Bonaire July 2012 Day 9

Saturday, July 7, 2012

We got up about 5 a.m. to get ready to take Tim to the airport this morning for his 7 a.m. flight back to Houston and then to Phoenix. We dropped Tim off close to 6 a.m. and headed back to the hotel to do another dive (our last dive of the trip). I fixed omelets for Jody and I and then we all headed down to dive off the pier here at the hotel. It just was not he same without Tim along, though.

Not too long after we dropped in we all looked up to see a HUGE and I mean HUGE school of fish. This thing could have blocked out the sun. Eric and I have never seen a school of fish this large here in Bonaire ever before. I got some video of it and I think Eric got some good pictures. We swam along with it for a little while as they were not moving too fast and then in a split second they moved on. We were out for about 45 minutes to an hour and did not see anything else super exciting, but it is pretty hard to beat the huge school of fish. The visibility was probably the worst we have seen it this trip too.

After our dive we got busy rinsing all our equipment and clothing off really good so we could get stuff hung out to dry before packing it up this evening. After we all took a shower then we were ready to head out for our day of sightseeing. As per our usual Bonaire routine we went to the Donkey sanctuary first and drove through and petted a bunch of the donkeys. This time we decided to buy a bag of carrots to feed them too. Jody learned one thing, you don’t get out of the car with a bag of carrots. We all had to make a mad dash to get back in the car before we were trampled alive.

Then we headed over to Lac Bay for lunch and sat and watched the wind surfers. After our relaxing lunch at Lac Bay we then headed down the road that goes around the southeast end of the island. We got really lucky on our drive around here as we spotted some flamingos that were actually fairly close in so we pulled over to take some photos. Right after we pulled over another large flock of flamingos came flying in and landed with the group that we had originally spotted. It was really pretty seeing a large group of them airborne and then landing. I think Eric got some photos, but unfortunately I did not have my video camera out and ready or I could have gotten some awesome video.

We continued our tour on around the south end and got some pictures of the slave huts at White Slave. On our way toward downtown we dropped off the tanks that we had left in the car and then headed for downtown so Jody could see if she could find a souvenir Bonaire shirt. Since there was no parking close we dropped Jody off to shop while we went on down the road to Yellow Submarine to settle up our bill there and return our weights.

We then came back to the downtown area to pick up Jody and we found a parking spot so we ended up going into the dive shop downtown and buying a couple more things. At this point we were all pretty tired and decided instead of driving up North and doing the loop around the island up there that we would just head back to the hotel and get started on the packing. We had done a couple dives up that way already so Jody pretty much got the tour of the North end of the island already when we did those dives.

We made our way back to the hotel and Eric started the packing process while Jody laid down to have a nap and I typed up my blog. After Jody got up from her nap and we had finished most of our packing we had dinner here in the room. We had the large salad left over from Pasa Bon Pizza, some cardboard style dutch crackers with cheddar cheese, some white chocolate ice cream bars and what was left of the peanut butter chocolate chip cookies that I made and brought.

Bonaire July 2012 Day 8

Friday, July 6, 2012

We all got up about 7 a.m. this morning and lounged around for a while. Today was Tim’s last full day on the island and his non-dive day so I drove him down to the Plaza Hotel to rent a scooter for the day. After he picked up his scooter he came back to the hotel to see where we were headed for the day. We decided we would do our first two dives down south.

First we headed for The Rock since we liked this dive site and it had a very easy beach entry. Tim decided he was going to scoot around the island and he might meet up with us at one of our dive sites. We dove The Rock and had a nice dive but did not see anything too interesting. Jody had a real work-out during this dive though. A four pound weight fell out of her pocket when she was putting on her BCD and none of us knew about it. She could not figure out why she was having such a hard time staying down during the dive, especially toward the end. I ended up giving her a two pound weight out of my weight belt and then she was okay.

As we popped our heads up at the end of the dive there was Tim waiting for us. He helped us load all our gear and then followed us to the next dive site, Bachelor beach. He saw us off for our dive. We were on a mission to find the tiny blenny that we had seen the other day. We actually did find the same blenny and Eric ended up finding a couple more too. I also saw two scorpionfish. Jody spotted a juvenile trunkfish and also a really large crab who was hiding in a hole.

We completed our dive and packed up the car and by this time Tim showed up on his scooter. Jody decided to ride back to the hotel with Tim on the scooter. So Eric and I followed them back to the hotel. Those of us who had been diving got cleaned up and then we all went to the dive shop to get some tanks so Jody, Eric, and I could do a morning dive tomorrow. Tomorrow morning will be our last dive of the trip.

Tim had the idea for all of us to do lunch over at Lac Bay. So Tim joined us in the car and we headed across the island to Lac Bay. This is the large bay where they do all the wind surfing. They have a very nice beach cafe there where you can sit and watch the wind surfers. Since it was rather late in the day and we had not had anything substantial to eat yet today we decided to make this our main meal of the day. We all had panninis and we had a couple orders of fries and a couple orders of tortilla chip nachos. Everyone else had their beers and I had a mango smoothie and a pina colada smoothie and boy were they good (much better than beer in my opinion).

After our meal we wandered around on the beach for a bit and we looked into what it would cost to rent sailboards and take lessons (Jody thought she might be interesting in trying it). After that we headed back to the hotel to drop Tim off so he could return his scooter. Jody decided she wanted to ride with Tim to return the scooter, so we let them get about a 15 minute head start since the scooter only went about 30 mph at full throttle.

We picked them up at the Plaza Hotel after they gassed up and dropped off the scooter. Then we all ran to the grocery store to get some more beer and sodas and most importantly some chocolate covered ice cream bars.

We ran our ice cream bars back to the hotel and put everything in the freezer. Then we watched a couple episodes of Big Bang Theory and played some Uno (I creamed everyone again). We all headed off to bed then since we had to get up early to take Tim to the airport tomorrow morning.

Bonaire July 2012 Day 7

Thursday, July 5, 2012

We had made plans last night to get up and leave a little after 8 a.m. this morning to go to the dive shop (they open at 8 a.m.) and get tanks for our first two dives of the day. Then we were going to stop and get breakfast at El Mundo on the way through town since we were heading up north to do our two dives, one at 1000 Steps and the other at Karpata.

I think we got out of the hotel about 8:30 or so -- it is hard to get us all moving when we have adjusted to island time. Then we stopped downtown at El Mundo and had breakfast. Tim had a Dutch pancake with apple and the rest of us had American style pancakes. After stuffing ourselves, we headed on down the road to our first dive site, 1000 Steps.

This dive site has a bunch of steps to get down the side of the cliff to the dive site (like 60-70, just feels like 1000). Tim was nice enough to carry my stuff down and up for me since I did not want to aggravate my back. It is great having Tim along--he is our little pack mule. He has way too much energy!!! Jody managed to carry all her own gear down and back up--what a trooper. Of course we had to listen to her whine about any other steps we had to do the rest of the day...

We had a nice dive here. I got some really good footage of a giant lobster that decided to come out and wander all around the reef trying to find a new den--or at least that is what I assume it was doing. I have never seen a lobster do that ever before. Usually once they are spotted they back into their den and you don’t see much of them. We had a lot of things that were out of the ordinary today, though.

After we hiked back up the hill and loaded the car we headed down the road a little ways to our next dive site, Karpata. By the time we got there we still had about 30 minutes left on our surface interval so we watched some other people getting in the water to see how they did it. This entry was a little more challenging and there were some pretty good waves coming in.

As we were getting our gear ready there were a bunch of Iguana’s congregating around us. I think people must feed them at this dive site and they must have thought Tim had some food. Tim was not paying attention and two of them started running toward him and when he looked up they scared the crap out of him. I don’t know who was more surprised, Tim or the iguanas.

After our laugh at Tim’s expense we all headed down to the water to get in. It was a little challenging with the waves that were coming in, but we managed to get in with not too much trouble. Right after we got in we saw a big school of blue tang and a really big parrotfish swimming along with them. We saw a couple more lobsters, but nothing overly exciting until the end of the dive. At the end of the dive I was trying to get some more footage of the giant parrotfish when Tim used his noise maker to get my attention. I thought to myself this had better be good. I looked toward him and he pointed to an octopus that was out of its hole swimming around.

I swam over to it faster than you can believe. I got quite a bit of footage of this octopus. He was swimming, changing color and too busy hunting to worry about me taking video of him. It was amazing.

That was definitely the highlight of today’s dives and probably the trip. After we managed to get out -- some of us not as gracefully as others, we hiked back up the hill and loaded the car to head back to the hotel to have some lunch. We had left over pizza so that made lunch very fast and easy. As soon as we had some pizza we loaded up the car again to head down the road just a short bit to do our third dive at Bachelor’s Beach.

This is a nice sandy entry here so it make it a little easier to get in. We swam out a ways and took a group picture and then continued on with our dive. We saw a scorpionfish, at least two octopus, a very photogenic angelfish, a tiny and I mean tiny goby, and a couple snake eels out hunting.

Eric and Tim decided they were going to do a night dive too, so we came back to the hotel and they had a little snack before they headed down to the hotel pier to do a night dive. Jody and I decided we were tired and stayed behind in the room. The guys said their night dive was really cool. They said they turned off their lights a couple times and it was the best light show they had ever seen before--the bioluminescence. After the guys got done with their night dive they were pretty hungry so they came back to the room and we all had some more left over pizza before we headed off to bed after a tiring but fun day.

Bonaire July 2012 Day 6

Wednesday, July 4, 2012.

I think we were all on Bonaire time today. We all had breakfast this morning and then decided what the plan was for diving. We decided we would head back down south and dive White Slave and then Invisibles. We got to the White Slave dive site and there was no one there. We thought it would be a good day to try diving this site as it can have some pretty good current and today didn’t seem to be as windy as other days, thus we thought it might make it an easier entry with less wave action.

There was not much current when we got in and we swam out a ways before we dropped down. Right after we started going down I looked beneath me and there was a spotted eagle ray feeding in the sand. Right after everyone had seen him he quickly swam off. I did not get any video and Eric didn’t get any pictures either. We had a nice dive but towards the latter part of the dive the current started ripping. It was all we could do to swim and stay in place, so we headed back for the shore. Unfortunately, we had to fight the current all the way back in to shore. We definitely all burned some calories on this dive.

By the time we got to Invisibles we still had about a half hour left to complete our surface interval before we could get in the water again, so we watched all the other divers coming and going. When we had completed our hour surface interval we gathered all our gear and jumped in the water. There was much less current at this site, thankfully. There were a lot of fish at this dive site and it was a very nice dive.

We all had a good laugh and Jody put on quite a show for everyone when she went to get out of the water. She had all her gear on and fell down and could not get up and was being washed around like a beached whale--I didn’t laugh quite as hard about this as everywhere else as I have been in this situation before. After we hoisted Jody out of the water we all got out and loaded up the car.

By the time we completed these two dives it was definitely lunch time, so we headed back to the hotel to drop off all our gear and get cleaned up a bit to head out and find some lunch. Jody was craving a burger, so we decided to go back to El Mundo since they have just about everything on the menu and their food is really good. So we drove downtown and had lunch at El Mundo and then after lunch we stopped by the dive shop and picked up four new tanks so we could do a dive off the pier at the hotel when we got back.

At about 4 p.m. we headed downstairs to dive off the pier here at the hotel. I decided to get some over-under shots of Jody, Tim, and Eric doing a giant stride off the hotel pier into the water. Then after some above water picture taking we got ready to drop down. Tim stuck his head under the water and looked down and spotted a giant ray. We all threw our heads into the water to see a GIANT spotted eagle ray who had obviously spotted us too and was taking off in a hurry. Of course Eric and I attempted to chase it down to get some pictures or video--which was a losing proposition.

We watched the ray swim off into the blue and continued on with our dive. It was a nice dive but we did not see anything else super spectacular.

We finished our dive and decided it was time to hunt down dinner. Tim had not been to Pasa Bon Pizza yet as we went the day before he got here, so we decided to go back there again. Their food is so good. We stuffed ourselves and then headed back to the hotel with leftovers for tomorrow. We decided we were going to get up early tomorrow morning so everyone pretty much headed off to bed as soon as we got back to the hotel.

Bonaire July 2012 Day 5

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Eric and I slept in until about 7 o’clock and Jody got up about 6 a.m. or so. After everyone was up we all had some breakfast and finalized our plan for today. For our first dive we decided to head up North to the dive site called the Cliff, which is at Dive Friends Hamlet location. We had been told that there was a frog fish at this dive site that we could get very good directions to find.

So we loaded up the car and headed in that direction. This time we only got out of the parking lot before we remembered Jody’s weights, so we just made a U-turn to come back and get them. Then we got to the dive site and I remembered I had forgotten my long sleeve rash guard top. So I dove sleeveless today.

We got directions from the staff at the Hamlet Dive shop and headed out in search of the frog fish. We made a beeline for the area where the frog fish was supposedly located and actually were able to find it. I got some video of it, which no one will probably be able to figure out because frog fish sit perfectly still. Eric hopefully got some good pictures of it. As I was trying to get some video of it I accidentally bumped a small bit of fire coral on my wrist. So now I have experienced fire coral for the first time. You definitely know when you have hit something, but it was not terribly painful. After a short bit it was like nothing had even happened. However, it is not something I would want to do repeatedly.

We also saw a really friendly turtle on this dive and this time my video camera was working, unlike the first day. I got some really good video of the turtle going to town munching on some algae. I also got some good footage of a couple midnight parrotfish and a very large barracuda. That dive lasted a little over an hour and everyone really enjoyed that location. This location is probably one of the few in Bonaire that actually has a small wall.

We got out and rinsed all our gear off and got eight new tanks and then we all got some sodas and sat in the shade and chatted with the lady working at the Hamlet. Then we all loaded back in the van and headed down the road to our next diving destination, Oil Slick Leap.

Tim decided he wanted to do a giant stride off the cliff edge into the water at Oil Slick Leap and Jody decided she wanted to try it too, so I videotaped all three of them doing a giant stride into the water. Then I got in and we started our dive. We saw a couple schools of blue tang, gray angelfish, arrow crabs, a spotted drum, and another very large midnight blue parrotfish just to name a few things.

After that dive we were all pretty hungry so we loaded up the car and headed back to the hotel to rinse off and get a bite to eat. We still had pizza left over so we had pizza and snacked on whatever we could find lying around and then watched some of my video from today to see what kind of footage I had gotten. After that Tim and Eric decided they were going to do another dive off the pier here at the hotel to see if they could find the octopus Tim had spotted on the night dive last night.

Tim wanted to do a giant stride off the end of the pier and Eric told him he would do it too, so I went down and videotaped them both doing their giant stride into the water. The large resident iguana that hangs around here was down on the pier sunning himself, so of course I had to get some video of him too. Jody has named him Henry Jones, III.

Tim and Eric had a good dive. They saw the octopus again and a very large flounder, a super-size barracuda, and some fire worms, etc. As they came back in from their dive I got some video of them coming up the ladder. I also got some footage of the KLM flight coming in for a landing.

After they both got cleaned up we were all hungry so we decided to head downtown for dinner to another one of the restaurants we really like, El Mundo. We sat outside and enjoyed the full moon and the beautiful Bonaire breeze. Jody and I had the crab salad sandwich, Tim had the tuna salad sandwich, and Eric had the chicken satay in peanut sauce. The food there is really fresh and they make everything from scratch, even their bread. Everything tasted sooooo good.

After dinner we walked down the street to the Gelato shop and we all had some super good gelato. Then we walked back to the car and drove back to the hotel. Tim was pretty tired so he headed to bed and Eric and Jody and I played a couple rounds of Uno. Of course I won...Jody said she was just tired or she would have smeared my ass...

Bonaire July 2012 Day 4

Monday, July 2, 2012

Since there was really no reason to get up early today, Eric and I slept in until a little after 7 o’clock. According to Tim, Jody was up about 3 or 4 a.m. After we were all up and somewhat awake we sat around and relaxed and decided what the plan was going to be for today. I made Jody and Tim and myself cheese omelets and after we got done with breakfast we all got our swim suits on to head out for the first dive of the day.

We had decided that we would do the Hilma Hooker first and then a new dive site we had not done yet called The Rock. So we got to the Hilma Hooker and got all our gear ready to get in. Jody went ahead and got in the water and took my video camera and then Tim got in the water and Eric carried my equipment down and put it in the water so Tim could hang onto it. At that point we realized that neither Eric or I had our masks. So Tim and Jody stayed in the water and waited while Eric and I ran back to the hotel to get our masks. We zipped back as quickly as we could and then got in the water.

Our little mask issue actually worked out for the better. By the time we were ready to get in the water and go down for our dive all the other people were gone and we were the only ones there. When we had first arrived there were actually quite a few shore divers there and two dive boats from different dive shops. So it was rather nice having the whole dive site to ourselves.

There were quite a few barracuda hanging around the Hilma Hooker and we also found one tarpon hanging out down in the shadows of the boat. We also saw a couple eels on the swim back in over the reef. Tim and Jody both really enjoyed the dive. This was Jody’s first wreck dive.

After that we headed back to the hotel to get some more mask drops and then headed back down the road to just past the Hilma Hooker to our next dive site, The Rock. This is actually an unmarked dive site just the other side of the Invisibles dive site. This has to be one of the easiest entry and exits for a dive site of any we have done here on Bonaire. It was a beautiful sandy section of beach where you just walk right in--no scrambling over slippery rocks to get in the water here.

At this dive site you actually swim out quite a ways, as there is just a lot of sand and a few coral heads on the way out, and then you drop right down onto this giant coral sea mount--thus the name The Rock. We saw quite a few Lion fish there and there was a nice sandy bottom with lots of garden eels. We also saw a lobster that could have fed a small African nation. On the way back in there were also a few eels and I spent quite a bit of time following a flounder all over the place. I think everyone really enjoyed this dive site.

By this time I think we were all getting pretty hungry so we headed back to the hotel to rinse out all our gear and take a quick shower before we took all the empty tanks back to get full ones. Then we went down the road a little further to get a few groceries. We decided to check out the new grocery store that we were told was down the street from the Warehouse (the supermarket we usually shop at). We went into the new store and it was very nice, so nice that you had to pay to rent a shopping cart. We looked around and did not think their selection was as good, so we headed back down the street to the Warehouse.

We got everything we wanted at the Warehouse and we did not have to pay for a shopping cart either. We finally headed back to the hotel to get some lunch. I think by this time it was about 4 p.m. We had ordered a couple pizzas last night so we could have the leftovers for lunch today. So we had our pizza and for dessert we had the peanut butter chocolate chip cookies I had made at home and brought...Yummmmm!!!

Tim and Jody were tired so they laid down and had an afternoon nap. We decided tonight was the night we would do our night dive, so about 7 p.m. we headed out to the hotel pier. Jody was a little nervous about it, but we told her she had to at least give it a try. We got in about sundown and head out in front of the hotel not to far. We spent about an hour swimming around and seeing what there was to see. We saw quite a few eels out hunting, lots of banded coral shrimp, basket stars, brittle stars, tarpon, flamingo tongues, and some type of hairy little red crabs. On the way back into the pier we also saw a small octopus.

Jody survived the night dive and I think she actually enjoyed it. I think she would be a little hesitant to do a night dive on her own, but she enjoyed having someone show her the ropes.

After the dive we rinsed and put away all our gear and got cleaned up and had a little snack and some good conversation before heading to bed.

Bonaire July 2012 Days 1-3

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday June 29-July 1, 2012

My dad picked up Jody, Eric and me about 1 p.m. and we headed off to the airport. There was a fairly short line at the check-in counter and a fairly short line at security so we made it through relatively quickly. Then we headed for the United lounge and relaxed for a bit until our flight. Eric and I got upgraded to first class on the flight from Phoenix to Houston, which was nice. We were fortunate enough to leave Jody sitting in coach, Ha!

We made it to Houston okay with only a little bit of turbulence. We had about a four hour layover so we got a bite to eat at Ruby’s diner in the airport and then went to the United lounge to relax before our flight to Bonaire. The flight to Bonaire leaves around midnight and is about four hours long. I think we all got a little bit of sleep on the flight but not a huge amount.

When we landed in Bonaire it was still raining a little bit and it looked like it had actually been raining a lot just before we got there. At most airports that would not be a big deal, but in Bonaire you take the stairs down off of the plane and walk on the tarmac to passport control and then you stand out in the open as you wait in line to get your passport checked to enter the country. We experienced the rain at the Bonaire airport once before so this time we came prepared with rain jackets in our carry-on luggage. Luckily we did not have to use them, though.

We were towards the front of the plane so we got to passport control and got through relatively quickly. However, that did not help us in getting out of the airport any faster. I think there was only one little old man to take all the luggage off the plane, drive it over to the luggage carousel and unload it. Thus, the entire plane had gotten through passport control and was waiting for their luggage before anything started moving on the carousel.

Luckily one of our checked bags was the first off the plane, so I took that and headed over to the rental car pick-up while Jody and Eric waited for the rest of the bags. I got to the car rental window and filled out all the paperwork and got everything signed and she pulled the car around. When she pulled the car around I noticed that the right front tire was about half full of air. I asked her if she could air it up and she acted kind of indifferent. Luckily, because it had been raining the tire was wet and as I inspect it I noticed the side of the tire bubbling through some water. I told her that tire was going to need to be fixed. Unfortunately, they only had the one minivan (which I had called to reserve about two months ago). So she ended up temporarily renting us a small

SUV that we were to bring back at 11 when she said she would have the tire fixed on our original rental.

So we came back at about 10:45 a.m. to pick up our fixed rental car only to find no one at the counter and our original car still parked in the lot with the half flat tire. Finally she showed up in a different minivan and we were on our way.

Then we came back to the hotel and we all got our dive gear ready so we could head down to Yellow Submarine to do our check-out dive and get all our paperwork filled out, etc. We went ahead and did our first dive there too. Jody did really well for her first Bonaire dive. Unfortunately, my video camera would not record for some unknown reason, but of course we did not figure out it was not working until after we got in the water. Eric tried to fix it underwater, but could not figure out the issue. So instead I decide to point out stuff to Jody and write it on a slate so she could start learning some of the things she was seeing.

We came across a very friendly turtle who was too busy eating and doing its own thing to be bothered by Eric taking its picture. So Eric spent quite a bit of time taking multiple photos of the turtle since it was such a cooperative subject. After our dive we got all our stuff rinsed out and loaded back into the car and headed back to the hotel to get cleaned up and head out for some dinner.

Ever since our last trip here I have been dreaming about the garlic bread that we had at Pasa Bon Pizza. So we decided that was where we would go for dinner. They open at 5 p.m. and we got there a little early and they were not open yet and Jody really wanted to eat, so we headed down to restaurant at Captain Don’s Habitat. Unfortunately, we got there only to find out they did not open until 5:30 so we headed back to Pasa Bon Pizza. By the time we got back there they were open and we sat down and decided on what we were going to have.

We had a wonderful dinner. We had a really good salad, the garlic cheese bread, pizza and then Jody and I both had Key Lime pie for dessert. Eric was so tired by dinner time that he was falling asleep at the table. His eyelids were half open and his eyes were rolling back in his head. Jody thought maybe he was having a seizure, she had never seen him so tired. After we got back to the hotel Eric laid down on the bed and was out like a light. We were all pretty tired so we all went to bed right after we got back.

We had to set our alarm clock for 5:15 in the morning on Sunday so that we could get up to go to the airport to pick up Tim. We sat on our balcony and waved to Tim as his plane came in for a landing. Then we drove down and met him at the airport and brought him back to the hotel. He was so wound up and ready to dive that he did not even want to lay down and rest. So we headed out to do our first dive of the day off the pier here at the hotel.

There was quite a bit of current on the dive--or at least more than we have ever experienced the other three times we have been here, but it was still a good dive. We didn’t see anything super spectacular, just the standard critters we usually see. After our dive we rinsed off our gear and headed back up to our room to have some left-over pizza for lunch and decide where we were going to dive next. We decided that Tori’s Reef sounded like a good spot. We had dove there last year and really liked it and the entry is fairly easy.

So we loaded all our gear in the car and headed down the road a bit to Tori’s Reef. There was no one else there, so it was perfect. We backed the car right up to the edge of the water and got all our gear ready and jumped in. It seemed like there were a lot more fish here than other sites and the current was moving pretty well here too. I found a very cooperative filefish and lizard fish and Jody also spotted a scorpion fish that I got some good video of also.

Jody and Tim went ahead and headed back to shore and Eric and I stayed behind to try and get some video and/or photos of some jawfish with eggs. However, the current, camera, and fish just were not very cooperative today.

After we got all our stuff loaded back into the car and head back for the hotel, Tim decided his jet lag was finally catching up with him and Eric was getting tired too, so they both laid down to have a nap before we went out to dinner.

We decided to go back to Captain Don’s Habitat to eat at the restaurant there as it is right on the water. We enjoyed watching the tarpon that were feeding on a large group of small fish as we waited for our dinner. Then we had a very nice dinner as we watched the sun set.