Bonaire

our favorite underwater pic

Bonaire was such a wonderful vacation. It was just what both of us needed. Philip said it was the best vacation he has ever had. It was the most relaxing vacation I have ever been on. 

if you recall from this post, about this time last year I tried to get certified in Hawaii. motion sickness got the best of me and I was unable to get it. 

However, in the lovely country of Bonaire, you shore dive!!! and after day 2, I was officially an open water certified diver! 

my temporary card

So after I was certified, we just loaded up our rental truck, drove to a dive site, geared up and went diving! The dive sites were marked with a rock colored yellow, and the name of the site on the rock. They were everywhere! 

our truck all loaded up!

my favorite dive- pink beach 

It was so crazy to me that we just drove to a little yellow rock and found the most amazing sights underwater from there. noone knew we were 70 feet down. noone was waiting for us to come back out. It was just the two of us, floating around in a completely different world, seeing the most beautiful and colorful underwater sights. there was a 50 feet wall of coral reef with wildlife all over it. I loved it. 

In between dives you had to have what is called a 'surface interval' to get the oxygen balanced back in your body. 

Then we would pack up and do another dive. 

I  never had to step foot on a boat (the whole reason we went to Bonaire in the first place). my motion sickness was kept away thanks to Scopolamine patches I wore all week. yay! after each dive we had to rinse our gear in fresh water, to get all of the salt off of it. Then we would get out our 'log books' and write down the dives we did. you record how deep you went, how much air you used, how much weight you required, etc.

rinsing in the hot tub on our balcony

On average we did 2-3 days a day. The dive that is apparently a 'must' is the Hilma Hooker- a sunken boat that goes almost 100 feet down. We did it, but I wasn't overly impressed. It was cool to see, but the reefs and fish were much more entertaining to me.

There is a little plant called a 'Christmas Tree' that is my absolute favorite. If you get close to it with your finger it collapses onto the coral it is attached to.  

The whole island is dive-oriented. Most people that are there, are there to dive. We did have time to lay at the pool and relax. which was so nice, but also so hot. it was in the 80's all week. 

at our resort

The food there was amazing. and very diverse. one night we would be eating at an Argentinian Steak House. or a hole in the wall restaurant where Philip has the best crab soup he's ever eaten. or a grill that made the most amazing mushroom empanadas. 

Part of our resort package was breakfast on the beach each morning. we would roll out of bed and walk down to a table on the beach where we had coffee and amazing breakfast every morning. 

We also stumbled upon this amazing little sandwich shop. we wish we had discovered it sooner- there were so many sandwiches we wanted to try! 

The first couple of days we were there, Bonaire celebrated 'Carnival'. We had no idea it was such a big deal. Dive shops closed, restaurants closed, everyone flocked to downtown for 'Carnival'. So we went down to see what the hype was about. 

It was basically a parade and drunken party. it was CRAZY. 

 Anyway, our room had an awesome L-shaped balcony. Every night we would get drinks and hang out on our balcony, watching the waves and the amazing view of the stars, and talk.

from our balcony

Our mission of the week was to see a seahorse. but we couldn't find one:( we did however, see a little sea turtle that I fell in love with. 

the fish there were so beautiful. the coral was gorgeous. it was sensory overload trying to take it all in. Philip wore a board on his arm that allowed to write back and forth to each other. as you can imagine, communicating underwater is difficult, but this helped a lot. 

Philip wanted to night dive, and I promised I would consider it. When we were on the dock looking into the black abyss of an ocean, I just couldn't make myself do it. Yes we would have flash lights, but there was a lot of stuff living under there I didn't like to see in the daylight. I can't imagine doing it at night. I think he was disappointed but was ok with it. Instead we settled for drinking on the dock and shining our flash lights down and seeing what we could find. 

the baby trumpet fish I named 'Trumpy' that was waiting for us every night. he LOVED the light

 I uploaded (alot) more pics on facebook. It pained me to cut some of the underwater pics out, but I do understand that most people don't love it as much as we do. I am so thankful for our camera and the images it captured for us. This was definitely a trip neither of us will forget.