{"id":1794,"date":"2015-03-09T19:33:18","date_gmt":"2015-03-09T19:33:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/?p=1794"},"modified":"2015-03-15T19:33:45","modified_gmt":"2015-03-15T19:33:45","slug":"under-the-sea-bonaire-pt-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/?p=1794","title":{"rendered":"Under The Sea – Bonaire Pt 2"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>
The trunkfish, Bruce & I. Photo courtesy Rob Curtis<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Bonaire is considered to be one of the best diving locations in the Caribbean. All the waters around the island are designated as a marine park, and with little rainfall and run-off from the island, the water is amazingly clear and even more importantly, warm! It\u2019s also incredibly easy to dive here because the reef is so close to shore \u2013 you can walk in from the shore or jump off the back of the boat and there\u2019s the reef wall right underneath you. So it\u2019s no wonder that we were a tad frustrated not to have our dive compressor working!<\/p>\n

But that wasn\u2019t going to stop us – having the use of Al\u2019s pick-up truck was great, as we could hire tanks and equipment from the local dive shop, although with only two seats in the cab it meant some of the crew had to ride in the back island-style!<\/p>\n

\"Geoff<\/a>
Geoff & Rob in the back seat<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There\u2019s plenty of choice for dive sites, with 63 of them all along the west coast, marked on the road with yellow stones, or by yellow buoys in the water that small boats or dinghies can tie up to.<\/p>\n

\"Andrea<\/a>
Andrea I dive site<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Thousand<\/a>
Thousand steps dive site (there’s only 76 thankfully!)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

During our time in Bonaire, Rob completed his open water diving certificate with Bruce, and Geoff also got back under the water after a break of many years.<\/p>\n

\"Graduation<\/a>
Graduation party for our newest open water diver, Rob<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"DCIM100MEDIA\"<\/a>
pretty coral, Bonaire<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The underwater scenery isn\u2019t as spectacular as other parts of the world, but for ease of access and variety of fish life it\u2019s unbeatable. Here are some pictures:<\/p>\n

\"Geoff<\/a>
Geoff & Di on the wreck of the Hilma Hooker. Photo courtesy Rob Curtis<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Angelfish<\/a>
Angelfish & yellow grunt<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"fish<\/a>
fish and brain coral on our mooring block, Bonaire<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The revolving door on Toucan was working hard while we were in Bonaire \u2013 we said farewell to Mia, but welcomed back Penny from her side trip to the UK, and then a little later said goodbye to Jackie who was off on further adventures in the Galapagos and South America! We were able to celebrate Jackie\u2019s birthday before she left, and had a great day exploring the mangroves by kayak.<\/p>\n

\"Jackie<\/a>
Jackie & Sherm<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"working<\/a>
working our way through the mangrove tunnels<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The day was topped off by dinner at It Rains Fishes restaurant, followed by birthday cake back on the boat.<\/p>\n

\"Jackie's<\/a>
Jackie’s birthday dinner, It Rains Fishes<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Happy<\/a>
Happy Birthday Jackie, from your Toucan family!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We also had a chance to tour the southern part of the island, which is the kite-boarders and wind-surfers heaven, and enjoyed a pleasant hour or two hanging out at the quirky bar in Lac Bay.<\/p>\n

\"Kite-surfers<\/a>
Kite-surfers heaven<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Lac<\/a>
Jibe City Lac Bay, a cool hangout for windsurfers<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The<\/a>
The bar and restaurant at Jibe City, Lac Bay<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Watching<\/a>
Watching the action on a stormy afternoon, Lac Bay<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On the way we got up closer to the salt mining operations. That\u2019s a lot of salt shakers in them thar hills!<\/p>\n

\"Condenser<\/a>
Condenser ponds and salt mounds, Bonaire<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And then we stopped to explore the original slave huts, which believe it or not slept 5 adult men.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The tiny slave huts, Oranje Pan, Bonaire<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Not<\/a>
Not exactly luxury accommodation<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The slaves would walk 37km from the north end of the island to work at the salt mines during the week, and then walk back home again at the end of the week. What a harsh, miserable, existence it must have been with no amenities, not even headroom to stand up in the huts. It\u2019s the dark side of Caribbean history, and evident everywhere we\u2019ve been.<\/p>\n

\"Slave<\/a>
Slave huts, Bonaire<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Finally, at the beginning of our third week, our compressor piston arrived by Fedex from Miami and Ronald was able to fit it within the day. Hurray! Finally, a working dive compressor. Just to celebrate we had a couple of dives each off the back of the boat, including a night dive which was pretty fun.\"DCIM100MEDIA\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Sadly we weren\u2019t so lucky with finding someone to repair our portable generator which gave up the ghost during our stay in Bonaire, or a refrigeration technician. Both those jobs will have to wait until we get to Curacao or Aruba.<\/p>\n

We\u2019d stayed long enough in Bonaire, the feet were itching, the eardrums were suffering, and the boat was covered in a film of Bonaire dust blowing off the land. Time to move on! We had one last ice cream at Gio\u2019s (the BEST ice cream ever), completed our clearance with Customs and Immigration and the next morning headed 35NM to the big smoke of Curacao, where our new rudder bearings were waiting for us at Curacao Marine.<\/p>\n

\"Sunset,<\/a>
Sunset, Kralendijk anchorage<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bonaire is considered to be one of the best diving locations in the Caribbean. All the waters around the island are designated as a marine park, and with little rainfall and run-off from the island, the water is amazingly clear and even more importantly, warm! It\u2019s also incredibly easy to dive here because the reef … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Under The Sea – Bonaire Pt 2”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-svtoucan"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6B46t-sW","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1794"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1794\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1800,"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1794\/revisions\/1800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}