Our second day of boat diving started much like the first day. I was up at 6:30 AM, and having breakfast in the resort restaurant at 6:45 AM. I arrived before Dad this morning and sat outside on a terrace overlooking the ocean. It had great views of Klein Bonaire and the ocean, and from the terrace I was able to watch a cruise ship come in to dock while eating. After breakfast I checked out the dive rolls and saw that we were on the Coral Buddy again. After returning to the room I got ready for the dives with Todd, and we were back on the dock at 7:45 AM with our gear. The Coral Buddy had 13 people on it today, with Elizabeth as our only dive guide for the day.
Our first dive took place at the Southwest Corner dive site on Klein Bonaire, which is located at the southwest corner of the island. Due to its location the currents were quite strong. After descending we kicked hard against the current for 22 minutes before turning. Saw many eels, including one very large one easily 6’ long. We also saw a slipper lobster and lots of soft coral. My camera had no issues and I got many good photos.
The second dive took place at a site called Knife, also on Klein Bonaire. The dive profile was similar, we swam into the current for 30 minutes before turning the dive. With much less current it was a more relaxing dive. I saw a peacock flounder - originally it was swimming, and then it landed on a rock and camouflaged itself very well. There were lots of beautiful hard corals, and there were also coral nursery’s regrowing coral. I saw a small eel towards the end of a dive, as well as a lettuce sea slug which eats the coral and takes its colour from it - this one was blue.
After returning around 12:15 PM and getting our gear sorted, we got cleaned up and had lunch with Mom and Dad shortly after 1 PM. We chatted and planned for the afternoon, and also discussed where to do dinner. We decided on a Mexican restaurant named El Bigote. In the afternoon Todd and I sat on the beach and read our books, while my parents relaxed in the shade of their balcony.
We drove to El Bigote at 6 PM, unfortunately the restaurant was fully booked. Thankfully we were able to make a reservation for the following evening at 6:30 PM to make sure we would have a chance to try the restaurant. We called around to a few other restaurants, and it seemed that they were all booked up. In hindsight given that it was a Friday evening we should have expected it to be a bit busy. Since we knew Yhanni’s didn’t require reservations, and we enjoyed it, we decided to head back there for a second time. We all chose different arepas than what we had enjoyed the previous evening, and they were all delicious as well. After dinner we stopped by for ice cream and then returned to the resort.
We did a quick walk around the resort after we returned, just to stretch our legs, and then we made plans for where we wanted to eat dinner on Sunday. Reservations seem to be necessary in Bonaire! Once we had plans for Sunday dinner finalized we went back to our room, completed our dive logs, and then read a bit before bed at 9:30 PM.