New Year’s Eve

I officially have a cold and am unable to dive. We did a bunch of grocery shopping this morning, as the stores will be closed on New Year’s Day. We relaxed around the pool, and I had a nap later in the afternoon. I needed my energy for this evening. We went out for dinner with Pat and Natalie at Blue Cactus, and spent three and a half hours in the restaurant, mostly waiting for service and food. The excuse the owner gave us was that they had a group of 20 that slowed things down. When the meals finally arrived, the others were good, but mine was just OK. It was the toughest piece of Filet Mignon I have ever had. We got back to the unit about 10:30 and we were all in bed by 11:20. My excuse was I had a cold!

Our location on Bonaire

First dive

Trudy and I did our buoyancy check dive with Yellow Submarine in the late morning, and then we continued with a dive on the house reef. I got a couple of decent pictures.

Run around, rest, and do nothing but be busy

The day started early for us, 6:15am, as Pat and Natalie, who are joining us for two of the weeks we are here, were arriving on the red-eye flight from Houston. The same car rental firm forgot to pick them up at the airport, so they took a cab and arrived at about 7:20am. We had arranged for our rental truck to be dropped off at the unit at 8am; they showed at 8:50am. They informed me that they had given away our rental truck, which was a nice one, and they only had a wreck for us. I asked if they had Pat and Natalie’s truck, and the woman looked at me funny. She didn’t and said that she had them arriving later in the day. I had told them on the phone the night before that Pat and Natalie were arriving on the red-eye in the morning and not to forget to pick them up. She said she would be back in about 30 minutes with Pat and Natalie’s truck, so we went out to get some breakfast. Our truck had no seat belts and Trudy didn’t want to keep it. When Pat and Natalie’s truck arrived we talked to them about getting a new truck. We arranged to exchange the truck at 5pm for a brand new truck. At 5pm when we arrived at the garage to pick up the new tuck and they had the hood up and were working on it. Apparently the air conditioning didn’t work; we took the truck anyway and they are going to e-mail us when they get a new truck and we can again exchange.

We also did some grocery shopping and got registered with Yellow Submarine for the diving for the next three weeks. And I managed to have a nap.

The evening ended with a wonderful meal from “Bobbie Jans”. I want everyone to understand how much I like this restaurant. On a web site dedicated to Bonaire; www.bonairetalk.com, there was a post asking for your 7 favourite restaurants; I posts “Bobbie Jans” seven times. They are only open on the weekends, so I will be having them again tomorrow evening.

Travel Day...continued

We were exhausted from the day before and slept in until about 10am, and just managed to get some breakfast at 10:50 before the restaurant closed. After breakfast I connected to the Internet and searched flights on American’s web site and discovered that they were selling seats on the Bonaire flight we wanted; our hopes were raised. We checked out at noon and proceeded immediately to the airport. The first stop we made was the American ticket office to get two tickets for the Friday flight. After explaining our situation the agent informed us that the ticket fee would be $252 more, plus the $100 change fee. To say the least we were not happy about the mixed messages. We tried to reason with the agent but she would not budge; she did say that we should go to line 5, American Eagle check-in line, and talk to a supervisor; they might be able to waive the change fee. Fortunately the line was short and I explained the entire situation to the supervisor; she asked for our passports, which she scanned into the system. She then informed us that the system was not asking her for anything and we were now confirmed on the flight to Bonaire that evening at 6:55pm. YA HOOOO! Now we just needed our luggage!

I went down to the United baggage claim office and to my surprise they had our entire luggage (4 bags). We went back to the American counter and checked our luggage and proceeded to wait until the flight. The flight was relatively uneventful, except myself and another individual were ticketed with the same seat; he really wanted mine, but I sat in it first. He made a big stink, and almost got himself tossed off the flight. He took his seat, but the flight was delayed while we waited for a supervisor from the ticketing desk to come out to talk to him. They told us that he was actually re-assigned to the seat he was in and I was in the correct seat. So we departed about 20 minutes late. On the surface this may not seem like a big deal, but that 20 minutes cost me a meal at my favourite restaurant, “Bobbie Jans”. I got to the restaurant 10 minutes before they closed, but they were out of food for the day. As a side note, the car rental agency didn’t show up with our truck, so we had to wait until the next day to get one, but that’s another entire story, almost as sad as our flight story.

We did finally enjoy a meal at one of the few restaurants that was still open; most of the kitchens close at 10pm, so we were lucky.

Travel Day - Start of new Vacation

Normally traveling to Bonaire takes about a day. It starts with an early morning flight from Ottawa ending at about 9:30pm in Bonaire. This trip was not going to be that easy for us.

The adventure started at 3:15am on Thursday morning when our alarm went off, which meant that we had about 3 hours of sleep. We got to the airport before 4:00am which was fine, but no one from the airlines was present. We got checked in and at the counter with Air Canada and proceeded through security and US Customs. While waiting for the plane Trudy checked the departure screen for the Ottawa – Washington leg, and noticed that our flight was scheduled for 45 minutes later than we thought. We checked our connecting boarding pass and it showed our boarding for the Washington – San Juan leg before we arrived in Washington, it had been re-scheduled to leave 40 minutes earlier, leaving us less than 30 to connect. We left Ottawa and arrived in Washington after our flight had left for San Juan. I checked the departure board and saw another flight to San Juan was departing in about 30 minutes, so we managed to get on that one. The wrinkle is that this flight had a stop in St. Thomas first, then on to San Juan. Up to now, even with this longer flight we still had lots of time to make the connecting flight from San Juan to Bonaire. Instead of a five hour layover, we still would have about three hours. We flew no problems to St. Thomas, where they would not let the San Juan passengers off. They boarded the plane in St. Thomas and taxied out to take off, but we didn’t. The pilot came on and informed us that there were mechanical problems and they would need to look into it.

By the time we landed in San Juan, we had missed our connecting flight and we had been on the plane for a total of nine and a half hours without being allowed to get off. The biggest problem for us was that we were changing carriers, so United was not responsible for getting us to Bonaire, just to San Juan. We were on our own for accommodation and as far as American was concerned we were just a customer who didn’t show up for a flight.

As our luggage didn’t make it to San Juan we went to the Baggage Claim office to track it down. They checked their records and it showed our luggage was scheduled to arrive on the 10:30pm flight later in the evening, so we decided to leave it until the next day to pick it up. The agent made a few calls for us to locate a hotel room, which typically runs $200 - $400 US per night. The hotel at the airport was fully booked, and he gave us a number for another hotel located in Old San Juan. We then proceeded to the American ticketing office to see what they could do about our missed flight. They indicated that the flight on Friday was fully booked but they had room on Saturday. It would be an $84 ticket cost change charge, plus the $100 change fee per person. They also indicated we should get to the airport three hours before the flight on Friday if we wanted to try standby. We decided to call the hotel to see if they had a room and wait until tomorrow and try the standby route. We were able to get the hotel and enjoyed a good sleep in San Juan.

Day 7 - A THREE dive day -- WOW

The day started with a two tank boat dive to Klein Bonaire; they were originally planning on dives to a couple of sites on the north end of the Island that you normally can't shore dive, but I guess plans changed. We were diving with Yellow Submarine for this boat dive, and were told that we had a full boat of 10 people. Imagine our surprise when they filled one of their smaller boats with 12 people. The dives were good, we did Captian Don's and Carl's Hill. After lunch and some rest, I convinced Trudy, with some help from Mike and Jeannette to do a third dive of the day, just to look for the Sea Horses at the Yellow Submarine house reef. We had spent a couple of dives last year looking for the Sea Horse, but were not successful. Well, thanks to Mike he was able to locate the Sea Horse and I got a few photos of him.

Day 6 – Hospital Visit

The day started slowly, as Trudy’s tooth ache was bothering he again. She got this tooth ache on the Friday before we left for vacation. We cancelled the two dives we had planned this morning, and went to look for a dentist on the Island. Today is a State Holiday, and everything is closed until Monday, so we came back to our unit to make a call to our dentist in Canada. They indicated that it was most likely an abscessed tooth and it was infected. They recommended that she get some antibiotics and take some pain killers. So off to the Hospital we went. The Hospital was not busy and we were seen relatively quickly; the doctor prescribed the required antibiotics and told us where we would find the only open pharmacy on the island. It was open for one hour, from 11 to 12, and we arrived at 11:30. After we got the drugs we had some lunch and then headed back to our unit to watch some of the US Open tennis. The afternoon also involved a nap for both of us; Trudy has not been sleeping well so she needed it, and I don’t have a excuse, but hey, I am on vacation.

Day 5 – Double dive day

The diving has started for real now. We dove the Barri dive site, which we remembered from last year as a good location. This time we dove with Mike and Jeannette and the dive took us deeper than we normally go, but it was no real problem. We ended our dive earlier than they did, and afterwards we headed back to our unit for some lunch and a rest. In the early afternoon we drove to the south end of the island to dive another site, but the surf, and entry looked to challenging, so we headed back to a site, still on the south end, but closer to town called The Lake. This was my first dive that I felt comfortable on the dive, not fighting the new equipment. It was a nice dive for me.

Day 4 – second day of rain

The day started out nice, and I was working on the blog in the early morning by the pool. Trudy joined me and mentioned that the sky looked black; I decided to pack things up and head back the room. For the rest of the morning, and in the early afternoon if poured rain, which is very unusual for Bonaire. The shot below shows the view out our unit.

In the afternoon things cleared up and we were able to get in our second dive at a site called Karpata. We have done this site before, and enjoyed it. One thing that we noticed was that there was a fairly strong current running north. We were not used to this on Bonaire. I only managed to get one good shot underwater.

September 3 - First Dive

We loaded up all of our new gear into the truck and headed down to Wannadive for our buoyancy check-out dive. Trudy forgot our voucher for the pre-paid air package we had, so she was explaining to the guy behind the counter about this. He then indicated that they were not honouring the Golden Reef Inn vouchers. At this point I got into the discussion, and asked him if he could check with his boss as this problem was resolved the day before. The “boss” was on the boat with the morning dive group was the excuse I was given. I said, doesn’t he have a cell phone on the boat; eventually he called the boat, but the “boss” was on the dive. He suggested that we do our check-out dive first and we would straighten out the payment after. At this point he asked if we had an appointment, which we were told we didn’t need, and he said we would need to wait 30 minutes until he was taking another class down. We then proceeded to get our weights for the dive and begin our 30 minute wait. Eventually in the heat and waiting I decided that we would simply go over to Yellow Submarine and do our diving for the week with them. We took our equipment and loaded it back into the truck, at which point Trudy remembered that we had forgot to return the weights. I took the weights back to the dive shop, and as I was leaving I noticed that the dive boat was just coming back. I went over to talk to the “boss”, Bob. I explained the situation to him and that I would be posting my experience on my web site. He again said that Golden Reef Inn was behind in payments. I said that my problem had been resolved the day before, and that I was not happy to again have to go through the grief of arguing with his staff, and that he and Golden Reef Inn should get their act together. After some discussion, he said that we should do our check-out dive, and that yes I was correct, we didn’t need to wait for the instructor, we could go immediately.

One thing I have left out of this experience is that yesterday we were at the shop getting the briefing on tank pick-up and drop-off, and I noticed that they didn’t have any of the smaller 63lb tanks, which are easier to handle. Yesterday was a no-dive day, so I was concerned that they didn’t have many of this size tank. Bob assured me that there would be plenty of the smaller tanks for the rest of the week.

Once we started to get geared up for our first dive, the staff we very helpful, getting the analyser, getting the tanks, and helping with the suit-up process. Bob eventually reported back that yes, in fact I was correct, the Golden Reef Inn had paid for the air, and all was good.

I believe that both parties in this dispute are partially at fault, and me the customer is getting caught in the middle. I hope the rest of the week is trouble free for us.

We walked to the far end of the beach for our entry (translation: we were hot, and the sweat was pouring off us by the time we got in). We both headed out and tested our buoyancy, which was successful. We both then started to descend in the shallows, 10ft of water, and both had problems staying down. I got out and walked back to the dive shop to get us some more weights. We then added weights and we were both able to get the correct buoyancy when at depth.

The visibility was terrible; Felix had kicked up a lot of silt. Things only improved as we got out over the reef, but this reef was in bad shape. I got a few photos which I have posted below.

The photo below is of a boat that got pushed up on to the beach by Hurricane Felix; Wannadive was talking about making it another wreck off their shore, but I don’t think the authorities will let them.

After the dive we headed into town for some lunch, followed by a nap for a couple hours in the afternoon.

In the evening we hooked up with another couple at the resort, Mike and Jeannette, who were from Ottawa. Mike noticed that Trudy was drinking coffee from a Tim Horton’s travel mug and asked if she was from Canada. They live in Orleans and have both been diving for the about the same period of time as Trudy and I. In fact Mike also was a certified diver 30 years ago, and he stopped diving, similar to me. They are a little more serious about their diving and have over 200 dives, whereas Trudy and I have about 50. We enjoyed a meal at a French restaurant called Bistro de Paris.

September 2 - No Diving :(

Thankfully, hurricane Felix turned a little north and was just a big rain storm for us, so we were not evacuated, and the power didn’t go off. The only impact to us was that diving had been cancelled for our first day due to the surf. We went down to the office to get an update, and connect to the Internet to find out what was happening with the storm. We went down to Eden Beach and the waves were between 3 and 4 feet, so we were not unhappy that there was no diving. We have some new equipment to check out and wanted calm waters to do this. The dive Wannadive shop gave us a hard time about payment, saying that the Golden Reef Inn was $30,000 in unpaid dive vouchers. We talked to Liz at Golden Reef Inn and she immediately straightened out the problem. Turns out that Wannadive had been charging things to the Golden Reef Inn that they shouldn’t have been. All things turned out OK. We did a short drive around town to see how things fared from the previous evening’s storm; the biggest impact was that the streets leading to the water we closed and the street that ran along the water front was also closed.

In afternoon we spent some time in the pool to cool off, it feels much warmer at this time of the year because of the humidity. I was looking at the current weather reads from Eden Beach and it said it was 100% humidity, which normally means it’s raining, but it wasn’t. I went for a late afternoon nap and woke up about two hours later, and there was no sign of Trudy in the unit. I correctly assumed that she was talking to someone. I returned to the pool to find her talking with Liz the owner of the Inn, and Renota, the former owner of the “Lost Penguin” restaurant; our favourite breakfast restaurant no longer on the island; they sold, and the new place is not as good. For dinner we did my favourite “take-away” again, but this time we ate it by the pool, and I enjoy a couple of Polars (beer) with my meal. After dinner I got my computer and Trudy spent some time on Skype with her daughter, OK, she talked for about 45 minutes.

Again...Sorry no photos

September 1 - Travel day

The travel day started very early, 4am cab; and we both only got about 2 hours of sleep. I know I was thinking about work, so I will be charging overtimeJ. The flight to Newark was on time and smooth and we were able to connect easily to the Newark-Curacao flight. On the Curacao flight I watched the first movie, Oceans 13. Good thing that I didn’t pay to rent that one, two thumbs down. I had already seen the second movie, so took out my laptop and turned it on. The Acer boot screen came up, followed by a blank black screen. The next thing displayed was “Disk error, CTLR-ALT-DEL to restart”. I tried a few times and finally gave up. I assumed that my hard disk had failed and I was not a happy camper. (more on this later!)

We arrived in Curacao about an hour and a half before our next flight and went off looking for the check-in counter for our next flight. We only had our tickets from Ottawa to Curacao, and we needed to pick up the tickets for our final leg from a carrier called Divi-Divi. We looked at all of the check-in counters and were unable to locate our carrier. We went and had some lunch and about an hour before the flight we went back and found that our check-in counter was now open. I have decided that I don’t like the electronic signs; if they had an old technology sign we would have seen that they had a counter, instead of looking around the airport to see if they had a separate ticket office. The individual behind the counter was a young gentleman who was wearing a harness that gives you back support, and looked more like a baggage handler than a ticket agent. The check-in process was slow but no problems; there were about 7 passengers on the flight. At the gate they made the boarding announcement in another language, so we didn’t jump up to board. Eventually we figured it out, but we were at the back of the line.

I have flown Bearskin airlines many times, and small planes are not a problem for me. We approached the plane and it was pretty small, the boarding was done from both sides of the plane; the plane was so small they had no room for carry-on luggage, other than a woman’s hand bag. Trudy and I both hand-checked our luggage; by the time this was done all of the seats were taken except for one. One of the guys on the tarmac motioned to Trudy to get into the plane at the front where the pilot seat was; looking at this she discovered that she would be sitting in the co-pilot’s seat. I immediately volunteered to take the front seat. The pilot got in and started the engines; wow it was loud! It was an amazing view of Bonaire as we approached and landed.

We arrived on Bonaire and discovered that the same guy we have rented our trucks from in the past was also there to give us our truck. We drove to the Cultimara supermarket for some supplies and then headed over to the Golden Reef Inn. On the door was a notice about Hurricane Felix and that we might need to be evacuated because we were located within 500 meters of the ocean. We were told the power on the island would be turned off between 11:30 and 12:00 for the rest of the night.

We unpacked, sort of; I left most of my stuff in the suitcases, so I could move them to higher ground easily if required. I took out the laptop, and removed the PCMCIA card reader that I had put into the slot, and powered up the computer. This time it booted up fine. Phew!

We had some dinner at my favourite “take-away’ restaurant, Bobby Jans, WOW. We then decided to go to bed early so if we got evacuated later we would have had some rest.

Sorry...no pictures.

Underwater photos from our last vacation

Jan 19 - Last day of the vacation

Today is the last day of the vacation. We had our account to settle with Yellow Submarine, and again they gave us a very good deal. We did a little island touring to some of the dive sites that we were at. We also went out to Lac Bay for a late lunch.

Jan 18 – Last Dive day on Vacation

Today is the last day that we can dive on this vacation; we need to allow 24 hours after our last dive before we can fly. Today is very calm and we have wanted to dive Atlantis which has been the Kite Boarders’ location for a while. The reason we haven’t done it is because of the dangers of diving at the same spot as the kiters. They are supposed to stay in the deeper blue water, but frequently they sail in the shallows. We have heard of one near miss between a diver surfacing and a kiter, so we have been reluctant to dive here. As today is calm there is a good chance that no one will be kiting at the location, so we dove there. We ended up seeing a Spotted Eagle Ray and I managed to get some video of him swimming by. On this dive I was taking mostly video, so I only have a few shots.

For a complete set of photos and a link to the Ray video, follow this link.

Jan 17 – Tennis and Dive

With the vacation winding down, we only have one dive day left after today. We started early with some tennis, first singles and then some doubles, which was nice. We played in the heat for about two hours. Later in the morning we went for a dive at Yellow Submarine again; still looking for the Sea Horse. I did manage to get some nice shots of the Porcupine fish.

For a complete set of photos follow this link.

Jan16 – Donkey Sanctuary

Today we sent out the last email blast back to friends in Ottawa. After the internet café visit we did a little exploring and found ourselves at the Donkey Sanctuary, so we took the drive through the park. This is the first year that they have the drive through; in the past you could walk with them. There were a few picnic areas where you could get out and walk with them.

For a complete set of photos visit the vacation web site.

Jan 15 – Just another dive day

Today we dove at a site called Andrea II. This was a nice dive; we saw the usual collection of fishes. Before the dive we did some shopping and a short internet run. The afternoon was spent napping. In the evening we had dinner at our unit with Pat and Nathalie followed by a game of cards.
For the complete set of photos follow this link.

Jan 14 – Tennis and Dive day

The day started out at about 7:00am with some planned tennis. Unfortunately the weather was not on our side; it was raining and the courts were wet. We headed back to the unit to continue our sleep. A little later in the morning we decided to do a dive. We had two locations picked out--Bachelor’s Beach and Bari’s Reef, so I had Trudy choose the location. We were then off to Bachelor’s Beach, which was my preferred location. We started the dive, and the water was very murky; it didn’t improve much by the time we got to depth which was about 40ft. I was struggling with my mask and the visibility was bad, so I called the dive off. We then headed over to Bari’s Reef still in our wetsuits. It turned out to be a very easy entry/exit and a nice dive.

For a full set of photos, follow this link.

Jan 13 – Tennis and vacation home shopping

Today I finally got caught up with my web site, and sent out a quick email. We did a quick drive up to the Santa Barbra area to look at a few homes that were for sale. After seeing the local homes our hopes were dashed a little; I think we will be waiting for a reasonably priced vacation income property before we take the leap into Bonaire real estate. For a full set of photos, follow this link.

Jan 12 – Another veg-out-day

Today we did an almost total veg-out. We managed to get to the Internet Café for a quick check of our mail, and a little research into purchasing vacation property in Bonaire. The reason that we vegged out today was because we were terrorized last night by a few mosquitoes that kept waking us up.

Jan 11 – Double dive day

We started the day at 8:00 am by meeting with Phil and Brian to go on a dive at Karpata. This was a nice dive and lasted almost an hour. I think our dives are starting to last closer to the hour, rather than the 45 minute mark. After lunch we went for another dive at Yellow Submarine. I wanted to try a dive with 2 pounds less weight to see if my buoyancy control would be better underwater. It was perfect. I think this was the first dive I truly enjoyed; I had tightened my mask, so I had no leaks, and I had excellent buoyancy control. At the end of the dive Trudy found the largest Porcupine fish (or puffer) that we have ever seen. According to one of the fish identification books we have, they typically grow to a maximum of 3ft, and I think this guy was that or more. For the complete set of vacation photos follow this link.

Jan 10 – Another day of rest

Today we got up early and enjoyed about an hour of tennis--any longer and it gets way too hot to play. The rest of the day was spent lazing around the unit. I did spend many hours working on the web site catching up with today.

Jan 9 – Another Boat Dive to Kein

For this boat dive we were on the public boat, and our group was 4 divers and 3 snorkelers; the other group was 7 divers. We did two dives sites on this trip, and we managed to see another turtle. I got a couple of shots, and then switched to video and got a nice close-up video of the turtle. When we got into the water at the first site we were greeted by a school of silver fish, and one French Angel. These fish were obviously used to being fed by divers, even though you are not supposed to feed the wildlife. One of the fish actually bit Phil when we got into the water and one bit me when we were exiting. We enjoyed a wonderful meal at a restaurant called “Swiss Chalet”.
For a full set of photos, follow this link.

Jan 8 – Dive at Oil Slick

While the dive site name sounds bad, it is a nickname given the site, as it was going to be the planned oil container port; fortunately the port was built at the far north end of the island. On this dive we saw our first Flamingo Tongue. In the afternoon we did a little shopping. We met up with Pat and Nat at Karel’s Pier for happy hour and then had some dinner.
For a full set of pictures, follow this link.

Jan 7 – True day of rest

Today we did absolutely nothing. We did however get up very early (5:15 am) to take Erin and Scott to the airport for their flight back to reality. We then lazed around the unit for most of the day, with one short trip into town for money and the Internet. In the evening the gang came over and we enjoyed pizza and salad on our patio.

Jan 6 – Boat Charter

Today was Erin and Scott’s last full day on the island, so we chartered a boat to take us over to Klein Bonaire for some diving and snorkeling. Trudy and I did two dives and the kids did snorkeling at two different sites while we dove. The reef system is very healthy on Klein and we saw a few new corals and a cleaning station manned by multiple Banded Coral shrimp. In the evening the entire gang came over to enjoy Bobbiejan’s takeaway on our patio.

For a full set of phots follow this link

Jan 5 – day of rest, sort of

While we did one dive, we did manage to get some shopping done, but mostly spent the day relaxing. We got to the dive location called “The Cliff” at about 3:30 pm and had no problem getting into the water; however, getting out was another story. We swam into the shallows too far and had difficulty getting up, which means the surf had time to pound us a little. Trudy got bashed up a little and had a small stumble as she was getting out--nothing serious, other than a couple of minor scrapes and bruises. At the beginning of the dive we saw two Cowfish mating; it was the first time for us to witness this behavior. I tried to get some shots but they were a little too far away.

For a full set of photos follw this link.

Jan 4 – Washington National Park

We got to the Washington National Park at about 10:00 am and started the day's trip. The roads were in very good condition because the rainy season has been fairly dry. This is good for a couple of reasons: fewer mosquitoes and the roads in the park are not washed out. Because the roads were good, we were able to take the long route and enjoyed seeing some things that we had not seen before. We ended up having lunch and doing some snorkeling at Boka Slagbaai, which is a very nice bay, with some historic buildings, and one of the few beaches on the island. To see the full set of photos for this day follow this link.

Jan 3 – Second Discover Scuba

Today Erin and Scott had their second Discover Scuba dive. This time we were able to follow along for part of it and got a few photos. We had lunch/breakfast back at our unit, and then headed out for a second dive/snorkel at Witches Hut. Erin and Scott were on the hunt for a Seahorse. The guide from the Woodwinds trip told them what type of coral to look for in order to find them. We all went off looking but had no luck. For all of the vacation photos follow this link.

Jan 2 – Woodwinds snorkel trip

Today started early as we had to get to the Divi Divi resort by 9:00 am to catch the Woodwinds sailboat. The boat took us over to Klein Bonaire for a drift snorkel. Now I hear the words “drift snorkel” and I assume we simply let the current take us from the start to the end; not so. The entire group got into the water and took off like a shot. I eventually caught up, but it took a while. The snorkel was good; I saw three turtles, and managed to get a video of one. The boat then took us to a snorkel location on the main island. It was a much slower snorkel, and I enjoyed it much more. After this snorkel they served us lunch as we sailed back to the Divi Divi resort. The remaining afternoon was spent laying about the unit, as some of us (me) didn’t use sun screen and got a little burnt.
Follow the this link to all the Vacation photos.

Jan 1, 2007 – Happy New Year

Today was another slow day that started early. I went for a snorkel in front of our unit to test the camera, and the operator. I still don’t know why yesterday’s shots were out of focus, as today everything was fine. You can find the full set of photos on my web site. We enjoyed a dinner in of chicken stir fry.

For all of the photos from vacation please follow this link.