Newb here - primarily a vacation diver until I can retire!

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SheriBeri

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Hi All,

I just got certified OW 3 years ago in Bermuda. My husband was NAUI certified many years ago in Monterrey Bay.

We had a fabulous trip to Bonaire in 2019, where the hubby and I fell in love with the area. We enjoyed boat diving in the AM then shore diving in the afternoon.

We are trying to schedule a trip for September to Curacao to check out a different island. The flights are looking terrible. All the returns are redeye. Is that unique to the current situation? I assume there were more flights pre-Covid?

As a result, we began considering Aruba. Just curious - I see very little information about shore diving in Aruba. Are there shore diving options?

An alternative is for us to do Roatan this fall and save the ABCs for another trip later.

Seeking advice/opinions. Thanks, all!
 
Welcome to the board. I agree with loving Bonaire. We do the routine the opposite way, shore diving in the morning and in the afternoon I hop on a boat and my significant other can then tour the island as she wishes.
 
Welcome to SB! Your questions will get more attention if you post in the appropriate forums for the ABC Islands: Lesser Antilles There are even sub-forums for Curacao and Bonaire.

Flights are tough everywhere right now. Delta had good Weds.-Weds. fares to Bonaire from ATL.
 
Welcome to ScubaBoard! Glad you're here. Hope to read your reports of your dive trips!
 
Welcome! Check out the regional forums for location specific, but recall Aruba was boat, further offshore than you experienced on Bonaire. Avid Bonaire diver, prolly my fav place because of flexibility > boat AM or PM, shore 24/7, reefs 5 kicks out, flat, warm, rare current, rarely a blown out day, you may find a spotted eagle or manta in 4 feet of water...October is our 15th straight year visiting, even managed a March 2020 trip, before we were kicked off the island. Done a bunch of shore diving in Grand Cayman, believe they are still restricting tourists.
 
As a result, we began considering Aruba. Just curious - I see very little information about shore diving in Aruba.

I don't see many trip reports about Aruba at all (I have a link to one by somebody else in my notes -
Trip Report: Aruba - Trip report: Aruba)
; if you go, post us one! For shore diving in the Caribbean region, Bonaire is the most frequently cited, Curacao the #2 option based on forum discussions, and after that...the pickings get slimmer. Grand Cayman has some shore diving cites (note with Cobalt Coast, sea conditions and temporarily end that) - but you can't go there right now (note: Cayman Brac has some shore diving, too). Roatan has shore diving depending on where you stay...such as CocoView Resort off southern Roatan. St. Croix has shore diving off the north coast - such as Davis Bay (long swim out) and Cane Bay (real long swim out) and to the west at Frederiksted Pier (popular).

If a shore diving trip were a big deal right now for me, I'd either go back to Bonaire or make the best of the Curacao flight situation.

Curacao Trip Research Notes
Curacao Trip Report with SB Surge Jan. 2019
St. Croix Research Report Aug. 2017 - Trip Report - St. Croix Research Report Aug. 2017
CocoView Trip Report May 2021 - Trip Report - CocoView Resort May 8-15, 2021
My Research Notes for Bonaire - My Research Note For Bonaire
 
Welcome to SB. Lots of great info here.

Aruba was a pandemic time trip we had to cancel early this year - had hoped to dive some different sites as we would have been staying on a different part of the island than first time we visited. Some nice wrecks to be seen - easy drift diving when we were there. Don't recall much talk about shore diving but here is a link to some possible sites:
Scuba Shore Diving Site Listing for: Aruba, ABC Islands
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/

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