Monday on Bonaire

May 14, 2013 Maurice Leave a comment

I am writing this while sitting on our screened porch, watching the palm trees wave at the ocean. A pretty nice view! The wireless connection here is very good. I’m uploading a very large video and it’s really quick. Can’t complain one little bit about the connection here!

We did some shopping for groceries, and we’d been told to prepare for sticker shock. But, the prices were very good, much better than I ever figured it would be. For dinner we had varkensschnitzel – a pork cutlet already in a tasty bound breading, with carrots, red cabbage, and cookies for desert. The total we spent was under six dollars. That’s cheap compared to the eighty dollars we spent on dinner Sunday night in a restaurant!

We also spent some time in the ocean on Monday just in front of the Divi resort. It was pretty darn nice. The visibility was very good, and the coral is in very nice shape. There was lots to see, and lots of places to explore. Like Sunday, it was hard to focus on one thing, because you didn’t want to miss anything going on just over there – or over there!

The most fun we thing we saw was an octopus out and about. Usually they are hiding in a little hole, and all you see is an eye, or a tentacle. This guy was out and moving around the rocks and coral. I’ve included three shots of him, in three completely different colors. It’s all the same octopus, just different times of our interaction with him. He can color himself to match the surrounding rock and coral. Pretty cool.

I had just said to Pam that I hadn’t seen any “needlefish” or houndfish around here. They are a pretty common fish, staying within five or six inches of the surface. Well I had barely said it, when we saw this incredible grouping of them, all in one huge school of several hundred of them. This was easily the largest school of them we’ve ever seen!

Towards the end of our swim, we saw a pair of French Angels and they wanted to hang with us. It was pretty funny. Every way we turned there they were! Maybe they figured we’d feed them, but we have not seen anyone here in Bonaire feed the fish, a practice I think is wrong. Bonaire is really in the forefront of protecting the ocean, its inhabitants and the coral.

This little guy in this picture is called a blenny – in particular, a red-lipped blenny. Can you guess why?? This is a fish Pam really likes. They are not very big, about three inches tops. But they have really big eyelashes – no clue why a fish needs eyelashes!

I’m adding two movies of the octopus we encountered. Kinda fun stuff. Just a quick note about the movies – I upload them to YouTube in full High Definition and they can be viewed in full screen mode, too. But, sometimes YouTube doesn’t put the highest quality mode available to you, the end user. So at the bottom of the movie, on the right side, there is a little icon that looks like a gear, or a spiky wheel. Clicking that will allow you to change the mode to full HD – it’s definitely worth it!

This last movie is just a short look at a peacock flounder as he swims across the ocean bottom. I think the way he kinda just floats and moves looks like a magic carpet!

The internet is so impressive here, I uploaded one more little movie. This is of a group of white parrotfish. It’s not often you see them in such a long school; definitely you see them together, just not in a long school like this. Anyway – it’s a short movie.

Bonaire, Vacations

Bonaire

May 13, 2013 Maurice Leave a comment

Saturday was our last day in Curacao, and we had a short ten minute flight to Bonaire. But our flight out of Curacao was delayed for nearly two hours! The flight is laughably short – no sooner has the plane reached cruising altitude, than it is heading in for a landing. Bonaire is much larger than Aruba, but has only about 14,000 people. The entire island is considered a natural park, for the purposes of protecting the magnificent reef system surrounding it.

We had arranged an apartment before we left of course, and were told that the apartment would be left open, with the keys inside. We found the apartment, with only a little difficulty but naturally the door was locked. The manager of the complex was on holiday, but we had four phone numbers for a contact person. He answered none of them! We sent emails. Nothing. It was getting late, the sun had set, and we had no place to stay. We found a place called Buddy Dive Resort who were amazingly helpful. One of the women working the desk new our contact person, so she told us to go have dinner, and they’d track him down. Well, dinner was wonderful! They had Keshi Yena on the menu, and it was pretty good. (Not the best I’ve had, but pretty good!)

As we were finishing up, Patricia, the young woman who knew our contact came up to us with the keys to our place! She had seen him drive by, and chased him down. Now I ask you – how many places have you been to that would go that far for you, and you’re not even staying there? Wonderful introduction to the friendly people of Bonaire.

We got into our place, and it was um, a disappointment. It was not what we expected. It was not a place where we could be comfortable. But we had to stay there at least that night, but we started looking on the internet right away for another place. The internet was the only thing good about the place! So we spent half of Sunday finding another place. We’re settled into the new place, the Divi Flamingo Resort, and we did get a swim in the ocean!

Bonaire has the reputation as one of the best places to dive and snorkel in the Caribbean, if not the world. And it certainly lived up to its reputation. We jumped in at Black Durgon beach. The water was clear and pristine, with an abundance of coral and fish. It was difficult to know where to look, it literally teemed with wonders to behold. Most of the fish had no fear – it was a rare fish that took off at our approach. Even fish that are notoriously shy, like the porcupine fish just hung around! Very cool…

The most amazing thing we saw was a school of six HUGE rainbow parrotfish. They were easily the largest fish we’ve ever seen in the ocean. Say five feet or more, three feet high, four hundred pounds? MASSIVE. And they were in the most shallow water you could believe. Amazing.

Anyway – just a short post to let you know we’re alive and well. We’re heading into the ocean here at the resort. The island is so beautiful and rugged – it’s going to be difficult to squeeze everything in with just five days to go. But we’re going to give it a go. There is a small island off the coast called Klein Bonaire, and it’s supposed to have the most amazing snorkeling, with turtles and some manta rays. So we’re definitely planning on hiring a boat to get there.

About Bailey, Curacao, Vacations

Ascension Day

May 10, 2013 Maurice Leave a comment

Well who knew? Today we had decided we’d tour around downtown, maybe do a little shopping. Imagine our surprise when NOTHING was open – not even bars and restaurants! It was an official holiday called Ascension Day, and everyone was at the beach! Except us of course, we were looking for a store to go into! How about this picture of a boat on Santa Barbara bay? Not a great parking job!

So, we went with plan B and jumped in the ocean at Caracasbaii again. It was fun, lots to see, good visibility. One of the highlights for me was this porcupine fish – they are pretty shy fish, and this guy, he’s “hiding” behind this little piece of coral, keeping one eye on us! Made me laugh.

Sometimes when you dive down to see a fish, you get a surprise, seeing something you had not seen from the surface. This lobster was a surprise sighting. He was under the wreck, looking good enough for some butter!
With no restaurants open, it’s a good thing we had bought some stuff for dinner yesterday. Naturally, all the grocery stores were closed too. One of the cool things about Curacao (well most Caribbean islands) is the mixture of European, African and Asian cuisine. So we had a nice “Dutch-African” meal of chicken, red cabbage, snow peas, and a spicy dahl. We’ve also discovered a place quite near us that serves Keshi Yena, so we’re going to give them a try on Friday, our last full day here in Curacao.

We’ve had a nice time here, but it’s not been the balm I hoped it would be… still thinking a lot of Max. There are a lot of stray dogs here, and Pam always buys a box of dog biscuits. As we’re driving along, if we see a dog on the side of the road we pull over and feed them a few biscuits.

About Bailey, Curacao, Vacations