Packing for Bonaire - question

[herman]

ok........so.....about the mesh bag.......we have mesh dive bags that will hold all our gear and have a dry pocket inside, etc..........however.......i thought that if we leave that bag in the truck while diving we're risking it getting stolen. (the bags aren't cheap/junky) please advise. also......what about the "wild" side diving? worth it?? what's different over there? one more question........i read somewhere that the site called 1000 steps has some sort of fungus or something all over everything from 40' down to 130' plus.......so........skip that site?? thx all

I stopped taking any sort of gear bag years ago. It just toss the BC and stuff into the back of the truck. I wrap the regs/mask in my wetsuit for protection but otherwise it's just there. We almost never stop between the dive sites and the resort and if we do, we just leave one person on truck watch. I found a gear bag more hassel that it was worth and that cut down 2 more things in my luggage.

To me, Larry's is a do it once, get the Tshirt and that is the end of it. IMO, wait until you have a couple trips under your weightbelt then do Larry's, there is going to be plenty to do on your first trip without it. It's a little more "wild" than some other places but pretty mild by NC standards. The exit and "extraction" off his RIB is fun but not worth a second time to me.

I would not pass up 1000 Steps. Reguardless of the reef, it is Bonaire's signature dive so you should do it once. Same goes for Oil Slick, it took a big hit during the last hurricane but still a must do on a newbies list.

 

[gypsyjim]

You can trust Herman's advice. It was Herman and Deputy Dan that introduced us to Bonaire diving originnally, and he won't stear you wrong!

 

[DiverVince]

Oh, bring coffee if you drink it--not much available that is drinkable IMO. // ww

WW You gotta try Dewey Egberts..The best!

 

[donnad]

all righty........gear bag stays home....just as well........takes up more space in suitcase you guys are so awesome.........really appreciate the input. not looking forward to that PBD!!!!!

 

[Warmwater Wank]

Dewey Egberts? Does that come in a bigger bottle than Amstel Bright? Oh wait, it's coffee. Well...maybe. But I won't leave home w/out a backup. // ww

 

[DiveMaven]

We bought a simple mesh sack from Bonaire Dive and Adventure for like $10 to be able to more easily carry our small stuff from condo to truck. It doesn't have any pockets, thus not much of an attraction for thieves. We got these free mesh bags from PADI last year and plan to bring one of those as well, simply leaving the pocket unzipped and open so hopefully it won't walk away...but if it does, who cares?

I shouldn't have written "mesh boat bag" since that's really not accurate as we have those nice boat bags too. Chalk it up to my brain going on vacation early!

Also, Larry no longer runs the east side charter, it was sold and rebadged as "East Coast Diving". Some of the criticisms of Larry's operation was that he always went to the same 2 sites, which is why we didn't bother last year. The new operation isn't suffering from that save criticism, so we're going to give it a shot. I'll post a review next week after we've done it.

 

[donnad]

awesome, thx divemaven.

 

[StreetDoctor]

ok........so.....about the mesh bag.......we have mesh dive bags that will hold all our gear and have a dry pocket inside, etc..........however.......i thought that if we leave that bag in the truck while diving we're risking it getting stolen. (the bags aren't cheap/junky) please advise. also......what about the "wild" side diving? worth it?? what's different over there? one more question........i read somewhere that the site called 1000 steps has some sort of fungus or something all over everything from 40' down to 130' plus.......so........skip that site?? thx all

Depends on what you want to see. We did over 20 dives on the west side (calm) and didn't see a single turtle or eagle ray. (We did see a big nurse shark at Andrea II though). We did one dive on the east side and seen 5 very large turtles, and 7 or 8 eagle rays. Everything is larger on the east side, even the coral growth. Don't get me wrong at all either, the west side is beautiful and there's a TON to see. It really just comes down to personal preference. Diving the east side is much more adventurous and demanding than the rest of the island. We did it from shore and it would be a lot easier from boat. I don't know your gear configuration but for me I always have an SMB with a finger spool and I don't even know it's there unless I need it. IMO any ocean dive you should have some sort of signalling device.

We deployed it twice during our trip and it wasn't completely necessary if we would have swam in to shore but like other people said the shore diving is REALLY easy and we wanted to see the reef so on some dives we'd use our air up and just surface swim in from over the reef. Both times we used it (once at the hilma hooker, once at andrea II) were because we heard boat traffic. We started our dive at the hilma at 07:30 and we had it all to ourselves, when we surfaced about an hour later after deploying the smb from depth we found 3 dive boats above us. Same applies for Andrea II. If you decided to dive some of the southern sites like red baryl it'd be smart to do the same if you plan to surface anywhere but right near shore due to all the kite surfers. I don't know about you but I value my head, kite boards are hard and props are sharp

 

[jad1965@frontiernet.n]

We are Also eaveing for Bonaire on the 11th for two weeks. Aint it a small world!!!

 

[herman]

We are Also eaveing for Bonaire on the 11th for two weeks. Aint it a small world!!!

Where are you staying and what airline?
If Cont, Newark or Houston. We are staying at Den Lamen and flying Cont via Newark.