Dive Review of Buddy Dive Resort in
Bonaire

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Buddy Dive Resort: "Buddy Dive Sept / Oct 2023", Oct, 2023, by Jon Hoffmann, GA, USA ( Contributor 17 reports with 19 Helpful votes). Report 12632 has 1 Helpful vote.
No photos available at this time
Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Accommodations		Food
Service and Attitude		Environmental Sensitivity
Dive Operation		Shore Diving
Snorkeling	N/A
Overall Rating
Value for $$
Beginners
Advanced
Comments	Delta operates non-stop flights from Atlanta leaving and departing on Saturdays only. We were there during Tek Week, which made things more interesting. This was our 6th time to Bonaire and 4th time staying at Buddy Dive over the last 20 years. Not much has changed at Buddy Dive. The resort continues to be a little tired, but is completely adequate. We stayed in a 3-bedroom unit. Very spacious with a kitchenette. The only drawbacks were some wicked stairs to the upper-level bedrooms, and the king size beds are nothing more than 2 singles pushed together. The 3 bedroom units are 2 level with the entrance generally on the 2nd floor. The stairs are tiled and sort of a half circular staircase that require a sober focus and the dexterity of a mountain goat to navigate. There are 2 restaurants on the property and 2 swimming pools. A simple buffet breakfast with eggs made to order was included daily. A rental truck was included with our room to shore dive around the island. The check in process to the resort and to get keys to the rental truck used to be a marathon affair, but they have greatly enhanced it since our last visit with a fairly robust online check in process. I’ve noticed a general change in worker attitude in the Caribbean since the COVID shutdowns and Bonaire is no different. Most seemed appreciative of the full return of tourists. Most of the staff at the resort are Dutch Nationals, but all spoke fluent English. Service and attitude was generally quite good. However, it can be tainted by just a few bad apples, like the bartender Micelle who gave one of the people in our group such bad service he will never return to Buddy Dive again. But massive props to the overall dive staff, especially Julian who was very accommodating as boat captain, dive guide, and rental shop pro where he hooked me up with a free backplate trial. Boat trips were daily with 2 tank dives departing at 8:10AM. We did not participate in any of the afternoon dives due to the complexity of SCTLD and instead opted to load tanks into the provided pick-up truck and do unlimited shore dives. It is still just as easy as ever to average over 4 dives a day. Since March of 2023, the reefs of the island have suffered from Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (SCTLD). Dive sites are classified as either green (least impacted), orange or red (most impacted). STINAPA is the organization that manages the national parks, including underwater, for the island and is managing the efforts to control SCTLD. I suspect it is a critical effort as diving fuels the Bonaire economy. The rule set by STINAPA is that if you dive a green site, you can dive any other color site after that. Once you dive an orange site, you can’t dive a green again, but can an orange or red. And once you dive a red site, you can only dive a red the rest of the day. The rules reset the following morning after your gear dries. If one goes out on the 8:10AM 2 tank boat, the crew manages the color coding for you, but all divers are required to rinse all their gear in a 10% bleach solution on the boat between dives. If you go out on the afternoon boat after shore diving, then the entire dive group can only dive where permitted as dictated by the diver that has already dove in the highest color category. The house reef (Buddy’s Reef) is currently classified as red, so this seemed to be problematic. We did our best to conform to the requirements when shore diving, but I didn’t get the sense that most divers did, and there aren’t currently more than a handful of green coded reefs left in Bonaire. But all divers at the resort did seem to do a good job following the 10% bleach rinse protocol. Hopefully more will be understood about SCTLD and how to cure it. As with most dive destinations, I’ve noticed a major depletion of the quantity and quality of the fish life over the years in Bonaire. The memory card on my camera didn’t get much of a workout on this trip. The coral is still in pretty good shape in most places around the 2 islands, but I’d hate to think what would happen to one of my favorite, easy to get to and dive places in the Caribbean if the coral takes a beating.
Websites	Buddy Dive Resort
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	501-1000 dives
Where else diving	FL Keys, Caribbean, Costa Rica, Thailand, Micronesia, Maldives, Indonesia, PNG, Palau, Malaysia, Philippines
Closest Airport	BON	Getting There	ATL to BON
Dive Conditions
Weather	sunny	Seas	calm
Water Temp	84-86°F / 29-30°C	Wetsuit Thickness
Water Visibility	60-80 Ft/ 18-24 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	yes
Enforced diving restrictions	Park restriction due to SCTLD
Liveaboard?	no	Nitrox Available?	yes
What I Saw
Sharks	None	Mantas	None
Dolphins	None	Whale Sharks	None
Turtles	1 or 2	Whales	None
Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):
Corals		Tropical Fish
Small Critters		Large Fish
Large Pelagics
Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Subject Matter		Boat Facilities
Overall rating for UWP's		Shore Facilities
UW Photo Comments	[None]

Report currently has 1 Helpful vote

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Dive Review of Buddy Dive Resort in Bonaire

Buddy Dive Resort: "Buddy Dive Sept / Oct 2023", Oct, 2023,

Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Overall Rating

Reporter and Travel

Dive Conditions

Dive Policy

What I Saw

Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):

Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Dive Review of Buddy Dive Resort in
Bonaire