In December 2012, we started finalizing our plans for a dive trip to one of the top SCUBA spots in the world: Bonaire. On 12/16/2012, we were still booking flights for 12/25/12. Needless to say, it was a last minute booking. My brother and I were home for Christmas in southern Missouri, so we left for the trip from XNA (Northwest Arkansas) airport. Since we were actually flying out on Christmas Day, we tried to be extra friendly to the airport staff. The airport was decorated for Christmas and almost completely empty of travelers. We took a break in some rocking chairs while we waited for our flight to Miami to overnight and then connect on to Aruba the next morning. Jacob and I had a really good laugh. In the middle of all the Christmas music playing over the loud speakers, an Afroman song started playing, “Because I Got High…” Someone was bored having to work on Christmas and decided to have some fun with the music playlist. I could appreciate the humor.

We overnighted in Miami and then took the American Airlines flight to Aruba to meet up with our cousin Samantha Underwood, my first big trip with her. We were all headed to Bonaire with a SCUBA goal. Jacob was scheduled to do his Rescue Diver certification. I was working on my Advanced Open Water and my Nitrox Certification, and Samantha was working on her Open Water certification. We had some time in Aruba before our puddle jumper flight to Bonaire, so we had a driver take us for a quick tour around the island, the main city center, and to a beach to soak up some sun and have some drinks and appetizers. While having drinks, we booked our rooms in Bonaire. We were supposed to arrive in Bonaire at 9:45 PM, but because of delays we arrived much later. We had a driver take us to our room for the night, and the last minute booking actually bit us in the butt this time. Because we’d booked online, our reservation wasn’t noticed in time before the staff decided to go to bed. We had to bang on the doors and get a bunch of people to talk to, surprising the night security guard, and trying to tell them that we had a room. They finally got a poor lady awake, and she found some keys and stuck us in a condo down on the end. She was so tired, she told us she would just check us in the next morning. When we woke up, we went through registration and had breakfast on the patio by the pool.

From there, we got right to it. We went straight to our dive shop called Dive Friends and started getting signed up for our dives.

The next four days were AMAZING! Diving in Bonaire topped my list. I was bummed though because Jacob had a lot of bookwork and technical training, so I thought he was missing out on some amazing diving. Luckily my certification had a lot of fun dives and very little book work. I did a deep dive, where my instructor taught us more in depth about pressure changes and the effects it has on the mind and how at different depths the colors change. We sat on the bottom of the ocean at about 100 feet, and he gave us quizzes with numbers to show how your brain can processes things differently at the surface versus underwater at that depth. My times at the surface versus underwater were about the same, but a girl in my group’s was WAY slower, and I think it really freaked her out. Our instructor also showed us how our masks had appeared to change colors. My favorite thing was that he brought an egg with him to show us how the increased pressure would affect the egg. At the bottom of the dive site, he cracked the egg on my mask, and the egg yolk and white came out still intact. I could put my fingers through it and swirl it around trying to break it, but the pressure held it together. We ping-ponged the egg back and form, and it stayed in its true form. Later as we let it float away, I could see the fish were very interested and picking at it. The egg example was really incredible to me. Back at the surface, the girl that had trouble with the quiz was saying how she felt funny down that deep and had trouble processing things. It’s a perfect example of what being that deep can do to you without taking the right precautions.

Dives

• Something Special & Yellow Sub House – Multiple course dives here: underwater navigation, peak buoyancy, night dive, nitrox dive, egg cracking dives
• Country Garden – Boat dive, Saw dolphins from the boat, giant parrot fish, 80 foot visibility
• Bloodlet – Boat dive, Saw flying fish, 80 foot visibility
• Hilma Hooker – Wreck dive, Jacob got narked
• The Cliff
• Invisibles – Drift dive, fish so thick they were hitting my face, abundant vibrant coral, favorite
• Salt City – Drift dive, fish so thick they were hitting my face, abundant vibrant coral, favorite
• Salt Pier – Drift dive, fish so thick they were hitting my face, abundant vibrant coral, favorite
• White Hole – Boat dive with East Coast Divers, Large Waves, 25-30 turtles, eels, rays, sharks
• Cai – Boat dive with East Coast Divers, Large Waves, 25-30 turtles, eels, rays, sharks

 

The island of Bonaire isn’t that large, so we wanted to explore it all. In town, we rented two motorbikes to zoom around the island. Bonaire has these AMAZING salt flats. Because of what I researched to be the result of microbes and the low level of water, these salt flats had a beautiful pink color to them. What a peaceful thing it was to drive around the small island with the ocean breeze blowing through your hair. We checked out some of the historical things on the island and drove on the EEG Boulevard around the southern point.

I was a bit nervous about doing my first night dive, but once I got going all the fear went away. I dove the same site earlier in the day, so I kind of knew the route. With our flashlights, the high visibility, the water reflections, and the moonlight, it really didn’t seem that dark or claustrophobic underwater. The night scene is so different from what it is in the day. The mannerisms of the fish are different. I could have sworn some appeared to be sleeping, others hunting. Some of the coral formations had closed for the night. It was such a peaceful dive.

My absolute favorite thing about Bonaire was the shore diving. Once my nitrox and advanced SCUBA certifications were complete (Jacob and Samantha’s took longer), I was able to explore some of the dive sites around the island. You could drive down a strip of road, and every 50 meters or so, there would be a post with a dive site marked. The coolest thing was you could start at one and easily go site-to-site until your oxygen was low. For the next time I go to Bonaire, I will rent a little truck, load it with oxygen tanks, and spend the whole day working my way down through the dive sites.

I cannot explain in words the beauty and abundance of the fish and coral around me on these dives. Check out the professional photos here to see the true colors.  I found a diving buddy to go with me, and we just kept raising our hands underwater to exclaim how impressed and awed we were with our surroundings. I’ve been diving almost all around the world at some of the top spots, and Bonaire ranked one or two for me (only other to compete was Bunaken National Marine Park in Indonesia).

The island is so small, there aren’t many food options. We bought food a local market and cooked by at our little kitchenette in our room. The stove had issues in our room, so we cooked in the hotel kitchen a couple of nights and made friends with the ladies there.

Samantha and Jacob were better motorbike drivers, so I typically rode on the back of Jacob’s scooter. On one of our big adventures out and about on the bikes, we pulled off for second to discuss whether or not to go down to a scenic overlook. Upon starting to leave, Samantha spun out on the loose gravel and had a little wreck on her bike. The bike fell over and landed on her. I tried to rush and hop off my bike to help her and hit my leg on the exhaust thoroughly burning my calf. I yelled some profanities and rushed over to help Samantha. It all happened in about 30 seconds, and Jacob was just like, “Whoa, girls.” Samantha had some pretty bad scratches and bruises, and my burn blistered up quite a bit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once Jacob and Samantha finished up their courses, we decided to go on a group dive to the east side of the island in hopes of seeing some larger sea life. There were quite a few windsurfers, which were cool to watch. The winds meant the conditions were kind of rough. These were boat dives, and I get queasy pretty quickly. The dives were good, but not nearly as good as the other side of the west side of the island in my opinion. We saw around 20-30 sea turtles, but we were swimming against current most of the dives. We saw a lot of lionfish, which are considered to be invading the area and causing a lot of harm. Our guide had a spear for those fish. Samantha got some nose bleeds from the dives, but she was a trooper and kept going. The water was rough enough that when I came out of the water my swimming suit top was pulled aside. The men were kind and didn’t make eye contact, haha.

Sadly we had to head home before we knew it. My flight was originally schedule to go from Bonaire, to Aruba, to Miami, to Dallas Ft. Worth, to Kansas City. The flight from Bonaire to Aruba was SUPER delayed, so we were concerned with making our flight from Aruba to Miami (the important one). There was a flight going from Bonaire to Curacao then on to Aruba, but it only had two seats left. Jacob stayed behind, and Samantha and I got on that flight. We got off at Curacao, and we had some lunch while waiting for our connection. We tried to stay in contact with Jacob, and he said he thought he got a flight. We boarded our flight to Aruba. While in the air, the pilot announced that we had to make a brief stop in Bonaire to pick up some passengers (Seriously!?! We just came from there.) It was like a joke that we were hopping among these three islands (known as the ABC islands (Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao)). We couldn’t escape them, like the Bermuda triangle or something. So we pulled into Bonaire, and we saw a man walking across the runaway to board. Guess who it is! Jacob. We laughed so hard… “Nice to see you sir.” So after a joke-of-a-morning hopping around islands on a ten person plane, we were all on our way to Aruba. It did make for a nice aerial tour of the three islands and the beautiful water and beaches.

We got home with no other problems, and I was already ready to go back and dive more. I vowed to myself that I would make the trip back down there again and take more family and friends and spend my whole trip shore diving these spectacular reefs in Bonaire’s National Marine Park (Kralendik). I spent most of the trip underwater. My drive instructor joked that there are no people on the island of Bonaire in the daytime because everyone is underwater. Why else would you come to Bonaire?