What is Bonaire Like If You Already Dove on Curaçao?

[Lorenzoid]

"Mixed reviews" of Bonaire boat diving are what I have read, too--probably the same reviews you have. After four (I think) Bonaire trips, I still haven't gotten around to doing a boat dive--there are just so many sites that do not require me to show up at a dock at a particular time that, according to these mixed reviews, are believed by many to be just as good as the sites the boats visit. SOME reviews have named a site or two on Klein that they strongly believe is "better" or at least as good as the average site on Bonaire, but I get the impression that when you go to put your name on the chalkboard the probability is low that the site they indicate they will be visiting is THAT one that some guy on SB said you should dive. I suppose you could check the chalkboard day after day until your preferred site shows up, but to me, that's not my idea of laid-back diving--not the reason I chose Bonaire over other dive destinations. I like to get up the morning, do a house reef dive before breakfast, and then later, over a lazy cup of coffee, figure out what sites we want to visit that day. That's the essence of why I love Bonaire--more for the ability to do that than for what's underwater, though what's underwater is very good by Caribbean standards. Almost everywhere else in the world I have been, I have been a slave to a boat schedule. Bonaire is my vacation from boats.

The people I have been traveling with to Bonaire on the last three trips have been to Bonaire many more times than I have, and they say they did some boat dives on their first few trips and are done with that, it wasn't that different from the shore dives, and they prefer not having to conform their schedules to a boat. Someday, I WILL do a boat dive, I swear.

 

[KeithG]

The questions being asked on this thread are getting varied responses because the inquiries are subjective in nature. Everyone will have an opinion on the subjects without anyone necessarily being wrong in their responses. To the original poster, I think you have gotten a good spread of opinions. Some of us have in the excitement of planning for a new dive trip have the tendency at times to overthink or overplan. My advice at this point is go enjoy the island and the diving and let us know how you enjoyed it. Whether you boat dive or not or hit this site or not I suspect you will thoroughly enjoy your diving and trip.

To drrich's point about boat diving and preferring a two tank, again this is all personal preference. If I was not staying at Capt Don's and had to load my truck from where I was staying, drive over, find parking, load onto the boat etc. than I guess I see your point. There are other ways to do it though. We have our gear at a locker at Capt Dons right by the boat dock. So for us it is very easy to walk from our locker to the boat and off we go.

We actually prefer the one boat schedule. The rides out are short. The schedule is varied with two trips in the am and one in the PM. This gives us the flexibility to get in house reef and shore dives when we want. The most attractive part of boat diving in Bon besides the low cost is the way Capt Don's runs their boat dives. I have not seen this anywhere else and wish more places did the same.

They run boat diving with the true dive freedom thinking. Book in advance, don't book in advance. Book as part of a package or go ala carte. It doesn't really matter. If you dive with Capt Don's say on a shore diving package which includes some boat dives which we do, you get a dive number. The boat dive schedule is on a chalk board. They post each of there three dives the day before. They tell you the site the boat is going to the day before. You sign up by writing your number in one of the squares under the boat. The number of squares represents the number of seats on the boat. You can sign up the day before or anytime up until the boat departs. You can also change your mind up until the boat leaves. You could have signed up say the afternoon before but decide to change your mind for whatever reason, the weather, how you feel, last minute change of mind whatever. Just erase your number. That's it. No penalty. No problem. This also gives you the flexibility to see how full the boat is. The morning boats tend to be fuller with those who have a 12 boat dive package. The afternoon boats tends to be less full and tend to go to Klein. We have on more than one occasion jumped on an afternoon boat last minute seeing a boat with just a couple divers signed up.

At the end of the week's stay they total up the number of trips you have taken. While 6 or 12 are the common number of boat dives in a typical boat/shore package, you can make a package with any number. We have done 3 in the past. Going over is not a problem as it is not that much more ala carte. Also, we dive as a family of 4 and they will let you apply the total to the group so if we purchased 3 each but I dive more but others dive less it is the total of the group purchase that they will look at. This all works great for us and is a big part of why we love boat diving as well as the shore diving in Bon. Sorry to ramble on this point but you get the idea. If you don't want to boat dive on Bon or prefer 2 tanks that is great too.

The boat sign up procedure at the divi is similar to Dons but has 1 advantage that caused us to switch away from Dons.

Dons signup board for the next day "opens" while the afternoon boat is out. By the time the afternoon boat gets back all of the next days morning boats are full. We got stuck one trip with no ability to do morning boat dives unless we sat out an afternoon dive and camped by the signup board. Dons did not have enough boat capacity for everyone to dive in the more popular morning. This may have changed?

Divi has enough boat capacity for every diver to dive every boat dive. I think their general sales model is to presell boat dive packages as opposed to shore diving. The signup board for each dive opens up as soon as the boat leaves the dock. Often what does happen is that a particular boat will be (mostly) prefilled with a club, but there is always free space somewhere.

 

[KeithG]

"Mixed reviews" of Bonaire boat diving are what I have read, too--probably the same reviews you have. After four (I think) Bonaire trips, I still haven't gotten around to doing a boat dive--there are just so many sites that do not require me to show up at a dock at a particular time that, according to these mixed reviews, are believed by many to be just as good as the sites the boats visit. SOME reviews have named a site or two on Klein that they strongly believe is "better" or at least as good as the average site on Bonaire, but I get the impression that when you go to put you name on the chalkboard the probability is low that the site they indicate they will be visiting isn't THAT one that some guy on SB said you should dive. I suppose you could check the chalkboard day after day until your preferred site shows up, but to me, that's not my idea of laid-back diving--not the reason I chose Bonaire over other dive destinations. I like to get up the morning, do a house reef dive before breakfast, and then later, over a lazy cup of coffee, figure out what sites we want to visit that day. That's the essence of why I love Bonaire--more for the ability to do that than for what's underwater, though what's underwater is very good by Caribbean standards. Almost everywhere else in the world I have been, I have been a slave to a boat schedule. Bonaire is my vacation from boats.

The people I have been traveling with to Bonaire on the last three trips have been to Bonaire many more times than I have, and they say they did some boat dives on their first few trips and are done with that, it wasn't that different from the shore dives, and they prefer not having to conform their schedules to a boat. Someday, I WILL do a boat dive, I swear.

You are correct. Boat dive sites are not guaranteed. It is a first come first serve basis. The first dive boat that reaches the mouring buoy gets to claim it. So early departure and fast boats are best.

 

[Kharon]

Karl's or Carel's vision may be one of the best sites on the island. I think it is only by boat. It is north. Not on most maps. Only place I recall diving on Bon with spur and groove coral formations and wall like.

Thanks. It's Carel's Vision, by boat only. The description doesn't mention spur and groove/ridge and channel. One site that does have that feature is Red Slave (farthest south site). It's also a good place to see spotted eaglerays and Caribbean stingrays if you get there early enough. And Cliff is a wall (if a small one) and that's where I'm staying.

Problem 1 - You can't tell for sure where the boat is going to go. I asked for far northern sites (trip before last) and we went to a couple of lackluster central sites. To be fair, the cap & DM might have realized what the other "divers" would do and deliberately went to the sites that were already degraded.

The boat was crowded and there were muppets crashing into the coral, through soft coral, grabbing coral so they could take a selfie. Every boat trip I've done on Bonaire (very few) has some of these @#$%&'s. I just can't watch that anymore. After seeing what happened I was glad they didn't go to pristine sites.

Problem 2 - I'm not sure I can get suited up and on and off a crowded boat easily. Especially for the 2nd dive. I'm pretty worn out right now. I need to get another test for Lyme. If it's not that, my diving days may be done (sux big time) - though I'll just go monkey snorkeling instead.

 

[Kharon]

Correction on my prior post. Rappel was the site with the spur and groove.

Yep - Rappel has the spur & groove. Even if I could do a boat, the book says "Due to its constant moderate to strong currents, this site is not suitable for beginner divers". I would add or for old weaker divers.

Wish I could do it - the book says it's one of Bon's most beautiful dive sites. Maybe I'll give it a go if I can get a boat to guarantee to go there on the first dive. That way I can sit out the second if I'm bushed.

 

[mbs]

We meet up with a group of folks we met there 10 or so years ago. They exclusively boat dive. So we dive with them in the am and shore dive in the afternoon. Since we fill the boat we can choose sites or areas. We did a great site just south of Rappel - Bloodlet. The name defines why you don't want to do it from shore This was a really beautiful site! Btw, we were headed for Rappel, but another boat was on the mooring. I think all shore diving would wear us out to much now...

 

[tkaelin]

Kharon sorry to hear about the lyme health issues. I know from folks who have had bad cases that it can be debilitating.

Looking at all the posts on this thread on all the ways people like to dive and the options available you can see why Bon is so popular. Boat diving, shore diving by truck, house reefs, dive trucks, tank drive thrus and dive ops that suit so many preferences.

Now if we can just do something about those high airfares . . .

 

[Lorenzoid]

We meet up with a group of folks we met there 10 or so years ago. They exclusively boat dive. So we dive with them in the am and shore dive in the afternoon. Since we fill the boat we can choose sites or areas. We did a great site just south of Rappel - Bloodlet. The name defines why you don't want to do it from shore This was a really beautiful site! Btw, we were headed for Rappel, but another boat was on the mooring. I think all shore diving would wear us out to much now...

Filling a boat with one's own group would be the ideal way to boat dive Bonaire, and I'm increasingly thinking maybe the only way I would really enjoy boat diving there.

 

[Bas Tol(B.A.S.Diving)]

Thanks. It's Carel's Vision, by boat only.

You can dive Carel's Vision from shore too. Entry/exit actually easier than Nukove. Just a little walk down the trail. Added bonus, only one vehicle fits into the parking. So never a crowd Indeed no spur and groove there. But some of the very large coral heads might make it look like that.

 

[Lorenzoid]

Bas is back!