Give me your bonaire newbie 1st 3 days shore dive itinerary

[Mike]

We will be in Bonaire with another couple at the end of the month. Myself and my wife will be fine with whatever we do, however the other couple, the wife has trepedations about shore diving. She is a new diver with under 20 dives, almost all boat dives or a couple of easy sand entry beach shore dives.

If she has a bad experience in her first couple of shore dives... waves knocking her over, cuts, brusies, falling down on rocks, sea urchins stuck to her butt... etc... she is going to bail out on her husband and want to only boat dive. If she can start off slow and get some easy, good experiences in at the beginning she will be okay.

What would be your recommened dive itinerary for shore dives, considering starting with the very simplest and easiest?

Thanks,

 

[skynscuba]

Where are you staying?

Front Porch and Something Special are very easy walk-in entries. I use BDA, and their dock at Bari Reef has either giant stride or stairs, as you chose. I think Buddy has similar, and Habitat probably does, etc. Cliff is another easy entry.

I've only been to Bonaire twice (3rd later this month), but I have never had what I would call even a moderately difficult entry. Karpata was probably the worst, and I wouldn't want to do that on a rough day with a big camera rig. Some others are a bit of work getting down the ledge to do the entry (old blue, witch's hut), and some have more of a step down than others at the water's edge. It is worth a couple of minutes at many sites to figure out the easiest spot. IIRC, Vista Blue down south had a pretty easy entry.\

Check out the wind/wave forecast at WindGURU: Netherlands Antilles - Bonaire

 

[diversteve]

Scuba Shore Diving Region: ABC Islands shows photos of a lot of the entry points. At many of them particularly north of the resorts or south of Belnem, you'll see there's ironshore both onshore and submerged just offshore. Also often coral rubble in the surge line. At some there are sand channels cut through the ironshore that lead out to deeper water.

Without giving it a lot of thought these would be easier entries:

Webers Joy/Witches Hut. There's a small cliff (2-3' drop) to be navigated on the beach.

The dive resorts north of town:

Cliff/LaMachaca - two dive sites off Capt' Dons Habitat. Swim north for Cliff.
Buddy Dive's house reef
Bari Reef between Sand Dollar and Den Laman condos - most counted fish species in the Caribbean at this site.
Front Porch off Eden Beach resort.

All have dive docks and/or sandy beach entries. I've never dove Buddy's but the others would make my top 20 list.

Divi Flamingo in town has nice dock facilities.

18 Palms at the Plaza Resort. Park in the small lot just north of the resort and walk in. The Toucan Dive shop is all the way on the other end of the property (it's a long way) by the lagoon so don't follow their signage from the main entrance - go drive past it going west, the lot s/b on your left before you turn towards town.

Windsock just off the airport. Never been there but people told me it was a flat entry.

Bachelors Beach in Belnem - stairs to the water - the last one can be a bit of a drop..

Most of the known dive sites just south of there - the Hooker, Invisibles, Angel City, Alice in Wonderland should be saved for later in the week when she has her footing.

Angel City has the added complication of big holes in the offshore ironshore. That you can't see. I have a 4" scar on my right shin to remind me. Once I did that early in the week, I went out of my way to find easier entry points.

At Pink Beach - there's an entry through the ironshore.

Salt Pier is a good dive for a beginner, it's shallow, full of interesting stuff and an easy entry off their "beach". It's DM escorted only now so ask him/her to show you the best entry. Closer to the pier there's a submerged ironshore reef, but it's 2-3' deep there so I just floated in over on my back, stood up and walked out.

Anything south of White Slave is often an advanced dive due to currents. There are some easy entries nearby but it may fool you. We did a dive at Vista Blue one day where the soft corals were bent over flat - it wasn't apparent floating on the surface. There is a really nice entry there, I sat on that rock in the picture seen on the Shorediving site, geared up and walked out into the sand channel till I was floating.

A lot of the buoys/ropes in that area may have fire coral on them. Kind of brownish looking. So use them as a reef indicator but not a descent line - no gloves allowed. IIRC correctly we saw it at Salt Pier on the pilings also in one area.

North of town, Karpata, both "Leaps" and 1000Steps might be overwhelming visually also. Karpata looked like a rough entry also - we didn't try just looked it over.

Actually 1000Steps isn't a bad entry, it's just that climb up...(64 rock steps - yes I counted them...lol)

Another option would be boat dives at Klein Bonaire - a couple easy dives were Jerry's Reef and Forest. There's Black Coral at 70' + at Forest if your new diver can do that depth. Turtles around the mooring at Jerry's - really shallow - 20' or less. And an easy drift dive at Hands Off.

The Rappel boat dive off Bonaire was in our top 10 best dives for the week.

hth,

 

[tkaelin]

Last month I dove invisibles with my 13 yr old son, 16 year old daughter and wife and was very easy entry, easy dive over sand to reef. Easy to navigate. Watched eagle rays for 20 minutes. Check it out. TK

 

[herman]

First off, the house reef where ever you are staying. The next 2 I would recommend are Windsock - a very easy sandy entry and Tori's Reef- an old intake for the salt work just past the salt pier. It has a short stepdown but otherwise very easy as well. For a slight step up and one of my favorite dive, try Oilslick. You can giant stride off the rocks or climb down the ladder.

The trick for later dives is to scope out the entry point before going in. There is almost always a channel between the coral if you will take the time to study it. Most of the time it's narrow so orientating yourself to some land object before submerging is critical to finding it on your return.

 

[drrich2]

I've found Windsock to be easy entry. Note that 'Windsock' and the site at 'Windsock Resort' are not the same site. Windsock is open access; you don't have to go through a resort's grounds to get to it. A friend & I chose it for a night dive since we figured coming out would be fairly easy, and there was some shore structure at one end of the site that made it fairly easy to pop out at the place we went in.

Oil Slick is easy entry with a ladder to climb out at the end of your dive, if you can handle a roughly 7 or 8 foot giant stride drop in (actually fun, but can be intimidating to some).

Eden Beach Resort has a pier you can giant stride off of; they call the site 'Eden's Rubble' for a reason, but I like working the shoreline rock shelf, or heading out to the wreck of the Bakanal. Be mindful at Eden's Rubble there's current off & on; if the moored boats are perpendicular to shore, minimal current. If parallel to it, there's more significant current.

Richard.

 

[DiverVince]

Mike: My wife has RA so I have to be very careful with her ankles. Rest assured I know EZ dive sites since I dive them enough. If I had a newbie, the first place I'd take her is Something Special. Very EZ entry & exit. SS is right in front of the Blue Water Condo residence.
Don't know where you're staying, but it maybe a bit easier ((or more convenient may be a better word) at your house reef. Since I don't know where you'll be, can't comment, but I do know that Buddy's, Habitat, Den laman, Bellafonte, Belmar all have EZ dock entries with showers conveniently located so that may be the ideal first dive spot.
Others of course suggested, donkey beach, windsock, Tori's reef and there also a great EZ (unmarked)dive down south called "the rock" which we dive quite frequently. Ask someone down there to show you where it is and how to dive it.

 

[DiverVince]

Also, here's a tip I use when deciding when & where to dive..Use the below site. it provides wind speed & direction. Generally speaking the lower the windspeed the easier the dive conditions on the shore entries will be. winds from the east are fine. Winds from south east will tend to build the surf on the northern sites and winds from the NE will be vice-a-versa. This is a general guide to use and may not be site specific.

WindGURU: Netherlands Antilles - Bonaire

 

[siegelreptiles]

hilma hooker and then oil slick----

easy entry and then by the time you ungear and have drink and drive to oil slick you have already had your surface interval--and oil slick is so much fun to dive.

 

[drrich2]

Gotta say I found the 'step off' from the shore into the water at Hilma Hooker to be somewhat steep. And there are sea urchins along the edge, under the water, so sitting on the edge & sticking your feet in, then standing up, isn't an option, either.

I love Oil Slick Leap, but then, I enjoy the giant stride in. It's one of the sites I dove most in our 3 trips.

Richard.