My husband and I are about to book a one week trip to get our certification at Captain Don's Habitat. Can anyone who has done the same before tell us how they liked the certification instruction and the accomodations?

Also, was wondering if there are restrictions on wearing sunblock in the water. Do we need a biodegradable brand?

Hi there anonymous!
I'll bet you will enjoy your certification at Don's. Great people...great facility...patient and professional instructors.

Don't worry about the sunblock...just might want to keep it off your face. From experience I can tell you that some brands when mixed with salt water burn your eyes if/when it gets into them. You will be doing some mask skills with your instruction (parital floods, full floods, remove/replace mask)...so you might want to think about not having sunblock!

For the rest of your body...you will likely want a wet suit or skin. The water temp. is about 78 -79 degrees right now...and that can get a bit chilly after 30 minutes or so. If you wear a wet suit or skin...don't have to worry about sunblock on those parts of your body.

Hope you enjoy Bonaire!

Scott

My daughter completed her open water certification at Capt Dons last July. Can't praise the instructor (Juni) highly enough. She was scared at first and had an ear infection which meant the first dive had to be aborted. Nothing was a problem. She even got to see a couple of seahorses on her first dive!

Hi Anon,

Another route you might want to consider is doing a referal. You do all your class and pool work with a local shop at home and then do your open water dives at the resort. This will take up less of your vacation time and allow you to do more diving. It will also give you time to work out any problems you might have such as a leaking mask or fins that don't fit correctly. This is a common way of getting certified. Just make sure that you get all of the correct paperwork you will need.