Bonaire March 2009

March 13/14

We travelled all night - leaving SFO at 11pm. Got to Atlanta at 6am their time, 3 am our time. 3 hour lay over, some delays leaving. We were 30th in line on the runway.

The flight to Bonaire from Atlanta was 3 and a half hours. We saw Curacao on approach thinking it was Bonaire, but realized Bonaire was on the other side of the plane when we recognized the shape of the coastline. It is very green. There's been lots of rain.

When you land in Bonaire, you walk across the tarmack. It is warm and a little windy. Immigration and customs are quick, but it is a little frustrating when you stand in baggage claim and hear the bags come in waves from the plane. That is, you can hear the tractor drive up and unload the bags, then it goes away for round two, and so on.

While I watched the bags - we were thrilled everything made it on the plane - Kati walked over to the rental car place and claimed our 4 door Hilux pickup truck. Yes, Linda, a stick shift. You are just going to have to learn.

We had dinner at the on-property restaurant, "Rum Runners". "TT" was our waiter. He is a character. On the last trip, he and I conceived of a game tossing the roaming local cats off the raised restaurant patio. He remembered.

Our Villa

March 15

We are in Villa 1. Next door is Ki I. We met her here two years ago. Just as we reintroduced ourselves to her, she said she'd be away until next week.

We were up early to go to breakfast and then to the dive orientation. Our favorite cook, "Daisy Joanna" was still here after all these years. She recently broke her foot, and showed us her scars. I had the so-called "fry-yeggs".

The orientation was packed. I bet there were 40 people there. Not so good. One thing we like about Captain Don's is the slow pace and privacy/isolation. It gets a little frenetic gearing up next to 20 people in the locker area.

We survived the orientation, and I dashed for the dive shop to be first in line to get our marine park tags. These are required of every diver. We got our gear on and had our first dive. I have trouble with not carrying enough weight. Kati had to surface to reset her computer. It was not graceful, but at least that is over with.

After the dive, we went to the "Cultimara". It is the local grocery store. We got a good load of food and mix for our duty free rum. When we returned, it was almost time for our boat dive, which was fun. Kati saw a small octopus.

Back to the room for some water and rest, and then a shore dive to Small Wall. Nice. We saw what must have been a 3 foot long porcupine fish. So big.

A little rum and dinner and my eyes are starting to get heavy.

Turn 180 degrees around and see our friend

Marine Park Tag

March 16

A busy day.

We signed up for the 8:30 dive boat, which means we had to be a breakfast at the ungodly hour of 7am.

The boat was not full, which is nice. The boat captain said the intended dive site might be murky due to some onshore waves so we went to the lee side of Klein Bonaire. "Klein" means small. Klein Bonaire is just a mile offshore. I asked if we could go to "Karl's Hill" which is a dive site we've dived before and my first sighting of a Crinoid - a starfish-like creature that is black with white tips on its tentacles and looks something like a fern.

When we returned, we did our 1 hour surface interval and dove again off Captain Don's dock. We turned north toward Small Wall and Kati saw an Eagle Ray. Very pretty. A 2 or 3 foot wingspan and spots on its back. They flap their wings to fly and hold the wing tips up when they glide. Reminds me of an ice skater.

We talked to the ice cream store and had "Lover's Ice Cream", and managed to find a bottle of Roederer Champagne so we bought it for our Anniversary dinner.

Back to the Villa and we loaded the truck with 2 tanks and headed to "Angel City" - a dive site just south of the "Hilma Hooker". The HH is a big sunken freighter. If you plan it well, you can enter at Angel City and kick all the way to the HH, circle lthe freighter and return on one tank. I spotted another Eagle Ray at the entry.

When we got back, the "Manager's Reception" was in full swing. It is amazing how many people you can attract to a bar when you are giving away free Rum Punch. Well, I tasted the Punch anyway.

"TT", our favorite waiter, asked us if we had dinner reservations, and he saved us a table right at the water's edge. We had the buffet. It was very nice with our special bottle of Champagne.

OK, one more thing - after all this, we went to the "Touch the Sea" presentation by Dee Scarr. A very good 3 part presentation of slides with music, a talk on octopus and coral, and a closing slide show.

We saw him on the walk to breakfast

A Parrot Fish

March 17

We are doing 3 dives a day, and we are seeing more and more fish.

The list includes: grouper, lobster, crab, green turtle, tarpon, porcupine fish, file fish, coronetfish, trumpetfish, octopus, stoplight parrot fish, moray eel, sharptail eel, shrimp, blenny, soap fish, midnight parrotfish, queen angel fish, french angel fish, blue and brown chromis, silversides, jawfish, peacock flounder, seargent major, basslet, file fish, picasso filefish, scrawled filefish, rock beauty, spanish drum, grunt, snapper, houndfish, lizardfish, spotted eagle ray, and squirrel fish.

We dove at night last night and saw several basket star fish - very beautiful.

My high pressure hose failed before the dive, but Kati was able to get it fixed - oh yay...

Later on in the trip, we drove to Carib Inn and Bruce Bowker replaced the loaner with a new hose. The Carib and Bruce are wonderful. This is the second time he's repaired our equipment for us. I think we waited 5 minutes in the dive shop for the repair. I just never expected such service while in such a remote location.

Divers on "Baby Dock"
Yes - the water is that blue!

It is all about shore diving in Bonaire

March 18

3 more dives today - one before breakfast, another before 2, and then a 2 oclock boat dive.

We also had a really nice sunset tonight - here are some photos

Dinner at Rum Runner's with "Dennis the Menace", our waiter.

March 21

Congratulations Michele and Dave. We wish we were there to hug and kiss you and celebrate your special day.

This picture was taken in the hotel lobby after our dinner at "Rum Runners". Linda, Kati and I snorkelled just at sunset tonight. Even though it was not SCUBA yet, Linda was excited and saw many fish already.

Most of all, we are glad Linda's flights all worked out and she arrived safely. Tomorrow morning, Linda gets checked in and goes through a brief orientation, and then puts on her tank fins for her first Carribean dive.

I hope you guys have a wonderful Honeymoon.

March 23

The 3 of us.

This is us in front of villa 8. We moved. We were originally in villa 1, but asked to move to 8 due to the construction noise. Actually, the noise was not that bad, it was just a good opportunity to try out another villa. Later in the week, I threw tomato, lettuce and watermelon scraps in the front yard and 10 or so iguana's came to eat. I put a whole bowl of rice out there and they finished it all.

The parrot, flower and flamingo photo are from our trip to Washington Slagbai Park. We also saw wild pigs and some beautifully coo-ing doves. At first we thought they were owls.

March 27

Our trip to the windward side of the island.

This is our rock pile sculpture. There are lots of these as you drive along. We're hoping it is still there when we return next year. There's trash everywhere. As this is the windward side of the island, lots of plastic bottles, sandales, lighters, oil containers, and general trash wash up everywhere. It is sad.

At the Rotary meeting (sorry, no photos taken), I met the ex-Governor of the island. He told me Bonaire would be generating 50% of its energy needs via wind in the next year. The windmill to the right is a prototype of the system to be installed. I think he said there'd be 10 of these 400 kilowatt windmills. There are trenches being dug all over the island to handle the power distribution.