Tag Archives: Bonaire

Afternoon and Dusk Dives

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After the boat dives this morning, Paul took care of the free flowing in my regulator, and then Ralph, Joe, and I headed out for a leisurely dive on the house reef. It was a really nice dive. I was such a relief not to have the regulator constantly leaking air, and I felt a little more comfortable heading deeper along the drop-off on the reef. This time, we headed to the north, along the edge of the reef, until we reached the sunken boat at the next resort. It was easier taking pictures along the wall than it was on the flatter reefs we’d been doing. Continue reading →

First Boat Dives

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This morning, we did our first boat dives. We left the dock shortly after 8 with all twenty of us and our guides Remy and Connor. The first dive was at a site called “Rockpile”; I don’t remember the name of the second site.

Rockpile is on the other side of Kleine Bonaire, a small deserted island off the western coast of the main island. The site sloped down from about 20 feet into the depths; I mostly stayed shallow. I’ve had a regulator free-flow that’s been costing me bottom time so I didn’t want to go too deep.

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First Day of Diving

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Today was our first actual day of diving. After breakfast, we headed down to the dive shop to pick up our weights, and get in the water. The resort requires guests to do their first dive on the house reef, in order to allow people a chance to get their weighting (and hence their buoyancy) correct before heading out other dive sites.

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Bonaire Pictures: Thursday

Gallery

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Hawksbill Turtle

This gallery contains 12 photos.

Thursday was a pair of boat dives, Pink Beach, and Paul’s steak dinner. We were about a hundred yards from the site called Rappel when a boat from another resort swooped in and beat us to the mooring, but almost … Continue reading →

Bonaire Pictures: Tuesday

Gallery

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Entrance to Weber's Joy/Witch's Hut

This gallery contains 18 photos.

Tuesday morning I did Weber’s Joy with the Hinzes and Alec and Nick, Tuesday afternoon, the Nolans, Henri Menco and I did Dee Scarr’s Touch the Sea program, and in the evening, I did a dusk dive with Jack and … Continue reading →

Back Home Again

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Well, I’m back home again. Barely. My clothes are still in transit. Yesterday was not the airlines’ finest hour.

Daria and Harry’s flight to Miami was cancelled; they had to wait several extra hours to get a flight to Curaçao, and fly back to the UK from there. Our flight from Bonaire to Atlanta was delayed an hour. This turned out to be nearly disastrous.

Customs is Broken

When we got to Atlanta, we had to uncheck all our checked baggage–and remember, we had a plane full of divers, not just us, but several other groups as well, and all with lots of extra stuff, and go through Customs. It was insanity, and we had an hour less time than planned. My bags took forever to come out.

Then we had to go downstairs to go through Customs, and get our forms stamped. And because we came out of the secure area to pick up the backs, we had to be re-screened again.  I just don’t get it. Customs didn’t need to see our bags; they just stamped the forms. And if they needed to see them, couldn’t they have an agent look at them as they were being transferred from plane to plane, instead of making us go through an insecure area? Couldn’t they have had the flight attendants collect the forms in flight, and pull out anyone they needed to see, and send everyone else through a direct connection?

Once we cleared customs, we had to go running back to recheck the bags, and clear security again. Security was a seething mass of frantic people trying to make their flights. They were not willing to accommodate the fact that we had a connecting flight; probably because there were so many people. There was a long long winding line to get through it; Paul was convinced we wouldn’t make it. He made a point of sticking by me though, and I thank him for that.

I felt like I was doing a bit of a strip tease in line– in order to get through as fast as possible, I was pulling off my sweater, taking off my watch, pulling out my wallet, before we got to the scanners. I was traveling with my laptop and cables, so I had to pull all that stuff out. To make things more complicated, after the xray machine, there were three of us with MacBook Pros right in a row, and some idiot decided to put them all in the same bin. Fortunately, mine has a scratched top, so I was able to pick it out. I then shoveled everything back into my carryon, and still in my stocking feet, and with my pants starting to fall, because there was no time to put my belt back on, ran toward the gate. Run, run, run, take the tram, run some more.

We made it, with literally no time to spare. They were closing the plane door as we got there. I was ahead of Paul, and I wasn’t sure at first that he’d make it. Once I was in sight of the gate, I slowed down a little so they could see me, and then see Paul, and hopefully let him on. They did, and then they slammed the door closed.

And then we waited.

While they were not willing to wait for us, they were willing to wait for luggage. Then there were more difficulties with luggage–things were out of balance and had to be adjusted. In the meantime, we found out there were several people (not in our group) who missed the flight.

Delta loses the luggage

Still, finally, we were in the air, and soon we were back in snowy Boston, where we all trudged to the baggage pickup. My dive gear appeared; then there was an announcement that all the stuff was off the plane, and if you were missing something, to file a claim. Obviously, they knew they’d screwed up. Henri was missing a bag, Paul was missing two bags, and each of the couples was missing at least one bag. At least, I have all my expensive stuff in hand, and I’m only missing my laundry. Still, it was not a great ending to an otherwise great trip.

Update 1/22 5:19 PM:

The second bag was just delivered.

Last Dives

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Today was the last day of diving for this trip. You have to be done 24 hours before you fly.

This morning, Paul prevailed upon the boat crew to try Rappel, and unlike yesterday, no one swooped in and scooped it on us. We ended up doing both dives of the boat trip on that one site; the first heading north, the second heading south. During the first dive, we saw a green moray eel and a turtle; during the second, a squid. It’s a beautiful site, with lots of texture to it; the southern end has a lot of old broken coral while the northern side is more pristine. The mooring is right next to the shoreline; it’s a sheer cliff (hence the name) with an undercut; there’s lots of neat things to see under the overhang.

Moray Eel

On the way back, the boat captain suddenly made an S-turn; I was wondering why when suddenly I heard someone shouting “Dolphins!” There was a pod of dolphins gamboling around us. The pulled up along side us then fell behind; we stopped and they dropped under the water; then we turned around and they started up again. I tried getting a picture, but they weren’t close enough, and the camera has too much shutter lag.

We got back to the dock, had lunch, and soon it was time for our last dive of the trip. Alec, Natalyia and I headed north from the dock. The camera battery was exhausted, and soon the lens retracted and refused to come out and play again. We saw tarpon on this dive, plus a third bait ball of very small fish spinning around underneath one of the dive boats, plus a school of jacks spinning around underneath them. It was a good end to the diving.

For the end of the day, Paul took us on a tour of the northern end of the island. I switched batteries, and off we went. We went up to the nature preserve, through Rincon, and ended up at an overlook looking over the southern end of the island.

We went out for dinner, and now all that remains is to pack up, settle up, and endure the trip home.

Update: More pictures here.