Bonaire Day 5

July 6, 2011

This morning we decided to get up a bit earlier and find somewhere on the way to our first dive to have breakfast. There was a small supermarket/bakery downtown where we ended up stopping in and got some donuts and juice. Then we made our way down the road to do our first dive at a dive site called 1000 Steps (there are really only 72 steps--it just feels like a thousand hauling all the gear and cameras down and then back up). It was well worth the effort, though.

I spotted another small turtle who proceeded to swim off, as most turtles do when they figure out they have been spotted. However, I decided to follow behind at a leisurely pace, hoping I might eventually get close enough to get some good video. Boy did I get lucky. The turtle stopped and started chowing down like you would not believe on some algae. The damsels that the algae belonged to were not too happy to say the least. The turtle stayed there eating for what felt like an eternity and did not even care that I had the camera in it's face. Then it went on it's merry way. We also saw a giant lobster, a barracuda, and all the other usual suspects.

After we hauled ourselves back up the 72 steep steps to the car, we headed down the road a ways to Karpata--a dive site we have been wanting to do for a while. This too was another good dive. We saw a giant parrot fish and a lot of other fish and there was a lot of diversity as far as the coral goes.

After that dive we decided to head back to the hotel, but first we stopped to get some ice cream. Then we made it back to the hotel and rinsed off a bit and had a snack before we went down the road to get some more tanks at Dive Friends. Then we came back and decided to do our third dive at Margate Bay. Right after we dropped down at that dive site, we saw a large free swimming green moray. Other than that it was the usual sea life.

After that we headed back to the hotel and had some dinner and then Eric and Tim decided to head out and do a night dive off the hotel pier. I decided to sit this one out and rest up. They had a good dive and then came back up to the room to have some popcorn and a few beers. The perfect ending to a perfect day of diving.