My wife and I are going to be in Bonaire in December for a week of shore diving. We have often thought about getting our PADI Advanced Open Water certification, but wonder how that will impact our vaction time (not to mention the impact on our pocket books). We are staying at the Divi and they offer the Advanced course, but what I'd like to know is if the dives take place off the dock at the Divi or from the boats that go out every day. I sent an email to Divi Dive and never heard back. Many of you seem to be experts on all things Bonaire. Has anyone ever done their Advanced certification at the Divi? How did it work?

chris,

i did my AOW at Divi (Geertje ;)) - you have 5 dives that take place off Divi's pier (unless you select the wreck dive elective dive - that may be at the hooker) - the lessons and quiz questions don't eat up much time and i don't believe there was a final exam, price was less than $200...

lot easier to certify in bonaire than in some nasty quarry;)

good luck!

Chris

Rneer is right - there are 5 dives (one of which must be a deep dive and one a navigation dive). There is no exam but you do have to read a section of the manual for each dive and hand in the completed knowledge review. It's not a huge amount of reading but you might like to consider buying the manual from a dive shop near your home and doing the reading before your vacation. If you are going to do this, you may want to contact Divi before you go so you read the right chapters of the manual.

Hi Will,
Thought it was time to say Hi, since we kind'a have something in common.
Regards,
Chet Wood