We had an early start this morning so we could get out to the riding stable by 8:00 to mount up for our horseback riding adventure.  There were four from our dive group riding and we had a very friendly knowledgable guide from Ontario!  We picked our horses based on size and riding experience.  I was very happy to be partnered with Indy.  He reminded me a bit of a Lippizaner...and yes...he is a stallion!  He was a very smooth ride with lovely leg action.  He had issues with Cherokee (Dereck’s horse) though...I think it was a bit of small stallion syndrome.  Cherokee was quite a tall fellow at least 16 hands and Indy is a rather little fellow maybe 15 hands if he has his high heels on :-).  So if the boys got too close together Indy would pitch a little hissy fit LOL.   Wade was paired with Oropel who is a bit of a racehorse and was more than ready to prove he was the fastest horse on the island!  Rosslyn’s ride was Lucero and they called him ‘the old man’.  He moved out pretty well for an older fellow and gave Rosslyn a good canter at one point in the ride.  Dereck and Cherokee were perfect for each other.  Both tall fellows.  Cherokee didn’t have to work very hard to keep up with the smaller horses but Dereck did get him up into a canter on the way home and he had a lovely forward stride!  


The swimming part of the experience took a bit of coaxing...we ended up playing with Cherokee, Oropel and Ranger (our guide’s horse).  Indy was having no part of the ocean thank you very much!  Swimming in the ocean was not in his plan today so after my very best horse whispering he was tied up and we played with the others.  Lucero’s senior status gives him the option to come in or not and he came in for a while but didn’t feel like swimming.  Cherokee was the one who seemed to enjoy it the most.   

After we’d had enough playing in the water we headed over to a nearby hut and had a drink while we dried off.  Then it was time to head home.  All in all we were in the saddle for about 3 hours total with a swim break in the middle.  Everyone did great with varying degrees of residual soreness :-).  Wade survived his first ride in an English saddle :-).  

Mother nature smiled on us today and just as we got back to the truck the rain shower she’d been holding off while we were riding came down to cool us off on the trip back to the condo.


Wade and I headed into town for a bit of lunch then some souvenir shopping.  There wasn’t much to see so the credit card was happy.  Now we’re enjoying a rum punch in the pool bar before we pack up our stuff and head into The Rib Shack for dinner and an end of trip celebration.


Overall...great trip....great diving...great people.  


Let’s do it all again next February!

Today was our last day of diving.  We need to stay ‘dry’ tomorrow before we fly out on Sunday.  


We did three dives today, the first was a ‘do over’ dive on the Hilma Hooker wreck.  Instead of doing the wreck again we decided to dive the reef at that location instead.  It was a great dive but had a rather challenging exit!  It was rainy and windy this morning and the waves were pounding.  Thankfully we had strong dive buddies on the shore to help haul us out when the waves were crashing us into the urchin filled shoreline!  I will have some pretty colourful bruises as a reminder of our dives today!  The good news is the cameras came out safely and no one got harpooned on an urchin.  We saw some great Scorpion Fish on this dive!  On our way out I paused to take a picture of a neat coral formation that looked like a bit of a bridge.  I was pleasantly surprised to find a big puffer underneath.  I signalled Wade and he came over with the video camera.  Puffers are usually very shy and you only get shots of them from behind as they are swimming away...but we each took up position on either side of the coral and got some great shots as he was looking for an exit!  We didn’t torture him long...just got a few shots then watched him swim away.


Our second dive was at the Andrea 2 site.  We had some unique ‘shore support’ on this dive as we were greeted in the parking area by four wild donkeys.  Two of them were quite curious and came right over to check us out.  We tried to hire them to carry our equipment down to the water but they declined :-).  This was a good dive where we met up with the usual suspects and didn’t get killed on the way in or out :-).


We took a lunch break and had a bit of downtime after these dives and Wade  found a way to attach my big dive light to my camera so I could take it down on our last dive.  I had been leaving the camera in the room on our night dives because I didn’t want to try and juggle my light in one hand, camera in the other...and then try to figure out how to check my gauges...just didn’t seem like a good idea!  With the dive light attached to the camera rig made it easy to dive at night and get some pics just like I did during the day.  Yay Wade!


Our last dive was on Buddy’s Reef and we went in just before sunset...so we started out in the light an then came out just after dark so we got to see ‘the changing of the guard’ so to speak.  It’s neat to see the fish settling down for bed and the creepy crawlers coming out.  I was surprised to see the vibrancy of the colours in the night pictures.  I think they turned out pretty well for my first shot at shooting night pics!  Now we need another dive trip to let me hone my skills!  We’ve done several dives at Buddy’s Reef this week and it has been great each time.  The current was quite strong tonight and that made for an easy first part and a more energetic second part of the dive.  This profile works for me as I’m usually getting cold about half way through...so swimming a bit harder on the way home helps keep me warm :-).


We just finished a great dinner at Eddy’s...wish we would have found this place sooner...yummy food!


Now the tummy is full and we need to get to bed...we’re going horseback riding in the morning!

Today was a great day.  Wade and I completed our 49th and 50th dives!  It really feels like we are hitting our groove now.  We are able to see so much more stuff this time.  A lot of the skills have become second nature (monitoring air, depth, time and each other) and allowing us to focus more on looking at all of the cool stuff around us and enjoying the moment.  We have the confidence now to go off on our own and have shown we can find our way home :-).


Our first dive site today was Windsock.  This location was near a big dock that had support pillars in the water.  We saw our first Lionfish of the trip on this dive.  They are not popular here as they are an introduced species that eat anything they can get in their mouths.  They are quite stunning to look at though!  Sadly there was some junk on the bottom on this dive.  We saw some big tires and what looked like an entire engine near the dock.  Made for a funny photo op but not cool to dump that stuff in the ocean people!   


The highlight of this dive for me was getting pictures of Blennys!  A Blenny is a TINY (think 1/4” x 1”) little fish that hides in holes in the coral.  They are very shy and I don’t think I’ve ever seen one completely out of its hiding spot.  Today when we were exploring the pillars under the dock I had a really close look at some pretty coral growing there and was delighted to see tiny eyes staring out at me!  I spent quite some time trying to get a steady enough shot as the surge was swinging me back and forth.  They are super cute and I was so glad some of the shots turned out!

Our second site today and our 50th dive was at Jeannie’s Glory.  It was very windy when we got to this location and there was quite a swim to get from the beach to the reef, not to mention the minefield of Urchins we had to navigate getting in and out...but it was worth the effort.  Wade and I planned our route and were going to drop down early and swim out across the sandy bottom to the reef (to avoid the stronger current/waves on the surface).  We were rewarded with a great octopus sighting!  This fellow was quite large but very shy.  As soon as we spotted each other he zipped into his hiding spot in the coral.  I hovered to take a pic or two then Wade took some video of him.  He wasn’t impressed and even spat at Wade...luckily it was just sand and he didn’t get inked!  We got the message and left him alone after that :-).


Wade found another cute Blenny in a coral on this dive and I swooped in to take his picture.  I love how he looks in his coral maze.  We also saw some pretty purple/blue shrimp that we hadn’t seen before and some neat anemones.  There was a little turtle that appeared on our way back but he was very shy and didn’t appreciate being followed so I backed off and let him swim on without me.  It’s funny how some critters seem to have a bit of supermodel in them (think Angels) and some would prefer if they were invisible!  Wade, being the romantic fellow that he is stopped us for a quick 50th dive celebration kiss at 30 feet below.  I think Jeff got a picture but I haven’t seen it yet.  No long make out sessions allowed when you have to choose between kissing and breathing!  LOL


After our dives we met up at Eddie’s next door for lunch then went to tour a bit more of the island.  It was a cool drive as we got to see a bird’s eye view of things at a scenic lookout.  The roads here leave a bit to be desired...but then again they fit the vehicles we are driving LOL.  If our doors stay on and our bumper doesn’t fall off before we have to turn it back in we’ll be lucky!  

We are just waiting for the night divers to surface and then we’re heading back to Captain Don’s for dinner again.

Tomorrow is our last day of diving!  I can’t believe the week is almost gone already!

We had a busy day today.  Three dives, a couple hours exploring the south end of the island and a great pizza dinner next door at Captain Don’s.

The day started out a bit iffy with some very heavy rain but when you are planning on getting into the ocean a little rain water is hardly a deterrent!  Our first destination today was a site called Oil Slick.  It didn’t sound too great...but was a very cool site.  The entry required a giant stride off the cliff overhanging the ocean and an 10 foot drop into the water.  Yes, there was a ladder nearby but who wants to use that when you can make a big splash!  :-)  We saw lots of pretty coral, sponges and fish on this dive.  The tricky part was climbing the ladder on the way out...there was a rung missing!  Luckily Patrick was already out and was there to give us a hand :-).


Our second site was the infamous 1000 Steps site.  While it isn’t really 1000 steps down to the ocean it sure feels like there is when you are walking back up with all of your gear on!  We all made it though and boy was it worth it.  We saw some really cool stuff on this dive...a great little turtle who humoured the paparazzi, little shrimp, big lobster, a little eel that wanted to show us his tonsils and right before we were back at the exit point we got a couple shots of an octopus.  They are truly the masters of camouflage!


After the dives we had some lunch at the pool bar and then headed out to do a bit of exploration on the island.  We were looking for the donkeys and flamingos we’d heard so much about.  We found the donkeys but couldn’t get anywhere near the flamingos we saw so no pics of them.  We saw a herd of goats as well but they are very suspicious of a vehicle slowing down near them and bolted for the cover of the bushes before I could get a pick of them all.  We saw some windsurfers and the salt ‘factory’ on our travels as well as a rather scary looking amusement park!  We saw most of the southern part of the island but had to head back to the condo to get ready for our night dive.


The night dive was great.  It was a bit different from the one we did last night.  Wade and I split off from the herd and went off on our own tonight and had a great time with just our two lights in the darkness.  We saw a huge puffer, lots of little shrimp and fire worms.  The giant Tarpon that escorted us last night chose to go with the bigger group so we didn’t have to worry about them coming to eat whatever we put our lights on :-).  We saw a large eel on our way back a whole bunch of creepy starfish.  I’ll have to look them up because they sure aren’t the big puffy west coast starfish that I know.  I still haven’t figured out how to get my camera under there for the night dives....not enough hands for everything....but Wade has been taking video of the night dives so we’ll have cool footage to share.


After our last dive we cleaned up and headed next door to Captain Don’s for PIZZA!  Now...it’s late...and the alarm is going to come early for another fun filled day of diving...stay tuned :-)

We started off the day with two more fun dives.  The first site was the Hilma Hooker, a ship wreck that was about 60-100 feet under water.  There was a bit of a surface swim required to get out far enough before descending and I got my workout.  I’m proud to say I kept up with Monica the whole way :-)...that’s saying something because I think she has some dolphin DNA in her the way she can swim!  The boat was almost totally upside down so we saw the bottom first and had to descend down to see the wheel house.  We had a couple of big Barracudas and Tarpons that guided us on this dive.  It was neat to see how much the ocean has claimed this wreck and made her part of the ecosystem.  The fish were happily munching on the algae and other stuff growing on the surface and there were some bigger fish taking advantage of the shade underneath.  After we checked out the wreck we headed to the reef and worked our way back to the shore.  On the journey back we saw lots of interesting stuff and shot pics and video along the way.

Our second dive was Alice in Wonderland...how cool is that?  It was a great site with some sightings that could have inspired Lewis Carroll!  We saw eels, scorpion fish, flamingo tongues and huge lobsters.  This too was a nice easy dive site to navigate.
 
Wade is now napping as I am blogging and we are going to do a night dive in about an hour and a half.  I don’t plan on taking my camera so no more pics from today’s adventures.

What a perfect day.  We did three dives today.  They started out great and just kept getting better.  The first site was Angel city.  It had a nice entry point so we didn’t get pounded trying to get in or out.  There was lots of neat critters on this dive.  Eels, trumpet fish and of course Angels.  The corals were beautiful and there were plenty of funny Christmas Tree worms too.  These little critters  are about the size of a Loonie and look like little bottle cleaner brushes...but if you get too close trying to take their picture they suddenly disappear!  They suck their branches down into the coral.  Cool!

We thought our second dive site was supposed to be White Slave but when we got there the distance out to the reef was a bit farther than some of the group wanted to swim so we took a couple of shots of the beautiful water then moved on.

We chose The Lake as our second site and it was a great choice.  Again we had easy entrance/exit locations and the highlight of the dive was a turtle that greeted us when we got out there and let us accompany him for a few minutes.  Awesome!  This was a beautiful reef with plenty of interesting fish and sponges.  We saw another eel and a pair of shrimp.

After the dives we decided to try Captain Don’s for lunch as we’d heard they had great pizza.  They are the resort right next to ours.  We never found out if the pizza is good or not because apparently they don’t start making it until after 3pm and we were far too hungry to wait so we chose other menu options.  The food was ok but the highlight for me was the iguanas!  They are just as pushy as any pigeon or seagull and far cuter!  Needless to say they got well fed!  LOL

After lunch Wade, Brian and I headed out for our third dive on Buddy’s Reef.  Our dive plan was to just swim out to the reef to take pictures...no big tour, just hanging out with the fish.  It was AWESOME!  We saw so much cool stuff...lots of eels!  Wade tried to save me from what we thought may be a sea snake that was actually a fish!  Who knew?  We got quite  show when this fellow decided to eat what he could pull out of a Conch...he attracted several fish who were interested in his leftovers.  We hung out in a big school of fish for a while then saw a Peacock Flounder on our way out.  Very cool dive.

Just as we were getting ready to head out for a lobster dinner we heard folks shouting ‘Whale!’ from the dock area and came to see what was going on.  Sure enough a pod of Whales was passing through between the islands.  Apparently this is a very rare thing and it had been 7 years since any had been here.  I got a few pics but they were pretty far away.

Dinner was the perfect end to a terrific day...absolutely delicious food with good friends and lots of laughs.

We had a full day of fun today.  We started out by loading up our truck with tanks and joining in the convoy of vehicles up the coast road to our first dive site - Tolo.  This was a great site with lots to see.  We dove with Nitrox for the first time to extend our ability to say under longer and reduce the risks of decompression illness.  We also both took our cameras today so check out the photo page for the still shots.  Not sure exactly what we’re going do to with all the video yet...so stay tuned for that :-).   The tricky part of both morning dives was the entry/exit from the water.  Very rocky / broken coral ground and crashing waves...not the easiest conditions to get in and get your fins on while juggling cameras and the rest of the gear!  As a good buddy should, Wade helped me get my fins on / off as I was floundering around on  my back giggling my head off.  I payed him back by taking his legs out from under him when the waves crashed us together :-).

The second dive site was Karpata, again great things to see although my battery ran out the in the camera part of the way through so I didn’t get as many photos as I would have liked...but I did get some neat shots of Flamingo Tongues and Fire Worms!

After the second dive Wade and I decided to get a head start back to the resort and packed our gear into the truck and headed out.  Well...even though Bonaire is a tiny island...that doesn’t mean you can’t get lost right?   The conversation went something like this....

“We’re going south right?”  

“Yep, the sun in on my right”

“But isn’t that the ocean over there on the left?  

“Um....yep....crap....how did we get on the opposite side of the island????”

It was an interesting detour though, we saw lots of very cute goats...everywhere, we saw some of the resident donkeys and a group of pigs...all running loose.  Good thing they are savvy about traffic!


After a quick lunch I grabbed my camera to get some shots of the abundance of lizards that were running around today.  Before long I turned around to see Wade standing there giving me the ‘come on we’re late’ look.  It was time for dive #3!  

The third dive was off of our resort dock and we fought some current to see the local wreck.  I took my camera but had some issues with my dive mask flooding so was fighting with it for quite some time before Wade and Monica came to my rescue!  On the up side my sinuses got a really nice saline flush!  We got some neat photos and video on this dive.  

A few of the group did a night dive today, but after the workout we got on dive 3 we opted for cheering them on from the shore :-).

Travel days are always taxing when you are heading to a great destination.  We met up with most of our dive group in Calgary on Friday evening and then flew into Houston where we joined a few more of the group before getting on a midnight flight out of Houston into Bonaire.  The flights were fine and we had no issues with customs, security, flights so that part was all good.  Wade and I were happy to see our bags arrive on the tiny carousel in the Bonaire airport but were sad to hear that two of our group members were not so lucky!  Hopefully their bags will arrive tomorrow...it’s hard to dive with no gear!

It is very warm and humid here which feels GREAT!  I was surprised to see so many huge cacti growing everywhere...they even make fences out of cacti!  We saw some flamingoes when we left the airport and there were lots of other birds in the trees around us too.  Our first impression of Bonaire...it is quite a lot like Ambergris Caye in Belize...it has a very similar feel :-).

We got to our resort at about 7am so our rooms weren’t quite ready for us yet...but breakfast was on so we did our check in paperwork and then headed over to the restaurant.  After breakfast we gathered in the pool bar for our ‘orientation’ session.  Everyone who dives in Bonaire needs one so that we all know the rules for diving here...basically do no harm...no touching anything.  No taking anything out of the water living or dead...you know...good stuff like that.

By that time our rooms were ready so we got our stuff put away and squeezed in a tiny nap before heading to the dock to do our ‘check out’ dive.  Basically our first dive to make sure everything is working as it should be both for equipment and our skills :-).

This was a nice dive.  It is great that there is such cool stuff to see just a few fin kicks away from our dock.  We saw lots of our old friends from Cayman and Belize...Jacks, puffers, angels, trunk fish, trumpet fish and plenty of pretty corals and sponges...really great conditions, super visibility and calm waters.  A relatively shallow dive of max 55 feet or so.  We were down for about 40 minutes and then headed back to rinse off the salt :-).  We didn’t take our camera gear down with us for this dive but I can see lots of opportunities to dive here again and take some pics and video.

After our dive we went and got our rental truck and did a quick trip to the nearby market.  Our condo has a full kitchen so we wanted to stock up on a few essentials...you know... beer and pepsi LOL.   Next on the agenda was dinner so we gathered at the pool bar once again for a happy hour drink and some good food.

Tomorrow brings diving, diving and more diving...and yes we’re taking the camera!