Dive Review of Divi Divers/Divi Flamingo in
Bonaire

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Divi Divers/Divi Flamingo, Jun, 2007, by James A. Heimer, TX, United States ( Contributor 15 reports). Report 3398.
No photos available at this time
Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Accommodations		Food
Service and Attitude		Environmental Sensitivity	N/A
Dive Operation		Shore Diving
Snorkeling	N/A
Overall Rating
Value for $$	N/A
Beginners
Advanced
Comments	Having just come from Little Cayman Beach Resort the previous month (see my write-up from May 2007), the Divi Flamingo suffered by comparison, but was actually quite nice. The rooms tend to be small, with small tables for setting up cameras. We had upgraded to an ocean view - be sure and ask for a second floor room. We were a bit of a walk from the dive shop and pier, which made schlepping uw cameras a bit of a chore - there are rooms closer to the dive shop around a pool, but the quality is unknown. We were on Bonaire for the 2007 Digital Shootout and had a tight schedule - breakfast from 7 to 8, morning dives from 8:30 to 1 pm, lunch, then seminars from 2 to 5 or 5:30, dinner (not provided), then an evening slide show of the day's photos with critiques. The breakfast and lunch were at the resort beach restaurant buffet style and were good; we ate at the resort in the more formal (relative term) for dinner, which was good also - fish, chicken and pasta dishes, limited selection of beef, and some good appetizers. We made one excursion to Richards, about five minutes walk from the Divi, but it wasn't as good as we remembered it from earlier trips. Each boat carried 16 to 18 divers, and all had expensive camera set ups, which took up all the space. On boarding, each diver set up his equipment (there was storage on the dive dock) and checked one additional tank to confirm two full tanks were on board. At the sites, all geared up except fins, walked to the stern, put on fins, and jumped in. The crew handed down cameras, and the diving began. Due to the nature of the shootout, the divers were competing for the "feature creature," which the dive masters found and pointed out for the ravenous photographers. Fortunately (for them) the non Shootout participants, had their own boats and didn't have to engage in the underwater photographic melee. Some did shore diving to get away from the crowd, but as our boat diving was included in the shootout package, we did not. It was reported as good as ever. The dive master duties were limited to a cursory briefing and pointing out photographic subjects underwater, and handing cameras up and down. We probably (from what we heard) had two of the better dive masters, Lutte and Rommel. They were careful with the cameras, found the critters, and helped with gear problems. As mentioned at the beginning of the report, had I not just come from Little Cayman Beach Resort, I would probably have given the Divi and its dive operation higher marks. We will come back to Bonaire, but will probably try other accommodations and go back to Bonaire Dive and Adventure (at the Sand Dollar), which we have used on previous trips and found to be less crowded.
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	251-500 dives
Where else diving	Hawaii, California, GOM, Tahiti, Malaysia, Indonesia, Bahamas, GCI, USVI, Cayman Islands, other misc Caribbean Islands, Bonair, Norway, Australia, Honduras, Belize
Closest Airport		Getting There
Dive Conditions
Weather	sunny	Seas	calm, choppy
Water Temp	81-84°F / 27-29°C	Wetsuit Thickness	3
Water Visibility	50-150 Ft/ 15-46 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	yes
Enforced diving restrictions	Given max time (usually 45 min) and depth for each dive; but these were relaxed after a few dives, some of which lasted over an hour
Liveaboard?	no	Nitrox Available?	N/A
What I Saw
Sharks	None	Mantas	None
Dolphins	None	Whale Sharks	None
Turtles	> 2	Whales	None
Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):
Corals		Tropical Fish
Small Critters		Large Fish
Large Pelagics
Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Subject Matter		Boat Facilities
Overall rating for UWP's		Shore Facilities
UW Photo Comments	I attended the 2007 Digital Shootout (Google 2007 digital shootout"). The Divi resort could accommodate the 70 photographers with respect to classroom space for seminars and presentations; provisions for photographers were limited to rinse tanks on the boats and on shore, a small camera table on shore; camera storage on the boat was limited to an inadequately sized camera table and foam padding placed under the benches to supplement (this was my preferred method of camera storage on the boat). The rooms had only very small tables for setting up cameras. Due to the shootout format, we did two morining dives each day and usually saw frog fish or sea horses on one of them. Macro subjects (blennies, shrimp, gobies, etc.) plentiful; fish limited to schools of small fish, mostly, and the usual mid sized tropicals.

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Dive Review of Divi Divers/Divi Flamingo in Bonaire

Divi Divers/Divi Flamingo, Jun, 2007,

Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Overall Rating

Reporter and Travel

Dive Conditions

Dive Policy

What I Saw

Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):

Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Dive Review of Divi Divers/Divi Flamingo in
Bonaire