We've used Toucan Diving for the last 2 years. We've found them to be an excellent dive operation. This year we have 3 people coming with us who are going to do certification dives with Toucan. Hoping there's some people out there who have done this and can be specific as to what the cert dives were like for them and what the dives consisted of(i.e. underwater tasks if any, just dives observed by the instructor or whatever). Thanks in advance.

I did my cert dives with Bon Bini. A wonderful experience, with one on one instruction. I'm sure Toucan will provide the same excellent service.

You will definitely have to do tasks. I most remembered the emergency ascent and the buddy breathing-but I had to do them all, according the standards. Any cert dives have to be documented and recorded with tasks having been completed.

But not to worry. The instructors will take good care of those getting certified. Have fun!

I did my open water certification dives with Toucan Diving. My instructor, Luciano Soares, was excellent - experienced, professional, with a lot of patience and a good sense of humor. His emphasis was on developing good diving skills, diving safely, and safeguarding the marine environment. No skimping on the underwater tasks or rushing through the process just to get that C-Card. There is an area under the buoy right off the Plaza's beach that's used for instruction - right around 30 feet deep, with a mostly sandy bottom.

My open water experience was so good, my husband Mike and I got our advanced open water certs through Toucan Diving, again with Luciano as our instructor. Lots more to do, but he was thorough and explained/demonstrated everything very clearly. Mike and I felt our advanced course with Luciano was so well-done and valuable in making us better divers, we next had Mike's kids (ages 19 and 16 at the time) do their advanced certification course with him, at Toucan Diving.

If you'd like more specific details, feel free to email me directly. I'm confident your friends will have a great experience getting certified with Toucan Diving... and they'll get hooked on Bonaire at the same time!

Best regards,

Deborah

Hi Marcus,
My husband and I did our cert dives with Toucan (Sept. 2001) and were extremely happy with them. Silvie (sp?) was our instructor and she was extremely patient and knowledgeable. (I hear she no longer teaches, too bad!) My husband went on to do his advanced dive certification with Martijn (sp?) and he was also an excellent instructor. Overall we were extremely pleased with the professionalism of the staff at Toucan.
Have fun!!
-Ana