our dive group stayed at sanddollar from march 1-17th. appears the condo association is trying to make efforts to improve the grounds/pool/ restaruant. seaside dining is much more enjoyable and the food was great. pool is closed and being rebuilt - we were not told ahead of time. diving with BDA was a pain. - andre insisted on one nitrox tank(this is unlimited nitrox?) at a time even when going far south or north. we felt this was an attempt to force boat diving and to cover for their lack of adequate tank numbers. Bonaire is losing the dive freedom that has made it attractive in our previous 15+ trips. you need at guide for salt pier, town pier. we refused to pay the $35 per diver to do salt pier

The reason for the changes at salt pier and town pier are unfortunately due to the age of terrorism we now live in. International shipping laws are requiring all ports to be secured so that ships can go from one country to the next. If a ship is coming from an unsecured port, example salt pier, it might be denied access into a country. I'm not sure but if the Dive Bus is there is it possible this might count as a guide?

Gordon: I share your concern. Being limited to one tank is not in the spirit of diving freedom and I, for one, won't dive with any shop that trys to limit me to one tank. I wouldn't stop going to Bonaire because of this but all shops would have to adopt this policy before I could learn to live with it. I'm fairly sure the other individuals in my dive group will be in agreement with me on this. I know there are other BTers who disagree with me here - thats okay.

Gordon
I totally agree with you about Andre's motives for the one tank...I watched him bully some new arrivals into paying for many boat dives, when they really wanted to know about the shore diving. Unfortunately, new arrivals (like myself) trust in the locals to help them out...when we fimally figure out that there are other options, they already have our money....sad but true

Many posts in threads here have described a one tank policy at at least several of the dive ops in the last year so it is not limited to BDA. And not to Nitrox tanks. The reason given earlier for this policy was the then threat of the tanks being stolen from unattended trucks while everyone is out diving-- at one point maybe two months ago more than 20 tanks were recovered from one house, along with other stolen items.

Perhaps the policy has changed at most of the dive ops, back to multiple tanks. That would be good, both for divers and as a sign of better things on Bonaire, but that hasn't been posted here that I have read.