Bonaire!

Scuba supplies! We stocked up on some necessities and some non-necessities before the trip. The coolest items are my "water wallet" (submersible waterproof container up to 100') and my new flashlight. Other items of note are Chandra's snacks and her gloves, which were not allowed to be worn in Bonaire.

Here is me planning our dives in the room. It was pretty hot most of the time, but there was always a breeze and so we left the windows open during the day.

The owners paint guests' names on driftwood that they find around the island. A sign with our names welcomed us on our arrival! Also there to greet us were eggs, cheese, bread, jam, and juice.

Here we are after our checkout dive on the first morning. We have already changed and are heading off to lunch at...

a great little French bistro on the island's main drag. It was very authentic--Chandra enjoyed listening to the owner and the French tourists speak to one another. I enjoyed the French onion soup that was made with dill. For such a small island there were lots of great restaurants. We were very pleased with almost every meal, and there were still lots of highly recommended restaurants that we did not get to visit.

This is the view from the front gate of the complex to our cottage. If you look closely you can see me. The "office" is on the left, too.

These are probably the best pictures we took. They are just before I went on my night dive. Chandra waited on a lounge chair on the beach and listened to some R. C. Sproul in the dark.

Karpata. The. Best. Dive. Of the trip. The dive books warned us of the stairs and of the surge when entering the water from the platform, but it was not bad at all. We saw purple tube sponges taller than we were, brain coral the size of Volkswagens, and Chandra's favorite "lips" coral.

All the dive spots are marked with yellow rocks. We made sure to get our picture taken with this one. When we first got to the middle landing it was full of Royal Dutch Marines with their M16s and SAWs. They must have been doing some kind of tropical special forces training.

The car we rented had a special scuba tank carrier in the back. We purchased unlimited air for the three days where we were diving. All we had to do was take our empty tanks out of the car and load in the full ones.

When Chandra and I look at this picture we almost start sweating. It was so hot. I can almost feel the salt starting to crust up on my forehead. We took this picture from the bumper of our car with the timer. Most of the shore was rocky like this one. We saw a spotted eagle ray and some garden eels on this dive.

This picture was at a sandy beach across the street from where we stayed. It was about 12 feet of sand backed by 10-15 foot rock walls. There were several small beaches that were only large enough for a few people each.

We decided that we needed on picture of both of us in our gear. This was after our dive at Red Slave. We saw more big fish here than any other dive. We didn't read our planning book until we got back to our room after the dive. Here is what it said: "This is a good on to do with an experienced guide, as the next stop from here is Venezuela." But we didn't have any trouble and enjoyed ourselves.

This is just a cool picture. The huts were built for slaves who worked the salt flats and who loaded ships that were picking up salt to take back to Europe. The obelisk was used to indicate the grade of the salt to the inbound ships. Chandra and I were struck by the oppression those men faced in such a close proximity to such beauty just beneath the water.

This was our last dive--the "predator dive". The goal was to make it to the salt pier (seen in the background), but we turned around just as it came into (my) view underwater. Chandra wrote down some of the cool animals we saw on her underwater writing tablet. (It says, "crab--back side of rock. Sea urchin. 2 moray. sea snake. pickle.) The sea snake turned out to be a sharp-tail eel. We also saw a couple barracuda and another moray which were not listed on the tablet.

Amen. Also, there is a concerted effort to rid Bonaire's reef of the invading lion fish (pictured in the bottom left of the mural).

We had a nice night out once diving was finished. We had Tapas at a swanky downtown restaurant.

This was our first morning of non-diving. Almost nobody served brewed coffee. I guess it was the European influence on the island. If you asked for coffee espresso showed up. This is a picture of Chandra's and my morning drinks on a pier looking across the bay to Klein Bonaire.

We took a ferry to Klein Bonaire on our first morning without dives. That is where the nicest beaches are. We got some sun and I read my Bonhoeffer bio. Nice beach; no shelter; no bathrooms; no quick way back.

I did a photographic experiment on the random motion of hermit crabs moving away from a central spot in the sand. The results were not so impressive, but this is a cool picture.

This is a picture of a tiny animal I found in the shallow water at Lac Cai. It was the best thing about Lac Cai. I yelled down the beach, "Chandra, I found a tiny animal!" as I held this and some water in my hand. Chandra hurried over to see...

So the lizards were really fast in Bonaire... Chandra actually found this tree frog by sitting on it in our hammock. I decided to have my picture made with it since I couldn't catch a lizard.

While we were packing up on the last afternoon we realized that we had a bag from each of the other family units. From left to right, the bags were given to us by Mom, Amy, and Rob. They were used daily to hold scuba or beach supplies. You can also see the frog's hammock in the background.