My lovely new wife and I will be traveling to Bonaire between June 2nd and June 10th for our honeymoon. I am certified but my fiancee is not. She is very excited to begin diving but because of work constraints she is unable to get certified before heading south. What advise does anyone have on certifications in Bonaire or other suggestions for diving with DM's. We will be staying at the Eden Beach Inn. Thanks for all your help.

Welcome to the board Martin.

There are a lot of good dive shops on Bonaire, I have not heard of a bad one. If it were me, I would just use the shop that is connected with the resort I was staying, it's just easier to me. But if you want specific Shops, then Bon Bini (at Lions Dive), Buddy Dive (at Buddy Diver resort), Sand Dollar Dive (at SD) or WannaDiveBonaire (can't remember what resort they are connected with) are several that come to mind. These are by no means the only ones.

If she can, it would be best if she could do a referal. She can do the book and pool work at home and then do the open water part on Bonaire. This would save you both some time and allow you to get in more dive time (or at least less time in class). If may also make the trip a lot better if, heaven forbid, she discovers she HATES diving, it does happen. Just make sure she gets all to correct paper work before she goes.

WannaDive is at the Eden Beach Resort.

I did my OW and AOW with Bon Bini (with Francey and Mananita) and just lovd them. I was the world's most scared wannabe-diver, and they held my hand through a difficult process. All the folks at Bon Bini are a pleasure to deal with.

BonBini is at Lion's Dive, just a minute's drive north of Eden Beach.

Bart and Meno at Wannadive are fun and experienced dive instructors..I would reccommend them to everyone..and I did! My two friends took the resort course this year in Feb and were very pleased..have a fun and safe time learning all the rules and proceedures of scuba and a whole new world will be open to you...and believe me..if Josie can do it you can ! (teasing Josie)

Martin we bought the books and went over them ourselves, before we went and got a speedy certification in Grand Cayman. (Great bedtime reading.) We did nine resort dives in two trips to St. John a couple of years before we got the books. Since you presumably already have one anyway...

Martin

I agree with all the above advise, especially the bit about doing the referral. Bonaire is just too fantastic to spend your time watching videos indoors.

Will

I did my coursework and pool work in the States, then a referral with Bon Bini. It worked well for me, and they are terrific.

Martin,
My wife,12 YO son, & myself all did our pool work and classes up here and our OW work with Wanna dive.Great guys & lots of fun.They are right at Eden beach.

Marty

my wife and i did our open water course here in ohio...nothing like 40 degree water in early may to make you want to dive more. about 8 months later we went to bonaire and did our AOW at carib inn. had a great time. we will be back on bonaire this summer for all of july and the first half of august. we were hoping our kids would join us but one ran out of vacation and the other wants it to be a family vacation so they opted to wait till next year. our older son and his wife want to learn to dive and i recommended a referral course for them. they can do all the classroom and pool work in denver then come to bonaire and do the open waters in beautiful, clear, warm water.

Martin, as others have said, it would be great if your fiancee could at least get pool and coursework done at home but it sounds like that might not be possible. A few things to think about: some dive shops allow all class work to be done with the PADI CD Rom at your convenience. Then, all the student needs to do is pass the knowledge reviews and the pool work on a class schedule. A second thought: if your fiancee does not want to spend time on your honeymoon doing the class work, once in Bonaire she can do the Discover Scuba (resort) course and then be eligible to dive with a dive master the rest of the week. Since you are staying at Eden I would certainly encourage you to use Wannadive -- a great, friendly and knowledgeable staff. Congratulations on your upcoming wedding!

I'll second the vote for WannaDive.

That being said, you have to get used to Barts sense of humour

Darryl