Bonaire

Our first landfall was Bonaire, one of the Dutch-owned ABC islands (the other two are Aruba and Curacao), off the north coast of Venezuela. It’s just a little bit of a place, with only about 10,000 inhabitants, and apparently some of the world’s best scuba diving and snorkeling. Bonaire is mostly a former coral reef and the drop off from the shore to deep ocean is very abrupt and very steep.

We went snorkeling, our first chance to try out the new snorkeling equipment (masks, snorkels, fins, socks) Naoyuki ordered for us online. We went on the Seacow, one (the only?) of Bonaire’s local water taxis, owned by an apparently Dutch family that’s been living in Bonaire for a few years. They took our group over to Klein Bonaire (the uninhabited little island across the channel from Kralendijk, Bonaire’s only town) for drift snorkeling, then back across the sound for some deepwater paddling near Hamilton Beach.

The trek along the beach on Klein Bonaire was a little rough on the footsies (lots of rocks for a tenderfoot like me) but the water was gorgeous, crystal clear with alternating warm and cool currents. I had my usual difficulties getting adjusted to the mask and the snorkel (the mask wasn’t tight enough) and got a bit off course. My anxiety was heightened a bit by the fact that we had to swim past fire coral (which I never quite identified) and I was afraid I’d get into it. (As it turned out, Naoyuki did brush one of his wrists on some; I think he’s still got a bit of the poison ivy-like rash, more than three weeks later.)

By the time we made it to the second dive site, though, I pretty much had it figured out again. Did I mention I love snorkeling? I never tried it before April 2005 when we took the kids and Eden on the BOB (Breathing Observation Bubble) adventure when our cruise ship stopped at St. Thomas. I figured I’d be no good at it (as is usually the case with any sort of physical activity) but it was great from the get-go.

We were good boys and put on the SPF 45 before we ever left our stateroom, much less the ship, but we got a little bit of red anyway, forgetting to re-apply after the first dive site.

After the snorkeling we spent an hour or so looking around Kralendijk. It had some interesting Dutch colonial architecture and a few shops but nothing that really caught our eye. It seemed amazingly laidback, a little beach town adrift in the ocean.

If we’d had more time, we’d have gone exploring more of the island. The flamingo colony is supposed to be one of the biggest in the world!

All in all, a good first landing!