Today was the last day of diving. My flight leaves tomorrow at 3:30, so I wanted to be out of the water by 3.

Most of us had not yet taken all of our boat dives, so Paul was able to reserve a boat for two tanks this morning. The first site was Country Garden, to the north of the resort. Country Garden has a number of large coral outcroppings. Under one of them, the guide pointed out a very large sea lobster that put most of our New England lobsters to shame.

By the time we came up, it had gotten windy, and there white caps on the ocean, so the boat captain took us up to a site called Sampler, more or less in the lee of Klein Bonaire.

Parrot Fish

Moray Eel

The site is called Sampler because it’s very typical of the marine life here. I got this parrot fish there, as well as the moray eel below:

I was noticing, though, that I wasn’t really that into the photography today. I’ve tired a little of chasing fish and fighting with the camera, so for a lot of the dive, I just looked around me.

In fact, for the final dive, off the dock, I went without the camera completely. I did a giant stride off the dock, which I would never do with the camera, and then had a very nice dive that took us up past the sunken boat to the north.

We got out of the water at 2:45, and that was it. You need 24 hours to shed the excess nitrogen your body has picked up underwater. So I returned my weights, cleaned my gear, returned my locker key, tipped the dive staff, and spread the dive gear out to dry.

Since we had a couple of hours before dinner, and because I haven’t done much terrestrial this trip, Mike and I took a drive around the island. We went up to Gotomeer, where we saw flamingos, and Mike managed to get a yellow warbler to perch on the passenger side window.

Yellow Warbler

Flamingo

Then we continued on through Rincon, up to Seru Largu, which overlooks most of the island, and back again. As I write this, I’m by the pool, watching the sun go down.

Tomorrow promises to be a busy day; we have to pack up by 11:30 and be checked out by noon; my flight is at 3:30, but United is already skittish about the weather in Newark, and has advised us that there may be delays.

Update: more pictures here.