Date/Time
Date(s) - 11/09/2024 - 11/16/2024
All Day
Categories
Trip Details: Bonaire – November 9 to November 16, 2024
Coral Restoration Trip – Belmar Resort, Bonaire
ADFC has reserved 10 spots for divers (we can add more!) at Buddy Dive Resort. This is a change due to issues with accommodations at Belmar Resort. Buddy Dive Resort will be our location for lodging and diving. Our package will include (6) 2-tank VIP boat dives for the week and for an additional cost of $205 you can add unlimited shore diving and house reef diving. If you want to do this only for a few days, the daily fee for unlimited house reef and shore diving is $48. If we have 8 divers joining the trip, we will have our own boat. This will give us much more freedom to go where we want to dive. It will also enable us to help RRFB much more.
Included with the accommodations:
- (6) Two Tank VIP Boat Dives, including taxes. VIP diving means snacks and towels, and our buddies will set up our gear. It’s a little more bougie than Buddy typically provides.
- Free Nitrox, Tanks, Weights, and Belts for the 6 boat dives.
- Free airport transfers to and from the airport upon arrival and departure.
- Our package is a drive-and-dive package, so we will have a standard truck or trucks. Once we have our final numbers, we will provide more details.
Package Price: $1,305.00 per person. Rooms are double occupancy. (Price for a single room can be arranged.)
Additional expenses:
Breakfast: Since we are staying at Buddy Dive Resort, there is an option for a daily breakfast buffet for the week. We have decided to keep this option. The cost to add the breakfast to your package is $157.50 for the week. You can opt in or decline when booking your trip with the reservations staff. We will have trucks and will make several grocery runs, so this is up to individual preference.
Donation: $100 donation to ADFC is not required but would be very welcomed. Since we are an all-volunteer organization, this will help us with ongoing expenses and is very much appreciated.
Bonaire Tourist Tax: $75 per person, tourist entry tax – payable before arrival online
at https://tourismtax.bonairegov.com or upon arrival at the Bonaire Flamingo Airport.
Coral Restoration Certification Course: For those divers that are new to coral restoration, you will want to add the Reef Renewal Coral Restoration Certification Course, The cost is $225 per diver and the classroom and diving will take place at Buddy Dive Resort. Please note that non-coral restoration certified divers who are taking the certification course will have a slightly different package that may be a reduced cost. Because of the time needed for classroom instruction and in-water training, it will be challenging to fit in the (6) 2-tank boat diving package so your package will be reduced to (3) 2-tank boat dives and this will discussed when booking your package with the Buddy reservation staff.
Stinapa Tag: All guests checking in at the dive shop should bring the following document: A printed version of the $45 STINAPA Marine Park E-Tag, this is a Bonaire requirement and Buddy Dive asks all divers to pre-purchase the STINAPA Tag from www.bonairenaturefee.org. They are valid for one year after purchase.
To reserve your spot on this trip, please fill out the form below.
For any questions about the trip, please contact:
Elysa Leonard
elysa@splashmarcom.com
cell: 571-426-5145
POTENTIAL SCHEDULE/ITINERARY*
ADFC CORAL RESTORATION TRIP – NOV. 9-16, 2024
Saturday, Nov. 9th – ARRIVAL, Welcome Dinner/Happy Hour, depending on arrival times.
Sunday, Nov. 10—Dive Briefing. We will include a tour of the coral nursery at Buddy House Reef. For the two-tank boat dive, we would like to visit two restoration sites so divers can see the goal of this work and some success stories. We will get more information from Reef Renewal Foundation Bonaire (RRFB). If we can visit a restored site where they need monitoring information, we will take pictures and submit them for RRFB to review.
Monday, Nov. 11 – Non-certified divers will be in the coral restoration course in the morning, and they will dive on the Buddy House Reef for training. Certified divers will do a two-tank dive that day to a nursery location that needs cleaning, outplanting, or to help the RRFB on any other project. After or before the boat dives, certified coral restoration divers will clean or do whatever is needed at Buddy House Reef.
Tuesday, Nov. 12 – Non-certified divers will be in the classroom in the morning and dive on Buddy House Reef for training. Certified divers will be on the buddy reef to take pictures of the newly certified coral restoration divers doing the work. The certified team will have boat dives (morning or afternoon). We can do monitoring work. We can visit two sites that have not been monitored lately and report back with pictures of diseased corals, bleaching, and fatalities.
Wednesday, Nov. 13 – The entire team will do a two-tank dive in the morning or afternoon. We may have a RRFB intern with us. We can do more cleaning dives, monitoring, outplanting if the timing is right, help set up or take down a pop-up nursery, fragment and hang coral fragments, whatever work is needed, and on whatever sites need the help. The intern or experienced Buddy Dive Master can observe that the work is done correctly. On both dives this day and every day, we will be put to work. 2 more dives opposite the boat dives from shore or at Buddy House Reef for cleaning or whatever is needed. Some may choose to do a recreational shore dive in place of this.
Thursday, Nov. 14, and Friday, Nov. 15 – Rinse and Repeat with the full team.
We could do more cleaning and then a recreational dive that is hard to get to by truck to add to the adventure. If RRFB gives us more tasks, we will know more two weeks before the trip.
Saturday – Nov. 16 – Sigh… Departure Day
Night Dives—Night diving in Bonaire is awesome. We can arrange for a night dive at either House Reef or another shore diving site. We are checking to see if we can help capture fireworms or find other ways to help the reef during night dives on our trip. If not, we can set up to do night dives at Belmar’s House Reef or Buddy House Reef for fun.
*This schedule is developed to give you an idea of what we will do on this trip. Due to fluctuating water temperatures, RRFB schedule, whether we field 10 divers so we can have our boat, weather conditions, and the experience level of the divers who join us on this mission trip, these activities, dates, and times may be revised. RRFB has committed to working with us, and they will give us a better idea of what we will be working on two weeks before our arrival.
