What is a reasonable number of shore dives to get in a day?

[gmerick]

A good day is two shore dives.

On St Croix, I do the majority of my diving from shore. Except for the close-in tourist sites, the north shore wall is 1/4 mile or so off the beach. My typical dive day, having packed the truck the night before, I arrive at the beach, scout the shore break, gear up, and hit the water. Twenty+ minute surface swim, dive, twenty+ minute return to shore - usually under water -- and swap out tanks. That extra 40+ minutes harshes my dive mellow, so I like to extend my dive into the 2+ hour range after the surface swim and before the return. So I dive with either a pair of AL80's on air or a pair of 120's on EAN32.

Placing a 2 hour shore interval between two 3 hour dives tends to eat up an entire day. I watch my NDL, and I'm very careful returning from the second dive to watch my GF99/SurfGf.

In my book, shore diving takes much more out of a day than paying for a boat. Yes, it's way easier on the wallet, but at a significant investment in time.

 

[SelfDiver]

I'll be heading to Bonaire in late June for 5 days of solo diving. My hope is that by picking sites in an area, I should be able to get in 4 shore dives per day. On two of the days, I also plan to get into town in time to do a night dive with VIP Diving.

As I'm putting down notes and watching videos for each site though, I'm starting to worry that all the extra time getting past the rocks and swimming out and back from the buoys where I start the dive may be cramping the number of dives per day.

What is your all's experience with this?

@DF200
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[DF200]

Yes, thank you all for providing your experiences.

 

[nldunn]

Four dives a day is pretty straightforward.
Avoid going over lots of rocks to get in; many sites ae marked for a good way to get in, and one of the shore-diving books will also help. For example, south of Salt Pier you can almost walk in on sand, whereas anywhere else you are clambering over slippery rocks.
Don't waste any time swimming out to and back from the marker buoy; start and end your dive in the shallows....lots of interesting stuff to see, and much more relaxing. Get in chest deep water, take a compass bearing on the marker buoy, drop down and swim out. Reverse the course to get back to where you dropped down.
If you only end up with 3 dives some day, that's OK. It's not a competition.

I've been thinking about Bonaire but clambering over slippery rocks doesn't sound fun for this 63 year old. Is that accurate?

 

[Ray and Pam]

I've been thinking about Bonaire but clambering over slippery rocks doesn't sound fun for this 63 year old. Is that accurate?

We're 63 and 67 and don't spend the whole vacay shore diving with a truck anymore. On the south side some days the surge can make it more difficult to get out deep enough to put fins on. The southern sites are more prone to this as that part of the island is flater and has some shallows before getting to the dropoff. Some sites in this area are easier than others.
On the north side the terrain begins rising and the water and reef are deeper and closer to shore.
Our next trip this fall we're staying 11 days at a resort with boat diving and good house reef diving via a dock and ladder. Doesn't get any easier. We'll rent a truck towards the end of our stay for 2-3 days to do some off resort shore diving.

 

[nldunn]

We're 63 and 67 and don't spend the whole vacay shore diving with a truck anymore. On the south side some days the surge can make it more difficult to get out deep enough to put fins on. The southern sites are more prone to this as that part of the island is flater and has some shallows before getting to the dropoff. Some sites in this area are easier than others.
On the north side the terrain begins rising and the water and reef are deeper and closer to shore.
Our next trip this fall we're staying 11 days at a resort with boat diving and good house reef diving via a dock and ladder. Doesn't get any easier. We'll rent a truck towards the end of our stay for 2-3 days to do some off resort shore diving.

That resort sounds like my cup of tea!! I hope you do a report when you get back! Thank you.

 

[scubadada]

That resort sounds like my cup of tea!! I hope you do a report when you get back! Thank you.

There are many options you can read about in this forum.

If you stay at Sand Dollar or Den Laman you can dive with Dive Friends. Their boats leave from the pier and Bari Reef is an outstanding house reef.

Buddy Dive gets a lot of posts on SB, several boats and a good house reef. You might also investigate Capt Don's, Divi Flamingo, and Plaza Resort. There are an infinite number of options with variable access to shore and boat diving. The 2024 ScubaBoard Invasion was at Plaza Resort

 

[Doctorfish]

If you want good boat diving I would not use Buddy Dive. They almost always go to Klein or main island sites near the resort. Gets stale pretty quick.

 

[Eric_K]

My wife and I just finished our 12th trip to Bonaire. We used to do up to 4 dives per day. Now, 3 dives per day are enough, 3 1/2 hours.
I just did 38 dives in 13 days, 42:50 dive time.

Nice! I'm looking to get down there this fall. Were yours boat and/or shore dives? Presuming some of them boat dives, did you have a dive buddy or did you 'follow the DM'?

 

[scubadada]

If you want good boat diving I would not use Buddy Dive. They almost always go to Klein or main island sites near the resort. Gets stale pretty quick.

Dive Friends goes to Klein Bonaire and to the 8 northern sites not accessible from shore. The northern sites were easily the best on our May visit.