I have been advidly reading all the great tips on this board regarding the best enjoyment of Bonaire shore diving - 1st trip coming up Jan 7th. I have a question regarding which direction to start the day off in the morning - north or south sites? Is there a way to find out which direction the wind is blowing other than looking out the front door of our condo (is it obvious)? Do you think someone in the Belmar dive shop (or Buddy's) will have a current report of that?

Corey the wind tends to be fairly constant except during wind reversals. Normally I have noticed the boats tend to do the North sites first in the morning as the chop builds up during the day. I am thinking more of sites like Karpata and Rappel. Have a great trip.

Corey,

As Brian said, the wind direction is quite constant: Bonaire is in the Southeast trade winds. The direction tends to vary from ESE to ENE. Sometimes it is quite calm at dawn with the velocity growing as the sun gets higher.

This Weather Underground link is to the weather station at the airport where it sees the wind across an open expanse and not far above the ground: http://www.wunderground.com/global/stations/78990.html . If you watch this for a while you will get a good picture of the wind situation.

The northern sites tend to have deeper walls and dives, so most do the north first (that is how I've done it since 1992). Dive north first (your deepest dive), then south in the afternoon. It actually works out well that way. You can see a lot south starting at 20-30 feet, where north, it is usually 40-60 ft.

Liz

Great responses all - thank you! I got a hold of the latest copy of Susan's book on all the dive sites (a must have handbook/guide!) and concluded from all sites I glanced at that the northern sites are deeper & tend to have more rugged entries - so are better a.m. dives. I have Karpata starred as a must do morning dive, not only because it is deeper, but from what I understand should be done twice due to so much to see. Another question: do you folks ever take more tanks w/ you to a site in lieu of theft problem f/ vehicles? (dive1, si, dive2)

Rented tanks all (as far as I know) have etchings to identify their shop, so I have never heard of or worried about tanks being ganked. Plenty of good reasons to leave the shop with two or three sets of tanks... for example, make two dives during the day, then pick up 3 tanks -- one sunsent/evening dive, one night dive after dinner, and one early morning dive before getting to the shop. Then swap tanks, have breakfast, and .............

For your 2nd time at Karpata, try LaDania's leap (it's easy to find details on the entry marker)... some folks say that this little drift is great even as a snorkel.

Yes, the key reason to do North in the morning is for depth. But the FAR south (if your experience qualifies you) is sometimes best done in the morning too because of lower wind/current.

Here is a pic of daybreak at the saltworks... note the total lack of wind at 7:30a.m.... (although it might not be so calm every day)

Awesome picture Leif!

Corey, I was just on island in August and there were some issues with tanks being stolen out of vehicles at some of the more remote northern sites. We did not lose a single tank, but heard that others had. I also thought there was s discussion on BT about tanks being stolen and then shipped to Venezuela. Not positive on that. Maybe someone with a better memory can chime in here. Any way, we always take extra tanks and our shop never stopped us. I do recall that this practice varies from shop to shop, so just inquire once you get there. Enjoy your trip to Bonaire ~ it is a very addictive dive location!

Wow, Leif, awesome photo!