Second Trip

Home again, home again, jiggity jig... Yes we are home, having just finished up a second great fall trip. It was a scuba diving trip in Bonaire. It was a whirlwind. Our plan to get home from the Morocco trip and have four days to unpack, wash, repack, reaquaint the pets with who we are AND check on the windchime orders was scrunched a little by the plane fiasco. Air France is not my favorite airline (long story) and our one unplaned night spent in Paris was not romantic (long story). So... we lost a day in between trips. But all was good here at home and packing to go on a dive trip to the Carribean is somewhat simple - dive gear, bathing suits and a few short and shirts.
The trip flying over on United was good and this year, they did not lose my dive gear like last year so all was good. At least it started out that way.
We always stay at Captain Don's Habitat and this time we were staying in a Villa with two other couples who are friends we met, in fact in the past in Bonaire. This was the view from our room. We arrived early in the morning, had a great breakfast, had our dive briefing, went snorkeling and waited for the first of our friends to arrive. Had a great dinner and turned in early.

This was the view INSIDE our room the next morning after a night of a small rainstorm.

That shiny reflection on the floor represents the inch of water we woke up to the next morning. The drain system (two holes in the patio wall) did not work and water silently backed up into our room out our front door, into the hall and into the other two upstairs rooms (not occupied). What is unbelievably lucky is that our laptops, my kindle, our cameras and even our suitcases did not get wet. The dive gear laid out against one of the wall did, but that was ok. My paperback was swollen to twice its size, but still readable! AND we did not get shocked when we stepped into this surprise.

After some insistence on our part , we were moved to another villa which turned out to be just fine.

This is the front entrance

The back of the villa.

PD  relaxing amid all of our dive gear .

This is a view looking toward town. You can see sailboats in the distance. This was the week of the annual regatta so there was a lot of sailboat action.

This picture really does not do justice to the color of the water. The contrast was even greater than this photo shows.

This is a picture of the salt pans. This is a big industry (Cargill) on the island and has been a part of the history of the island.The back pond was actually very pink. I think the drier/older the salt is, the darker or pinker the water is.

This is the salt once it is harversted. There were about 10 of these pyramids of salt waiting to be loaded onto a conveyor belt and then loaded into a ship.

The island is home to many, many flamingos. Apparently, some fly back and forth daily between Bonaire and Curaco and others just stay put. The island is considered a sanctuary for them.

The island also has a good sized population of donkeys (part of the island's history) and there is a sanctuary for them.

And did I mention the iguanas and parrots?

We set out a plate of veggies and fruit every morning and the small to medium iguanas came to eat. The yard area was full of them. The big lizards hung out down by the restaurant nearby.

We ate, slept, read, snorkled and dove.

We did all of our dives from shore this trip. We were just one of many people in little white rental trucks driving out to dive sites, gearing up and walking (or stumbling) into the water and going under.
Dive sites are marked by these little yellow stones.

This was the rough side of the island where we did NOT dive. Waves too big, wind too strong and the shore was piled high with broken coral.

We did not take pictures under water, but one of the other couples did. In fact, Bill and Donna Goodwin are great photographers. Bill is going to send me a few pictures to post. Bill is an award wining photographer. He has a website called Feral Divers Media and a blog at http://www.thefirstanimal.blogspot.com.

I will post again as soon as I get some photos from Bill.