Sunday, April 28, 2019
Last full day in Bonaire
Today was our last full day in Bonaire. We head home tomorrow afternoon. We got up slowly, then went for a nice long drive around the island. We visited Rincon and the flamingo lake along with another lake and an inlet along the way, plus we looked over some more diving sites as we drove around. Then we stopped down town for some ice cream. Finally we took the rental car back after a quick trip to the grocery store then did most of our packing for the trip. I tried out buying some upgraded seats for the trip from Miami to Denver so we could sit together and Crystal made a delightful dinner that we had while relaxing around the pool. Then it was shower and bed, which of course means I now can’t sleep worth a damn. :D Guess that’s just how it works some times. Tomorrow will be a bit of a slower day, full of travel and we’ll just keep on keeping on until we get home. I’ll sit out here by the pool reading and chilling for a bit longer, and see if I can get sleepy.
Things we learned in Bonaire, Dutch Nederland Caribbean Islands
There are things we learned on this trip that we’ll apply the next time we visit, and we’re pretty sure this place is worth a second visit:
1) Rent the car from AB Dive for the second we arrive. They’ll send a taxi for us, the car pickup takes 8 minutes and you’re set from the second you arrive.
2) Rent the car until we leave. AB Dive has a key drop off at the airport and you just park, load and dump the key. (As long as you bought full coverage which we suggest)
3) Do an orientation dive or two every time you go to a new place. It’s both a good refresher and a good idea. Plus you make friends and meet the whole gang. After that, they’re happy to help with anything you do.
4) ALWAYS rent a stay-place from a small operator. Air B&B if possible, Expedia small hotel if not. This one was a small hotel and we had the whole place to ourselves for an entire week. FAB
5) Wear a shirt into the grocery store. Crystal got chased down trying to enter the supermarket. Priceless.
6) Gas station attendants in Bonaire are VERY particular concerning how you park, fuel and pay.
7) The close mini mart charges 3X the cost for beer :D
8) Show up at Mezze Greek food before dinner time
9) Almost everything is closed on Sundays, plan your travel accordingly.
10) There IS a direct flight from Miami to Denver, wait to book that.
11) Shore dives can be rocky and hard to walk over. Do the rough ones early in the day.
12) If you book orientation dives, do it with more than one person, and hold out for the hot ones. :D OK both Rory AND Iv were hot. No way to lose there.
1) Rent the car from AB Dive for the second we arrive. They’ll send a taxi for us, the car pickup takes 8 minutes and you’re set from the second you arrive.
2) Rent the car until we leave. AB Dive has a key drop off at the airport and you just park, load and dump the key. (As long as you bought full coverage which we suggest)
3) Do an orientation dive or two every time you go to a new place. It’s both a good refresher and a good idea. Plus you make friends and meet the whole gang. After that, they’re happy to help with anything you do.
4) ALWAYS rent a stay-place from a small operator. Air B&B if possible, Expedia small hotel if not. This one was a small hotel and we had the whole place to ourselves for an entire week. FAB
5) Wear a shirt into the grocery store. Crystal got chased down trying to enter the supermarket. Priceless.
6) Gas station attendants in Bonaire are VERY particular concerning how you park, fuel and pay.
7) The close mini mart charges 3X the cost for beer :D
8) Show up at Mezze Greek food before dinner time
9) Almost everything is closed on Sundays, plan your travel accordingly.
10) There IS a direct flight from Miami to Denver, wait to book that.
11) Shore dives can be rocky and hard to walk over. Do the rough ones early in the day.
12) If you book orientation dives, do it with more than one person, and hold out for the hot ones. :D OK both Rory AND Iv were hot. No way to lose there.
Swimming on Saturday, 1,000 Steps and Bachelors Beach
This morning we got up and got started a little earlier than usual, mostly because someone said “breakfast” and since I LOVE breakfast, I jumped outta bed like my ass was on fire to get us going! That was met with a less than enthusiastic response, but we got going anyway.
A short time later found us at Levannzo for coffee and some breakY. They were out of decaf coffee (odd thing that) so I had a regular and Crys & Rich had americanos. Then she went for fresh fruit and the worlds freshest croissant while I had a little omelette on “brown” bread. They don’t do “white or wheat” here. Bread is listed as white or brown.
Then we trucked to the dive shop, loaded up, visited for a few minutes and got started. We chose to start with the site, 1,000 steps. It’s a bit of a euphemism being that there are only somewhere between 67 and 72 steps from the roadway down to the beach. Still quite a few when wearing a wet suit, BCD, tank, regulators, between 14 & 16 pounds of lead and various other paraphernalia. We made it though and the diving was beautiful. Rich went out in his snorkel gear, we’d picked todays beaches based on their snorkel-ability. A good time was had by all. The hike back up to the top was a bit of a marathon, but we made it, life is good.
A short time later found us at Levannzo for coffee and some breakY. They were out of decaf coffee (odd thing that) so I had a regular and Crys & Rich had americanos. Then she went for fresh fruit and the worlds freshest croissant while I had a little omelette on “brown” bread. They don’t do “white or wheat” here. Bread is listed as white or brown.
Then we trucked to the dive shop, loaded up, visited for a few minutes and got started. We chose to start with the site, 1,000 steps. It’s a bit of a euphemism being that there are only somewhere between 67 and 72 steps from the roadway down to the beach. Still quite a few when wearing a wet suit, BCD, tank, regulators, between 14 & 16 pounds of lead and various other paraphernalia. We made it though and the diving was beautiful. Rich went out in his snorkel gear, we’d picked todays beaches based on their snorkel-ability. A good time was had by all. The hike back up to the top was a bit of a marathon, but we made it, life is good.
Then it was on to Bachelors Beach for dive #2. We’ve been doing 2 a day, except for the day we did the night dive. More steps. Who knew? :D Rich went into his snorkel gear and we went out on the reef. Crystal is practicing with her camera and getting better at it all the time. The snap above is one of mine, they’re not as good but it’s hard to take selfies underwater. :D We did see a golden moray eel and I almost got a pic of it, I’ll put it in. He/she is down in that coral and you can see it if you really expand the pic.
Then we went back to the dive shop and rinsed all our gear out for the last time. Iv and Dewi gave us a hug, we got our dive logs stamped for the dives we did with the AB Dive crew and came back to our abode to hang things up so they’d dry for packing up.
It's chill here at the Caribbean Chillout. :D Late afternoon we had a nice cheese/beer/chocolate snack then went off to dinner at Captain Don’s. I had a great meal and Crys & Rich did too.
That was the last diving day. We fly out on Monday and we return the car Sunday afternoon, so we’ll go and explore the island a bit more on Sunday. I’m sitting out by the pool, typing in memories while those two sleepy heads enjoy a little more sleep. It’s nice and warm and breezy here, Bono the kitty is keeping me company and I have coffee. Speaking of which, I need more, and I have to poop.
Saturday, April 27, 2019
Hilma Hooker and Salt Pier
We started at Hilma Hooker since it was the deepest dive on our 2 dive list yesterday. It was pretty dang cool, and we went to 95’ deep.
It’s a cool story too. Apparently the ship was smuggling weed and got confiscated. While in the “pound” it started to leak a bit so the Bonaire government got with local scuba folks and found a good place to sink it so that there would be a wreck dive on the reef and within reach of local divers.
For that one you surface swim out to the marker buoy on one end, then dive down to the wreck and swim along it, surfacing at the buoy on the other end or exploring the reef on the way back. Our navigation is getting a little bit better. Also the buoyancy is better and air use :D It’s nice to get better at this.
On our surface break was spent driving south and then back, we looked at the kite surfing school, the slave huts and salt works. Then we headed back to the Salt Pier. That’s where Cargill refines salt to ship world wide. It’s a L O N G pier that houses a conveyor belt to load the ships and you can only dive there when there is no ship loading. The ship left the day before so we were all set. There happens to be a LOT of fish here, the scuba people call that, fauna, I’ve no idea why they don’t just call them fish :D. We saw turtles again, maybe some sharks and lots of interesting fish behavior including a whole school of fish doing the barber pole move around one of the pier pilings.
We’re still having lots of fun, and the food is good too. :D Today we’ll do our last two dives and explore the island a bit while our gear dries out so we don’t peg the luggage scale meter on the way back.
For that one you surface swim out to the marker buoy on one end, then dive down to the wreck and swim along it, surfacing at the buoy on the other end or exploring the reef on the way back. Our navigation is getting a little bit better. Also the buoyancy is better and air use :D It’s nice to get better at this.
On our surface break was spent driving south and then back, we looked at the kite surfing school, the slave huts and salt works. Then we headed back to the Salt Pier. That’s where Cargill refines salt to ship world wide. It’s a L O N G pier that houses a conveyor belt to load the ships and you can only dive there when there is no ship loading. The ship left the day before so we were all set. There happens to be a LOT of fish here, the scuba people call that, fauna, I’ve no idea why they don’t just call them fish :D. We saw turtles again, maybe some sharks and lots of interesting fish behavior including a whole school of fish doing the barber pole move around one of the pier pilings.
Friday, April 26, 2019
Alice in Wonderland & Angel City with a nod to Hilma Hooker
Yesterday was a good day, like all of them aren’t when in vacation on Bonaire :D
We dived on a couple of sites and it was the first time we’d gone out by ourselves without a local guide. That means we read the book on the sites, and got better at planning and using our compass’. I took my little camera case along to see if it would work out. It’s kinda cool, you put your iPhone 6S in it and there are buttons on the face side you use to take pics. On the first dive I only got one pic, and unfortunately missed getting the pic of the 5’ long moray eel swimming in free water (usually you see their faces in a hole). It was gorgeous, and gave me a little chill, odd because most things don’t. I guess because I automatically feel a bit more like prey in the Bonaiwater due to my relative newness to the whole thing.
The first dive site was Alice in Wonderland. We had to do that one since Crystal is such a fan. We had to make a second trip home to get our masks because we’d loaded everything else before going to the dive shop to get tanks and our other stuff. But at least we locked the key in the room when we went back. :D The dive went well, our buoyancy is getting better which means we don’t yo-yo up and down in the water so much. That’s better for everything.
Dive site #2 was Angel City. That’s part of the double reef part of the system around Bonaire. We had a great plan and mostly followed it well swimming in a big circle and actually finding our way back to the marker. We did go a bit too far one way to start with and found ourselves 88’ deep and looking at the bow of the Hilma Hooker. That’s actually the next dive north and the one we’ll do today. I got more really bad pics on the second dive and I like a couple so they’re down below.
Then we went to the Woodstock Bar and Grill, which is run by our hosts downtown in Kralendijk. It was good, the music was fun, Eric spins tunes off two turntables in the opened up cab of an old VW Bug. On tap is “soup of the day” which is ..... Beer. No other explanation. After that we wandered to La Cantina which was recommended by our first local scuba guide from AB Dive, Rory. That was great. It’s a brew pub, and I ended up with a Quinoa burger which I liked. WE all liked the many beers we had along with the food and folks. Wandering home we got gelato from a stand, 2 scoops each and it was fab!
Today I think we’ll do the actual Hilma Hooker dive and try to do the Salt Pier dive. Hilma Hooker is a wreck dive, we won’t go in since we don’t really have the training for that. The Salt Pier is actually the real pier from which they load the salt from the local salt works. That’s also where the desalination plant is for the island, so they make money selling the salt. Pretty smart. It’s a long pier and divers can go there when a ship isn’t currently being loaded. We’ll try to do that one in the afternoon so the sun will be pretty for pictures. Crystal will take her little underwater camera I got her and we’ll see what we get.
So far, we’re having lots of fun and enjoying our time here. Mornings like this one, we sit in the sun and visit and have a cup and plan our day. It’s good.
Thursday, April 25, 2019
ostracods and playing
We did an evening dive today. For the day we wandered and shopped and played in town. We stopped by the AB Dive shop early in the day to grab our tanks for the night dive. We had a great lunch at a place called Peanuts which has vegan meats along with lots of other delicious things. We had a fabulous coffee downtown and did a little shopping here and there. It was a fun day.
At 6:15 PM we met up at AB Dive with our dive master IVE (pronounced Eve) and her trainee Davie. They’re both Dutch, as most folks here are since it’s a Dutch island chain (duh). Her back story was working in high powered marketing in an erotic/spirituality business with her mom. Then she tried diving 3 years ago and never looked back. She says her office now has no walls :D. We followed them to the Ostracod dive site which was called The Rock and was on the south end of the west side of Bonaire. It’s out past the salt pier and along the salt works. One needs a very dark site for the Ostracods to light up. And light up they did! Several inch long strings of bio luminous “stuff” as far as the eye can see in a 360 degree circle. When they started to chill on the lighting Ive would flash her light and they’d start up again. It’s a bit of a mating dance. Following the show we did a little torch light tour of the reef there, seeing puffer fish, rays, sea urchin and anemone. It was pretty darn cool.
Then it was home, a shower and bed. My calves are KILLING me, but it’s pretty darn fun.
At 6:15 PM we met up at AB Dive with our dive master IVE (pronounced Eve) and her trainee Davie. They’re both Dutch, as most folks here are since it’s a Dutch island chain (duh). Her back story was working in high powered marketing in an erotic/spirituality business with her mom. Then she tried diving 3 years ago and never looked back. She says her office now has no walls :D. We followed them to the Ostracod dive site which was called The Rock and was on the south end of the west side of Bonaire. It’s out past the salt pier and along the salt works. One needs a very dark site for the Ostracods to light up. And light up they did! Several inch long strings of bio luminous “stuff” as far as the eye can see in a 360 degree circle. When they started to chill on the lighting Ive would flash her light and they’d start up again. It’s a bit of a mating dance. Following the show we did a little torch light tour of the reef there, seeing puffer fish, rays, sea urchin and anemone. It was pretty darn cool.
Then it was home, a shower and bed. My calves are KILLING me, but it’s pretty darn fun.
Wednesday, April 24, 2019
Bonaire
We are in Bonaire this week. It’s part of the Dutch Caribbean Islands. We left home at 11 Am on Sunday and drove to Denver where we caught a flight to Phoenix, where we caught a flight to Miami, where we caught a flight to Bonaire. We arrived at 3 PM on Monday. The trip back is a bit quicker since we only have a stop in Miami for that return trip. Monday night we walked to a little market and bought some beer, then relaxed a bit. We’re staying at a little place called the Caribbean Chillout Apartments. It’s nice, quiet, and chill. :D We appear to be the only folks staying here, there’s a nice pool to cool off in. The owner are pleasant, there’s lots of places to sit outside in the shade and the breeze too. There’s even an outdoor bed to chill out on.
Airports? Denver is as usual. Pretty efficient and we were there early so we could get a drink if we wanted. I got the delight of sitting behind someone on all 3 flights that just loved to lay their chairs back. :D The Phoenix airport was insanely busy. And at 10 PM to midnight none the less. Weird. Miami was good. We got a snack and waited 4.5 hours there. We caught a shuttle to our hotel when we arrived in Bonaire. That guy drove FAST.
So that was Sunday and Monday. Tuesday morning AB Dive picked us up in our rental truck for the week. Then we went to the rental/dive center. That’s where we did the rental paperwork and got checked in for our diving week. We’d reserved a LionFish hunt expedition and our guide for that, Rory, let us know that we really needed more dive experience before doing that. Also the LionFish are pretty much fished out around Bonaire, so we’d probably have had little luck anyway. After chatting we all decided together to change that dive to 2 guided dives and set up for those and an additional experience dive on Thursday night. Rory was great, and we really needed the refresher and everything worked out great. He took us on dives we’d probably not have attempted by ourselves including one La Dania’s Leap. You do a giant stride off a cliff at about 10 to 12’. That was a real weenie shrinker! The diving was great. We saw turtles, barracudas, parrot fish and a delightful healthy reef. I think the deepest we went was 55’ so we got almost an hour dive in on both dives. Both were also drift dives, which means you enter at one spot and swim with the current to another spot. I’m proud of us, we both did it and our diving and air use is getting better. These were dives 10 and 11. Rory was great, friendly, fun, professional and cute to boot. :D
After diving we explored town a bit, and a celebratory drink or two and went to our room, had a dip in the pool and a good nights sleep.
Today, Wednesday, is our Ostracod dive. It’s a night dive with bioluminescent critters. Supposed to be beautiful. A veritable Disneyland of diving! We’re sleeping in today, had coffee at the room and we’ll play and shop while we go get our air setup for tonight and get directions on where to meet the dive crew from AB Dive. Should be a fun day!
Airports? Denver is as usual. Pretty efficient and we were there early so we could get a drink if we wanted. I got the delight of sitting behind someone on all 3 flights that just loved to lay their chairs back. :D The Phoenix airport was insanely busy. And at 10 PM to midnight none the less. Weird. Miami was good. We got a snack and waited 4.5 hours there. We caught a shuttle to our hotel when we arrived in Bonaire. That guy drove FAST.
So that was Sunday and Monday. Tuesday morning AB Dive picked us up in our rental truck for the week. Then we went to the rental/dive center. That’s where we did the rental paperwork and got checked in for our diving week. We’d reserved a LionFish hunt expedition and our guide for that, Rory, let us know that we really needed more dive experience before doing that. Also the LionFish are pretty much fished out around Bonaire, so we’d probably have had little luck anyway. After chatting we all decided together to change that dive to 2 guided dives and set up for those and an additional experience dive on Thursday night. Rory was great, and we really needed the refresher and everything worked out great. He took us on dives we’d probably not have attempted by ourselves including one La Dania’s Leap. You do a giant stride off a cliff at about 10 to 12’. That was a real weenie shrinker! The diving was great. We saw turtles, barracudas, parrot fish and a delightful healthy reef. I think the deepest we went was 55’ so we got almost an hour dive in on both dives. Both were also drift dives, which means you enter at one spot and swim with the current to another spot. I’m proud of us, we both did it and our diving and air use is getting better. These were dives 10 and 11. Rory was great, friendly, fun, professional and cute to boot. :D
After diving we explored town a bit, and a celebratory drink or two and went to our room, had a dip in the pool and a good nights sleep.
Today, Wednesday, is our Ostracod dive. It’s a night dive with bioluminescent critters. Supposed to be beautiful. A veritable Disneyland of diving! We’re sleeping in today, had coffee at the room and we’ll play and shop while we go get our air setup for tonight and get directions on where to meet the dive crew from AB Dive. Should be a fun day!
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