Here’s some more….
Dive Op Bonaire Dive and Adventure (BDA)
BDA operated from our condo’s premises. The dive shop and tank station was about 50 feet from our door, and we had absolutely no noise complaints nor parking problems because of them. Another tank station was on the dock right around the corner. The dock was great in my eyes. Nice gearing up area, rinse tanks, fresh water showers and option either to giant stride, go down the stairs or wade in on little sandy area.
Gear storage room was a good setup but we did not end up using it much. The opening hours (8.30-9.30) did not work for us so well. We did however use the little 24hr gear lockers even though it was mentioned that they aren’t the safest. Many guests did not use them but we had brought our own padlocks and kept our tanks, weights and fins there many a night. Rest of the gear we brought up to the room, not much of a hassle. Balconies were spacious, and drying racks were provided. At no point did I feel too unsure leaving stuff there. Night guards were always visibly on duty too.
The set up generally was very convenient, and the orientation the first morning was a positive surprise. We had option of morning orientation or for the red-eye guests they offered a separate 2 pm one. For a first timer it gave a very good introduction to the island, the dive shop and the dive sites. The DM gave very balanced info about shore diving, boat diving and general tourist activities. Not just selling stuff but good practical tips. Compared to what others had said about their orientations, I found ours good. I am sure for repeat customers it was not so needed but nobody was taking names. After the orientation we were able to purchase our Marine Park tags in the shop, and either do our first dive on our own schedule or go to the dock where Dms were ready to assist newcomers. We found the BDA staff, starting from boss Andre, to be very friendly and approachable. Most were jolly bunch and offered help and tips beyond diving.
We made only one boat dive, so can’t comment much about those. The operation had two boats, the one we were on was comfortable (max 15 divers). We had some difficulty getting to go on sites we wanted as many boats went to shore sites we had already done. (First people to sign decided the site). It was supposed to be easy to sign for a boat dive the day before but just when we arrived a large group with pre-paid boat dives landed, and things got a bit more stacked up. (As we heard, a lot of boat dives got signed on and a lot of no-shows happened – people, don’t do this!) We weren’t particularly keen on the boat schedule (9am, 11am and 2 am). I think some other ops started at 8 am which would have worked better for us. We got to go to Klein once, and that made us happy.
There was one main issue with BDA’s service that we shared with a lot of customers, namely the opening hours. We would not have known any better if more experienced customers would not have told us that this is not how things work elsewhere. We had free nitrox upgrade but nitrox tanks were only available 8.30-4.30. This meant that instead of going on about our vacation no-worries schedule, we had to constantly run on time, and worry when we are back to make sure we had time to hoard tanks. During siesta we had to make sure we had tanks for afternoon/night dives plus our two morning dives that we embarked on way before the shop opened. We had been told that we were supposed to take only 2 tanks/head at a time, so naturally we felt like sneaking around until we noticed that everyone was hogging the same way. Luckily there were only two occasions when the tank stock was getting low. We also slowly got better avoiding the crowded times at tank return/pick-up.
It would certainly be more convenient to have 24hr service. (Air tanks were available 8.30-9.30). Nobody ever said a cross word though, so all we lost was the tank lugging between truck and lockers, and the loss of freedom having to stare at the time. All in all, we were happy with the dive op but would hope that BDA would remedy that issue. If you are going for the first time, I would not hesitate to recommend them. They made it very easy for newbies to get going. They also have naturalist Jerry Ligon, caver Henk Sanders and GUE instructor Benji Schaub on their staff.
