December 31 – locals go nuts with fireworks.

Today started out slow, and we didn’t get going until later in the morning. We started with some shopping for food, and then had lunch back at our unit. I then managed to fall asleep in the chair on our balcony. In the later afternoon we did a dive at Angel City. This is a dive on the south end of the island; it has easy entry and is part of the double reef. We entered and descended to the edge of the first reef; we were surrounded by a school of squid; this was Trudy’s first experience with squid. I followed them around trying to get some close photos, which would have been nice except none of my photos from the dive were in focus. DAMN!

We then went out for supper with Erin, Scott, Natalie, Pat, Phil, and Philemina at a new Mexican restaurant that we had heard good things about on the Bonaire Talks web site. The food was OK, but most of us would not get the same dish again; however the two-for-one happy hour was a huge hit. After dinner we all returned to our unit to watch the fireworks. This not the same as any fireworks display you would see in Ottawa. People started letting firework off at about dusk, and it continues unit the wee hours of the morning. We went to bed at 1:00 pm and they were still going strong. So imagine hundreds of locals with fireworks letting them off all over the island. At 11:00 pm we were looking out over the horizon from our third floor balcony and it looked like a war zone; everywhere you looked there were fireworks being shot off, and the downtown core was covered in smoke from these fireworks. I have never seen anything like it.