Bonaire Day Three

Monday, June 1, 2009. Well today was kind of a lazy day (in some respects). We slept in until 8:00 a.m. here, which is really 5 a.m. Phoenix time, so technically I guess it was not sleeping in. But hey, we did not have to get up and go to work. After breakfast Dick, Eric, and I headed to the south of our hotel to do our first dive at Angel City which is down by the salt farm. The dive went very well, but getting into the water was a little comical for some of us. I ended up slipping and falling on my way out into the water, thereby giving Dick a good laugh. Dick had his payback, though, when he made his way out into the water and bit it in the same spot I did. I subsequently had a good laugh watching him flop around like a flounder that had been beached. Poor Eric missed seeing both of us, as he was busy hauling everyone's gear into the water for us. I somehow pulled a muscle or pinched a nerve or something in my back (probably from not being used to lifting and hauling the 94 pounds around on my back.) Therefore, Eric spent all day hauling his tank and equipment and my tank and equipment both. Pretty much all the diving here is shore entry, but the beaches are very rocky coral and very tricky to navigate. We had a nice dive, though, and had a little better luck getting out. We then headed down to the road towards the south end of the island. We took some pictures of the salt farm. It is really something to see all the huge salt pans filled with pink water. As the water dehydrates from the pans it leaves a very thick salt layer that they then scrape up with the same type of equipment they use to rip up asphalt. They then shoot it into huge pan-type haulers and haul it to the main yard where it is put into huge piles. We drove a little further down the road and took some pictures of the slave huts that used to house the slaves for the salt farm. On down the road a little further we came upon a guy that was kite surfing. He was pretty amazing to watch. Every time he would turn around to go in the opposite direction he would come about10-15ft. off of the water. After we completed our short sightseeing trip we headed back to the hotel to pick up Lou and head to lunch. We ended up heading down to the north end of town to Eden Beach Resort. For those of you who I had told about the Bonaire Webcam website, we sat right at the table where the webcam is aimed. The day prior we also were downtown and waved at the live webcam that is down on main street. We had a very nice lunch at the beach bar at Eden Beach Resort. They have a crew of huge lizards that come and clean up the crumbs from under your table while you are eating and after you are done. After lunch Dick and Lou headed back to the hotel and Eric and I headed to our next dive destination at the Cliffs. That was another tricky entry, but of course Dick was not there to laugh at me when I fell down. We had another very good dive and I saw my first Scorpion fish. Again, lots of great fish and coral, unfortunately we did not take the camera with us this time as the battery was dead. After we managed to find our way out of the water again, we headed back to the hotel to pick up Dick and Lou and head to dinner at Cactus Blue, the restaurant we had actually tried to find two days earlier and never could find. The food there was excellent and of course Dick and I had to have the Key Lime pie, which was very good. Tomorrow is another day. We look forward to more relaxing, more diving, and more good food.