What's the best way to enter & exit from shore?

[DiverVince]

Pembina..All good recommendations here. However I think the most important aspect to diving Bonaire's shore is to carefully choose your dive sites. They vary in the degree of difficulty entering and exiting. You may want to purchase Susan Porter's book on dive sites which rates the sites.
As a newbie I do suggest you choose the easier sites. When we arrive at a dive site I very carefully examine the surface conditions (since my wife has RA). If it's not up to our standards I move on. Good hard sole boots are a must. Always be very careful entering & exiting and pay close attention to where you put your feet (watch out for holes). We never put our masks on till we decide to descend, usually wear it around my neck on entering/exiting. Also if you are of small stature, use the 63's instead of the 80's.

 

[herman]

I have lot of dives on Bonaire, here are a few more tips or additions to ones you have already gotten.

Before entering, study your entry spot. Look for a channel in the coral, many entries require you to navigate a fairly small channel on entry and exit and take note of the wave timing. Waves tend to come in cylces so getting the timing and knowing when the larger waves are likely to come is helpful. Simply charging in will most likely end up with you on the rocks. Once you have gotten in the water, look back and note some landmark that will help align you with the exit channel. I try to pick a couple of landmarks so I can align them like a gun site.

When wading out to chest deep water, inflate your BC and as soon (thigh deep or so) as possible squat down and duck walk out, letting the BC take the load instead of you trying to hold up the load and overpower the waves. Putting your reg in and walking with your face it the water is also helpful at times, it allows you to see where you are walking. This works much easier than trying to stand. When you do get chest deep, with your reg in your mouth, lean forward in the water so you can see what you are doing and put your fins on while floating on your BC. Don't fight it, just go with the flow while you float. On the exit, once in chest deep water, remove your fins while allowing your BC to take most of the load and duckwalk in with your face in the water, looking for hazzards and the channel. Keep your reg in your mouth and your mask on unitl you are no more than knee deep so when....not if....you fall you you can still see and breath.

When entering and a step down into a small pool is required (most of the time) be sure you know just how deep that pool is. If it looks 6 inches, odds are it's more like 12 to 18. This misjudgement can throw off your balance and cause a fall if you step into a much deeper than expected hole.

I would also suggest you chose some of the easier enrty sites for your first few dives. The sites change from time to time so on site recon is the best for determining which sites to start with but Wind Sock is almost always my first stop when I have new Boniare divers with me.

Enjoy Bonaire, I am planning my 2012 trip now.

 

[diversteve]

As herman said I looked for the sand channels on Bonaire. At some you can walk all the way out to deeper water w/o running into the ironshore. Also someone told me that helpful divers pile up coral rubble into little piles indicating the best entry points at some sites - we never found any though. Here's a example - this is Vista Blue - it's mostly 2-3' tall ironshore cliffs right off the beach that would require you to step down - however there's this one spot - IIRC it was slightly left of the parking area. Of course this assumes it's still there...After I shredded my shin in a hole at Angel City I looked for easy entries for the rest of the week. Where possible, we used the truck to mark the exit point.



Entry photos for a lot of the sites can be found here: Scuba Shore Diving Region: ABC Islands

 

[ScubaSteve]

Also, you may want to consider 62 tanks.

That is a tremendous amount of air. How do you clip them off? .

 

[danvolker]

I used to do shore entries at the south end of Singer Island ( Palm Beach) by the pump house, in surf even as large as 8 feet..though the huge surf days were kind of stupid, there was often great vis in the inlet as soon as we turned the corner around the jetty.
For advice on this, say in surf from 2 feet to 4 feet ( larger means if you need to read this, you should not be trying it ) , I would put fins on while on the beach, and walk backward into the surf....at this area, it would mean walking backward about 10 feet before it would be deep enough to lean back and do a body twist in midair, landing face down in 4 feet of water, getting deeper quickly. You time this with the waves, so that when you splash down, you get flattened to the bottom prior to the next wave passing, and then start rapid swimming until in deep water ( 10 feet plus) with stomach close to the bottom.

If you have to do this where there is a coral or sharp rocky bottom, I would still need to be very close to the bottom, and would use gloves and hand holds to move forward until the water is deep enough, and the surge reduced enough, to achieve perfect bouyancy and then just skim a few inches above the bottom. Swim fast untill out of all surge, to where the vis improves, and then relax, optimize bouyancy and breathing rate, and begin enjoying your dive....

Coming back in is harder in huge waves, as the wave will catch your fins... You still want to be as low to the bottom as possible, and depending on the way the bottom comes up, you may be able to get into water shallow enough so that the waves hitting you on standing will be no problem....

 

[DeputyDan]

As to diversteve's picture Vista Blue is a very good dive!

 

[gbf]

Speaking Bonaire here...

If the surf looks too rough to me - I go somewhere else. If it's rough in the south, you can probably find a calm spot by the airport or further north, and vice versa. It's not that far, and it's not worth taking a chance on somebody getting hurt in rough water.

The advice about hard-soled boots is key. For years I wore softer-soled boots (I was foolishly cheap), and the iron shore poked my tender tootsies, making me lose my balance before ever getting in the water. Get some hard-soled boots. Most shops on Bon will have them.

I always make a "dry run" entry without equipment, just to check things out before gearing up and going. If I have a hard time without equipment then I know my bride and children will and we can abort before someone gets hurt.

But, mostly, this is all moot. The "surf" on Bonaire is generally not, and the entries just aren't very difficult. And if you don't like what you're seeing, just go on down the road a little ways. It's all good.

 

[redacted]

Wave action tends to be relatively small in Bonaire but even 1 to 3 foot wave are an added challenge when footing is uncertain. Wave action is more common on the north or south ends but rarely both on the same day. I suggest you start out with easier sites in the middle of the island. Wind Sock is a good site with fairly large sand channels for easy entry - but scout the entry first. Something Special is another easy entry/exit with a gravel beach. Front Porch is another with very little wave but you do need to scout the iron shore. Best dives are really north and south ends. My favorite is Karpata on the north. Entry is along the edge of a cement block that was a dock at one time. Bottom is all boulders so footing is difficult. If the wave are breaking over the dock, it is probably best to pass and head south. The south end between Margate Bay and Red Slave are also great dives but the 1 to 2 foot dropoff of the iron shore makes entry and exit a bit of a challenge even with seas fairly calm. Pick your routes carefully and help each other. Best if one diver supports while the other diver moves.

 

[MN Lakeman]

"...If you have to do this where there is a coral or sharp rocky bottom, I would still need to be very close to the bottom, and would use gloves and hand holds to move forward until the water is deep enough, and the surge reduced enough, to achieve perfect bouyancy and then just skim a few inches above the bottom. Swim fast untill out of all surge, to where the vis improves, and then relax, optimize bouyancy and breathing rate, and begin enjoying your dive...."

Please note...gloves are NOT allowed in the Bonaire Marine Santuary per the required orientation. Having said that, I have warned many fellow Bonaire divers of the urchins that reside in holes found in the shallows. It is quite tempting using these holes to crawl your way back during the last 50ft or so in the surf.

 

[danvolker]

"...If you have to do this where there is a coral or sharp rocky bottom, I would still need to be very close to the bottom, and would use gloves and hand holds to move forward until the water is deep enough, and the surge reduced enough, to achieve perfect bouyancy and then just skim a few inches above the bottom. Swim fast untill out of all surge, to where the vis improves, and then relax, optimize bouyancy and breathing rate, and begin enjoying your dive...."

Please note...gloves are NOT allowed in the Bonaire Marine Santuary per the required orientation. Having said that, I have warned many fellow Bonaire divers of the urchins that reside in holes found in the shallows. It is quite tempting using these holes to crawl your way back during the last 50ft or so in the surf.

If you are allowed to "walk" over an area of coral rubble and rocks, etc., then the use of gloves "should be" a non-issue. Where a rule like this in Bonaire exists, I'd imagine it is for poorly trained divers in open water, so that they don't swim down to delicate marine life, and damage it with their gloved hands.....With urchins along the bottom, I would consider a shore entry foolish in much more than 1 foot waves....you would need to be able to see everything clearly from the surface, to be able to place each foot step....If this is live coral, and someone is walking on it, they should be arrested and the keys lost for a while.