Dive Review of Captain Don's Habitat in
Bonaire

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Captain Don's Habitat, Jul, 2005, by Mark Kimmey, NY, USA . Report 1930.
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	Planning this trip through the resort's North American reservations agent, Maduro Travel, Inc., was not without its problems. It took a flurry of email traffic over a period of days before we felt we had a reservation, and even then we were a little nervous of what we might find when we arrived. Simply, the agent kept screwing up the reservation: we would ask for something, he would price something close. Or he would forget to price something we asked for, or would misspell our names (it's email for crying out loud, so it's not like he had to decipher my writing), or the math on the invoice was off. We wouldn't have spotted the last if we hadn't grown leery of the operation toward the end and started checking everything more closely than we otherwise might have. By the time we arrived in Bonaire, we were apprehensive that Captain Don's might be as slipshod as their reservation agent. (We later found out that the guy handling our trip left Maduro shortly after our trip.) Fortunately, Captain Don's met most of our expectations. Rooms were clean and accommodated diving (tile floors, clothes lines, etc.), though a bit under-cooled. The "habitat" cottage we stayed in had coolers in the two bedrooms, only: the common areas (kitchenette, sitting area and bath/shower) had no cooling. The resort's restaurant served good food at good prices, and the dive staff was proficient and friendly. The only area of concern was maintenance of their rental gear. Since I'm a certified technician and once owned my own equipment servicing business, this has always been something on which I keep an eye: I believe it's indicative of the overall responsibility of a dive operation. During the week, my son was issued two BCs, the first of which leaked. More alarming, 9 of 10 tanks bled air, either from the tank valve o-ring, the tank neck o-ring, or in one disturbing case, from the bursting disk retaining plug. When taking tanks for shore dives about the island, it was not uncommon to find that tanks had bled 300-400 psi from the time we picked them up at the filling station to when we actually began a dive, sometimes after snorkeling out to the reef. We tagged the problem bottles, but attempts to report what seemed to be a systemic problem to the staff were met with polite indifference. In the case of the leaking bursting disk screw, we found the problem in the water during a boat dive and duly reported it to the divemaster upon exit: he looked at me like I was an idiot and simply put the problem bottle with all the others. What I should have done was pull the bad valve o-rings to force the fill operator to replace them. As it was, I checked tank pressure on every bottle we pulled from the "ready" pile before loading them into the truck, and only replaced the valve o-rings when it was obvious there was a problem. I would dive with Captain Don's again, but unless they get their maintenance act together, I'll resort to automatically replacing the o-rings on their tanks when I draw them.
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	501-1000 dives
Where else diving	New York, Hawaii, Kwajalein, California, Florida Keys, Grenada
Closest Airport		Getting There
Dive Conditions
Weather		Seas	calm
Water Temp	80-85°F / 27-29°C	Wetsuit Thickness	3
Water Visibility	40-100 Ft/ 12-30 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	yes
Enforced diving restrictions	[Unspecified]
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	N/A	Boat Facilities
Overall rating for UWP's	N/A	Shore Facilities	N/A
UW Photo Comments	[None]

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Dive Review of Captain Don's Habitat in Bonaire

Captain Don's Habitat, Jul, 2005,

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 Captain Don's Habitat in
Bonaire