Today was our first day of boat diving! We had set the alarm for 6:30 AM, and I woke up a few minutes before it went off. At 6:45 AM I was in the restaurant having a pre-dive breakfast. While I was getting breakfast I ran into Dad, and we ate breakfast together before I returned to the room at 7:15 AM to get ready for the dives. Todd, Dad and I were on the pier at 7:45 AM, and while reviewing the boat assignments for the day we saw that we were going to be diving from the Coral Buddy. There were 2 dive masters on the boat with us, Elizabeth and Rosie, and the boat captain’s name was Rob. This was actually Rosie’s first day diving in Bonaire - she had just joined the staff at Buddy Dive after moving to Bonaire from Honduras.
The Coral Buddy took us to Klein Bonaire, a small island to the west of Bonaire (Klein means ‘small’ in Dutch). The first dive site we visited was named Monte’s Divi, and the second was named Mi Dushi. Both dives went well; on both dives we reached the maximum time underwater specified in the dive briefings (60 minutes) before we reached low air, which is always something happy with. I had my phone in my underwater camera case all ready go to on the first dive, but after I was in the water I realized I had left the wrist strap in the case. The dive took place on a sloped reef which went much deeper than our maximum depth, so to avoid accidentally dropping the case and losing it I returned it to the boat captain.
On our first dive some notable things I saw included a barracuda, a couple of eels, and a cleaning shrimp. The dive profile was pretty straightforward - we dove along the wall for the first half, came up onto the reef and let the current drift us back to the boat for the second half. There were a number of fan and soft corals. During the surface interval between dives I made sure the wrist strap was attached, so I was able to take it with me on the second dive without any issues - the photos from this dive are below. On the second dive I saw a couple of barracuda near the surface, and early on a large porcupinefish swam past me. Other notable animals included two different types of eels, and there was also a crab. There were many fish at this dive site as well.
The boat returned us to the dock shortly after noon; after unloading our gear, rinsing it and hanging it in our locker for the week, we returned to the room for a shower. We had lunch in Mom & Dad’s room at 1:15 in the afternoon, and finished it shortly after 2 PM. After we had finished eating we got into the truck and went for a drive up to Seru Largu, a large cross on the top of a peak on the island which gave great views to both sides of the island.
The road was quite winding as it climbed up to Seru Largu, and once we got out of the car it was quite hot in the sun. There was a slight breeze to help bring the temperature down a bit. After descending from the hill we decided to head back to the resort, and we returned shortly after 3:30 PM. After dropping Todd & Mom off, Dad and I drove to the Van Den Twell grocery store to get distilled water. It was very well stocked, but also very busy and the checkout was quite slow. It took us about an hour to complete this errand; after returning to the resort I got out my book and read on the balcony until dinner.
We left the resort for dinner at 5:40 PM. Our dinner plan for the evening was Yhanni’s Arepas, a Venezuelan restaurant which was gluten-free. They only serve arepas, which are kind of like pitas in a corn wrap. I hadn’t had an arepa before, however I quite enjoyed my meal. The arepa was delicious, and very filling. We stopped for ice cream after at Luciano, where I had a rolo ice cream cone. After dessert we were back to the resort around 7:30 PM. We then filled out our logbooks and read until bed around 9:15 PM. After a long day of diving and being in the sun I was exhausted and fell asleep immediately.