared to heading straight to Klein Bonaire
· The Nitrox analyzer was consistently not calibrated or capable of being calibrated. So the staff says calibration consists of hooking up an air tank, take a reading of say 29 so you then figured you need to subtract 8 from whatever Nitrox reading you got, so on a Nitrox tank it reads 40 you subtract 8 to get to 32. Since we usually were not going below 60 FSW anyway I didn’t let this bother me, but I’m sure some would not be happy with this method
· There are lockers at the dive shop but they were only available from 8 AM – 5 PM meaning we still hauled gear back to our unit most days.
Bottom line: Great for shore diving but the boat takes too long for the boat dives.
A few other notes about dive sites:
· 1000 steps was really pretty above and below, and climbing back up the steps after the dive wasn’t so bad, it was definitely worth it.
· Hilma Hooker is a really easy dive – easy parking right at water edge, easy sand entry, quick swim out to the wreck, easy to find the wreck, easy to see the whole length first at the bottom at 85 fsw then the length back again at the top at 60 fsw. We dived it twice.
· My favorite site is still Bari Reef, we always entered at the site mid-way between Eden Beach and Den Laman – a very easy sand entry, then would head north. We dived it three times.
· We saw 5 lionfish, 3 out at Klein Bonaire and one each at 1000 Steps and Windsock, we tagged a cork at those two.
Four of my favorite photos below, more can be found here: Diverrex.com
Lionfish sighting at 1000 Steps
Hilma Hooker
Turtle out at Keepsake at Klein Bonaire
1000 Steps
Pros:
· All the staff was very friendly and accommodating
· Nitrox at no additional charge on a 6 day package
· Always lots of nitrox tanks including the little 63’s my wife likes
· Parking right next to the tank pickup, almost as good as a drive-thru
· You can drop off or pickup tanks at any of their four locations
· With only 5 divers on the boat it was very roomy, it was still ok with 12 divers
· 60 minute dives on boat dives and you could dive your own profile without the DM
· Rinse tank, outdoor shower and restrooms at the dive shop
Cons:
· On boat dives we left Port Bonaire then went to Dive Inn and then Yellow Submarine to pick up other staff or divers, and of course reversed that on the route back. This added about an hour compared to heading straight to Klein Bonaire
· The Nitrox analyzer was consistently not calibrated or capable of being calibrated. So the staff says calibration consists of hooking up an air tank, take a reading of say 29 so you then figured you need to subtract 8 from whatever Nitrox reading you got, so on a Nitrox tank it reads 40 you subtract 8 to get to 32. Since we usually were not going below 60 FSW anyway I didn’t let this bother me, but I’m sure some would not be happy with this method
· There are lockers at the dive shop but they were only available from 8 AM – 5 PM meaning we still hauled gear back to our unit most days.
Bottom line: Great for shore diving but the boat takes too long for the boat dives.
A few other notes about dive sites:
· 1000 steps was really pretty above and below, and climbing back up the steps after the dive wasn’t so bad, it was definitely worth it.
· Hilma Hooker is a really easy dive – easy parking right at water edge, easy sand entry, quick swim out to the wreck, easy to find the wreck, easy to see the whole length first at the bottom at 85 fsw then the length back again at the top at 60 fsw. We dived it twice.
· My favorite site is still Bari Reef, we always entered at the site mid-way between Eden Beach and Den Laman – a very easy sand entry, then would head north. We dived it three times.
· We saw 5 lionfish, 3 out at Klein Bonaire and one each at 1000 Steps and Windsock, we tagged a cork at those two.
Four of my favorite photos below, more can be found here: Diverrex.com
Lionfish sighting at 1000 Steps
Hilma Hooker
Turtle out at Keepsake at Klein Bonaire
1000 Steps
Last edited:
