Dutch Letters: Bonaire

When we were deciding where to spend Christmas, there were several criteria that had to be met. First, Kate only had 10 days off (medical school is much more stingy than Vanderbilt with time off) so she wasn't anxious for a big time zone change and the associated jet lag both ways. That ruled out Europe. Second, those of us in Europe were anxious to see the sun. That also ruled out Europe....and a lot of other places.

So we settled for the Caribbean island of Bonaire, about 25 miles off the coast of Venezuela. Only one hour difference for Kate, lots of sun for us and best of all -- we didn't even have to leave The Netherlands. It turns out that Bonaire is a special municipality of The Netherlands. It used to be part of the Netherlands Antilles but when that was dissolved (perhaps you missed that huge political shake up in 2010) Bonaire voted to fall in directly with the Dutch. Actually, the best thing was that due to the Dutch heritage, KLM had direct flights from Amsterdam.

Santa arrived by boat on Christmas morning

The main attraction of Bonaire is its world-renowned diving. And it was great. There were tons of fish, good coral and some special features as well -- octopus, turtles, a shipwreck, eels, lobsters and -- thanks to Kate's keen eye -- a blue marlin. The diving was easy, little to no current and most sites were less than 20 meters. It was the first time the entire family got to dive together; we each did about 15 dives and it worked out great. Grant and I got to do our first night dive (Lori and Kate came along as well). It was neat to see the tarpon swimming around -- they're about 2-3 ft long -- and they swim quite close to you. Luckily they were looking for fish, not humans.

No matter how warm the water is, when you stay down for an hour your body gets cold. That's why not everyone is smiling in this picture.

Grant coming out after a dive

Kate and Lori were always the most efficient with their air. They stayed down longest and came to the surface last on every dive.

Note the rainbow over Mark's right shoulder.

We did have some weather scares. The guide book stated that "Bonaire offers dependably dry weather" and "with only 22 inches of rain each year....Bonaire offers underwater visibility of 100 ft or more". Despite that cheery build-up, we awoke our first morning to a driving rainstorm. We wondered what kind of week were we in for. But it cleared off, the sun came out and temperatures got into the 80's. That happened several more times during the week but the rains never lasted too long.

Bonaire is also known for its flamingos and donkeys. The flamingos are attracted to the brackish lakes on the island that are full of shrimp, which give them their pinkish color. We saw three flamingos flying along the beach; I don't think I've ever seen them fly before. The donkey's are leftovers from the plantation days. The island has a donkey sanctuary that you can visit, but somehow that didn't get to the top of our activity list.

Soaking up the sun

Dinner along the beach

In between dives we played cribbage on a board that was given to us by Mark's Aunts Mary & Helen when they were in Florida. Believe it or not Grant was the family champion. He also won the family card tournament.

This was our rental "car" for the week. These are popular because people use them to haul scuba gear around and go diving from the beach. We ended up doing all of our diving from the boat.

If you look real hard you can see the donkey in this picture. They wander free around the island; this guy was next to our truck at dinner one night.

Kate pulling her "cracker" for Christmas.

Despite the limited cooking facilities Lori came through with two batches of cinnamon rolls and one coffee cake.

We decorated this plant to serve as our Christmas tree.

With Bonaire's Dutch connection, they had Dutch grocery stores like Albert Heijn. However, we had never seen "Natural Cats" in the stores in Holland.

None of these underwater photos are from our trip. But they give you an idea of what we saw. Our octopus wasn't this big, but he swam through the water, landed on a rock then changed colors to match the rock.