Diving in Bonaire, did it increase you confidence level

[wildbill9]

Had an interesting discussion with my dive buddy (wife) last night and it surprised me. We are planning our next trip back and she commented how nervous she was on our first trip. She said it worried her diving without a dive master, wondering if we would have trouble finding our way back to our entry point and what would she do in an emergency situation. It was an enlightening conversation. She stated it greatly improved her confidence and made her a better dive buddy and diver in general. We are totally dependent on each other and we have no safety line to done fall back on. We communicated better underwater, watched each other more, did a better buddy check before, during and after a dive. Yes we always found our exit, yes we all did survive a dive emergency and yes we are both better and safer dive buddies. There is incredible dive freedom but it comes with more dive responsibility. Has anyone else experienced this? Bill and Deedee (dive buddies for life)

 

[Diver-6873]

Had an interesting discussion with my dive buddy (wife) last night and it surprised me. We are planning our next trip back and she commented how nervous she was on our first trip. She said it worried her diving without a dive master, wondering if we would have trouble finding our way back to our entry point and what would she do in an emergency situation. It was an enlightening conversation. She stated it greatly improved her confidence and made her a better dive buddy and diver in general. We are totally dependent on each other and we have no safety line to done fall back on. We communicated better underwater, watched each other more, did a better buddy check before, during and after a dive. Yes we always found our exit, yes we all did survive a dive emergency and yes we are both better and safer dive buddies. There is incredible dive freedom but it comes with more dive responsibility. Has anyone else experienced this? Bill and Deedee (dive buddies for life)

Bill, the two of you sound very similar to my wife and I, dive partners for life. Until we actually moved to Bonaire, we had only done guided boat dives together. Diving here has made us so much better divers in every aspect. Navigation on shore dives here is truly not difficult when you work as a team. We combine, dive time, compass directional, and underwater landmarks. While we will occasionally “prairie dog” to the surface following a safety stop and coming into the shallows to double check our landing, we have never had an issue... if you dive as partners for life, you will just get better and better. Enjoy!

 

[cachow6]

For my wife and I we arrived in Bonaire with 29 dives and left with 50. We felt a huge confidence boost in our navigation, independence, buddy checks, buoyancy, and overall attitude. Of course in our stage the pure doubling of our dive experience contributed as well to the confidence boost but I imagine it would have happened much slower doing exclusively guided boat dives.

 

[Lorenzoid]

Your experience with Bonaire mirrors ours.

 

[scubadada]

One of my wife's fears was diving into the blue without reference. Diving in Bonaire largely took care of that with the reef before the wall. This was true of our shore dives and boat dives. My wife's confidence has improved to the point that she makes deep drops without problem.

 

[Schwob]

Absolutely.
It may well be the easiest DIY diving around, but it is so worth it. My son and I went first thing after getting certified and it gave us all the reason and oppertunity to work ourselves from guys with freshly printed cert cards to divers thinking they are worth the ink used to print the cards. Plan and execute a few dives, practise some drills, expand on it thinking about it all along and you learn so much much more than when following instruction. And then you dive more, challenge your navigation skills more... and learn more yet. And again...
And you know what you know and can do (in those conditions) as opposed to knowing what you were able to follow or replicate under close suoervision.
Ergo, confidence booster.
Of course.

That is as long as you are inclined to be / become / act like a thinking diver and are not the person that is a whole lot more inclined to be a happy go lucky diver, willing to (and comfortable with) "let the DM worry about whatever, who even cares about what..." (I might have heard someone say that)
For that diver it may also boost confidence if nothing happened, but it might be a false and dangerous boost then.

 

[tkaelin]

It definitely did for my wife and our kids. When we first visited Bon in '09, my wife had been out of diving for a long time and I know she was somewhat nervous. She also had some bad experiences with boat diving with sea sickness. We also had in tow a 12 and 15 year old who were doing their open water dives for their dive cert. Being able to shore dive from an easy protected house reef (Capt Don's) and having an amazing instructor (thanks Leo H.) for our kids made for a fabulous week of diving and we have been going strong since.

 

[AdivingBel]

It may have to do with the amount of diving prior to the trip. My wife & I dived for years in S. FL & the Keys and had dive traveled to other warm water locales. We usually did our own thing underwater, so the actual diving was fairly routine. That said, the gearing up on tailgates and crunching across ironshore was not. Midway through our first week my wife was a solid bruise from her left hip to her toes and I had broken the little toe on my right foot (I had a little technicolor show of my own brewing ). I would say our confidence was ebbing at that point. Fortunately we had committed to a two week trip and by the end of the second week we we're having a blast (even if I was walking with a limp). My wife has pointed out on numerous occasions that if it had been a one week trip, we would have never gone back. We luv "dive freedom." We've made wonderful friends on the island and we return at least annually with our confidence high.

 

[pjhansman]

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that this learning is not unique to Bonaire, but to any place that offers decent shore diving. Being your own divemaster is the greatest way to learn.

Like AdivingBel, the big challenge for us was the "interesting" entries and exits. Of course, for several years we did most of our diving in Maui, which also offers some nice shore diving.....along with less visibility and incredible surge at times if you misjudge the trade winds.

 

[Lorenzoid]

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that this learning is not unique to Bonaire, but to any place that offers decent shore diving. Being your own divemaster is the greatest way to learn.

I’ll go out on a limb and say that for most North American “tropical vacation divers,” Bonaire is likely to be their first exposure to shore diving. I’m sure you’re right that it exists in places like Maui, and to a limited extent elsewhere in the Caribbean, but Bonaire is unique in that if you are planning a trip there you are almost certainly planning to do mostly shore diving. It’s the first thing on an inexperienced diver’s mind when they are considering Bonaire: “Am I capable of doing this without a guide?” For many of us, we really weren’t sure until we tried it. And by the end of the trip our confidence in not just our ability to shore dive but, more generally, our ability to plan and execute our dives, had gotten a huge boost.