Category Archives: Vacations

Bonaire, Vacations

Woodwind snorkel tour

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The WoodwindOn Friday, our last full day in Bonaire, we took the morning trip to Klein Bonaire, an uninhabited island just off the coast of Bonaire. We had wanted to book a trip earlier on the Woodwind, a trimaran, but they have gone to three sailings a week because it’s the low season I guess. Anyway, I can not recommend this trip highly enough! WOW. The young lady who owns the boat, Dedrie (Dee for short) is so passionate about the waters around Bonaire, and it came across so clearly. She really cares about the island, and doing her part to protect the environment there. She gave great talks on the history of the island, about the creatures in the water, how to snorkel, how to apply your mask – she really was an amazing person.

Klein Bonaire We got on the boat right at the docks of the Divi resort, so it was easy for us to get there. They had a mango drink ready for us, before we even got on the boat! They quickly got a couple of sails up and we made the crossing very quickly. Along the way we got to see flying fish skimming along the surface. Klein BonaireThose little suckers can really fly long distances! Then after a talk about the history of the island (cholera quarantine, goat/donkey sanctuary, to uninhabited protected site) we jumped in for a drift snorkel. The coral there is absolutely wonderful which is nothing unusual for Bonaire, of course.

Klein Bonaire Dee told us the names of fish or coral, then would dive down and point out them out. She would literally latch on to people, and take them over to see various things. She is a powerful swimmer, an awesome diver, able to stay deep under water for longer than I thought possible!
Klein BonaireAlso along on the trip was LeAnn, from a photo place on Bonaire called BonPhoto. Most of the pictures in this post were taken by her, with her underwater camera, fitted with a fisheye lens. She was amazingly personable as well. And she could dive deeply, and hold her breath a long time too – some of her pictures were taken at incredible depths – especially the ones of the turtles. Remarkable stuff.

Klein Bonaire After two snorkels, one in the area known for turtles nesting – we saw four turtles that day – we had another quick sail back to Bonaire and grabbed a mooring ball close to the lighthouse. They served us a hot lunch, a kind of goreng, with chicken and noodles and plantains. Klein BonaireThen they gave us a brownie with caramel sauce and whipped cream. There was plenty to drink, and the conversations were of the fish we had seen. It was a really nice day. HIGHLY recommended if you ever go to Bonaire. Take the tour early in your stay – it will make you appreciate the island even more!

I’m including a slideshow of the pictures taken by LeeAnn of Bon Photo here – I’ve put her pictures in the one gallery, separate from our Bonaire gallery. She used a Nikon P7000 with Fisheye lens to take the photos.

Permit fish, Bonaire, May 17, 2013 In the late afternoon, we took a quick swim around the reef by the Divi. It was our last swim, so we just slowly wound our away around the place. We saw some cool stuff – the most remarkable was a permit fish. He’s quite a large fish, and while we’ve seen permit fish in the past, we’ve never seen one close up. Permit fish, Bonaire, May 17, 2013Usually they swim away quickly, before we can even get a half way decent shot of them. This guy didn’t even care if we dove right down into his face and took a picture. He just continued sifting through the sandy bottom!

Tamoya Ohboya, Bonaire, May 17, 2013Another unusual thing we saw was this crazy jellyfish called the tamoya ohboya, also know as the Bonaire banded box jellyfish. It’s a recently discovered jellyfish, officially described in 2011, and it’s sting is quite painful. It’s quite long, eighteen inches at least, and quite active in the water. There have been only fifty sightings of tamoya ohboya, so we’re kind of in a very select group!

Lionfish, Bonaire, May 17, 2013It’s always cool to see different things in the water, and this trip to Bonaire was certainly fun for that! It will definitely be hard to go back home after all the fascinating stuff we’ve seen here! One thing we did not want to see was a lionfish, an invasive species, not indigenous to the Caribbean. We had not seen one the whole week, but our last day, last swim, in the last twenty minutes in the ocean, we spotted one! Heavy sigh… We reported it right away to the special “Lionfish Hunters” group.

Last sunset in Bonaire Here’s a traditional shot for us… the last sunset… I’m thinking we will be back here, sooner rather than later. It’s a great island for snorkeling of course, but the people were really terrific. The island itself is much bigger than Aruba, but with less than ten percent of the population! We both felt comfortable there, like we were “regulars”…

I really can’t wait to get back there!

 

Smile buddy Turtle at Play Grandi Turtle picture Swimming with turtles Down low Playa Jeremi Turtle in the bay
Bonaire, Vacations

Three beachs, one day!

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Coney in BonaireThursday was Three beach Thursday! We started by heading down south and jumping in at the Invisibles. I have no idea why it’s called that, but nothing was invisible! The water clarity was very nice, and there was lots to see. We’ve found that the way to snorkel here in Bonaire is to swim out to the dropoff, and swim against the current over the dropoff. When you are ready to get out, swim back into shore and drift back along the coral that is close to shore. That way you see “everything” and save energy!

Freezing!After a couple hours, we got out and headed further south, past the salt plants. Bonaire, like most countries, has an unfortunate slave trading history, and their use in the salt industry is well documented. There are four different colored obelisks, representing the different qualities of salt available. Salt obeliskWhen a ship stopped to pick up their product, they came to the colored obelisk corresponding to the salt they purchased. A flimsy temporary dock was quickly constructed. Female slaves would kneel, get loaded with heavy baskets of salt, and were pulled to their feet by the male slaves loading her. She would then carry it to the end of the shaky temporary dock to waiting crafts that were then pulled via rope to the offshore ships.

One of the many lighthouses on BonaireTravelling the south end of the island is on a single lane road, through wild lands, passing by one of many lighthouses on Bonaire, dotted with lots and lots of wild goats, donkeys, horses, flamingos, parrots and other birds.

Goats, goats, and more goatsThe herds of goats are everywhere, and you better be ready to brake for them crossing the road, or simply milling about! It makes driving quite an experience! The roads are ok, not great, but the goats certainly add another dimension.

Couple of Lora Parrots The parrots we saw are called Lora Parrots, a rare parrot, seen in very few places other than Bonaire. It used to be on Aruba, but is now extinct there due to poaching and poisoning. They estimate fewer than one thousand are left in the wild.

Famous Bonaire FlamingoWe dove in the water at Lac Cai, near the mangrove trees. It is supposed to be an amazing snorkel, but this was the one disappointing place we entered the water in Bonaire. Later, we discovered that we had missed the route through the mangroves to the great snorkeling! Ah well – next time we’ll find it.

Crab under the dock We headed back to the Divi resort, and took a final dip in the ocean. And I’m sure glad we did! What an amazing snorkel it was! We swam over to the big main docks, where huge tugs are docked. Under that dock was an amazing world. Huge tarpons glided by, big barracuda hid under the tugs, huge schools of barjacks stalked the baitballs, and the pillars were lined with coral that was really amazing to see. Colorful and unique, teeming with tiny creatures, the pillars were a world all to their own.

Amazing coral formationsLeaving the dock we went by a small pier. Under the pier was a huge snook. I’ve included this movie, because it’s kinda funny… about sixteen seconds in, you’ll see the movie take a big jerk… well it’s because I smacked my head on the pillar holding the pier up! And trust me on this one – it hurt! haha

Common snook movie…

Turtle, Bonaire Keeping close to the shore, we were in VERY shallow water – about two feet deep, and what did we spy? A turtle! He was probably getting some sun! He lazily wandered around us, taking his time. He was completely unafraid, completely unconcerned. We followed him around as he lazily swam around the beach. Just love to hang around a turtle!

Turtle movie with a barracuda too, from right in front of the Divi Flamingo Resort…

Swimming under the docksThere was really so much we packed into this day. It was certainly busy, but oh so wonderful. So many great shots… so I remind you once again that the posts do not contain a link to all the pictures we took. You can access the gallery for Bonaire by clicking here or you can get to the gallery by clicking the gallery link on the menu line at the top of every page.

This last little movie is of a parrotfish being cleaned. I’m not sure how the fish know where to go to get cleaned, but they kind of “hover” and little fish dart out and nip off the stuff that is bothering the “victim.”

 

Playa Jeremi Turtle in the bay Turtle picture Swimming with turtles Smile buddy Down low Turtle at Play Grandi
Bonaire, Vacations

Bachelor's Beach, Bonaire

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Bachelor's Beach, BonaireBachelor’s Beach is south of the airport, right off the main road. The beachs are nicely marked with yellow painted rocks, and each entry to the ocean has a unique name. Every beach we’ve been to, has about twenty divers. The diving is phenomenal here, with every dive easily gotten to by simply entering the ocean – rather than needing a boat, like a lot of dive sites.
More Coral at Bachelor's Beach
Bachelor Beach has a unique entry – a set of stairs to nowhere! The divers on the cliff above Pam are in the vehicle next to ours – the little white Jimny (no that’s not a misspelling – it really is called a JimNy.)

The coral was lush and magnificent, again, like all of Bonaire. The variety of fish was good, with tons to see. The most remarkable thing we saw was a “cloud” of margates. Now, we’ve seen margates before, one or possibly two together. But this was a mass of margates, literally hundreds of them moving over the reef. We saw this mass of fish, and I looked at Pam and said, “Are those margates??” Very cool sight.

Margates, Bachelor's BeachThis movie was taken by Pam, and the margates were down at about forty feet or so, so that’s why it seems so dark. When the margates “scatter” it’s because I’ve dived down to get a better close up shot. (Not very successfully mind you!) I’ve put another movie Pam took just below it of the margate’s usual behaviour – hiding in his little cave, all by himself, ultra-shy and wary of divers.

Barracuda, Bachelor's BeachThere were lots of barracuda of course. Each time in, we’ve seen four or five of them. One time, we saw one barracuda actually chase another barracuda off – and man, they can move big time! Usually they move very slowly, not disturbing the water – but when they want to go, wow…

Coral at Bachelor's BeachPam took a movie shown here of a bonefish. They are very shy fish, and very tough to get in the picture. They are very silvery, and shiny, and play in the very shallow waters, where the sun gleaming on their skin makes it tough to see them in the viewfinder of the camera.

Porgy, Bachelor's BeachWe have a whole ton of shots of half the fish. OR they are out of focus because the camera simply can’t differentiate them from the brilliant white sand. It takes a second for the camera to focus on one, but it’s pretty darn cool.

Filefish, BonaireThe scrawled filefish is a big guy, about two feet or so, and we saw one as soon as we got in, and later on under a wharf. They are really cool in the ocean, changing color from white, to green, to brown to blue. They swim very lazily, and let divers get quite close to them before moving off.

Sunset, Divi Flamingo, BonaireThis is a sunset picture right outside our room. That little dock there with the chairs on it is where we jump in the ocean for our late afternoon swim around the ocean. Pam’s been known to lie in the sun waiting for me to get back. 🙂

Schoolmaster, Bachelor's BeachHave I mentioned how phenomenal the internet connection is here? WOW – I’m totally impressed. For an island that only has a population of fourteen thousand, I never dreamed they’d have this kind of highspeed connection. It’s even faster than my at home cable internet, and I’ve never lost connection even once. One of the reasons we’ve been able to put more movies in the posts is that the connection is so quick and reliable. Really great stuff.

Bonaire, Vacations

Buddy's Dive site

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Group of ConeysTuesday we headed to Buddy’s Dive site. It’s the place that was so nice to us the first night here so we figured we’d check out the water. The entry was super easy via a set of metal stairs right into some nice warm water. The coral close to shore was a little beat up, but out near the drop off it was as spectacular as ever.
Big ass tarpon
The site was infested with very large fish. We saw a number of tarpons, easily six feet or more. One was just lazily hanging around under a dock, surrounded by rather large snappers. But he simply dwarfed them… I’ve got a brief movie of him here, but it really doesn’t show just how large it was.

Maurice divesHe was pretty lazy, just casually drifting along. If we approached really closely, he slowly moved off. But never hurried like some of the other fish do when you get too close.

Big shy barracudaThere were some large barracuda too, one guy just hanging around under a boat! If I approached him, he just moved to the other side of the boat. Quite a shy guy.

SnookUnder another dock we found a couple of large snooks. This is only the second time we’ve ever seen a snook, so it was pretty cool. They are a strange looking fish, with a sloping forehead and what looks like a large vein running down their center. He was a good size, well over three feet.

Rainbow parrotfishWe saw another large rainbow parrotfish, but not quite as large as the ones we saw at Black Durgon beach, but still a fairly large fish. In the movie I’ve put here, you can see another parrotfish quite close to him, and that fish is fourteen to sixteen inches, so that will give you some idea of how large the rainbow is.

 

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Bonaire, Vacations

Monday on Bonaire

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A couple of AngelsI 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!

Octopus, Bonaire 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!

Octopus, BonaireWe 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!

Octopus, BonaireThe 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.

Herd of HoundfishI 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!

French angelsTowards 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.

Red-lipped BlennyThis 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!

Blue guy, BonaireI’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!

Peacock flounderThis 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.

 

Small octopus Octopus Octopus in the garden Good sized octopus
Bonaire, Vacations

Bonaire

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Smooth trunkfishSaturday 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.

Rainbow Parrotfish 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!)

Black margateAs 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.

Rainbow Parrotfish 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…

Rainbow Parrotfish 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.

Commentary, Curacao, Vacations

Ascension Day

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The SS Minnow?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!

Porcupine hidingSo, 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.

Lobster!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!
Spotted DrumWith 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. Blue damselWe’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.