Our annual SCUBA diving vacation was, as usual, to Bonaire.
"Why Bonaire, again?" you ask. It is simple: shore diving. Shore diving allows us the freedom to be on our own schedule (vs. the boat captain's schedule). And it allows Anne to stay off of boats. So we always end up going back to Bonaire. We already made hotel reservations for our 2007 trip, in fact! But now, back to this year's trip.
We stay at Carib Inn, which is a small 10-room inn on the water. We tried a new room this year; our old room go sooo hot in the dining area. This one was more comfortable. It is hard to think of it, during November in a Northern clime, but keep in mind that the weather in Bonaire is 85-90' F, humid (it is surrounded with water, remember), and breezy. Hard to relate to.
I've divided up the pictures and information into the following sections. If you really like a particular picture, we can provide a full-quality and full-size version of it for you.
Contrary to populare belief, there are other things to do on the island besides diving. As somewhat evident in the pictures on the other pages, birds are plentiful for birdwatching. Windsurfing is also very popular, as well as para-surfing (at least that is what we call it). Para-surfing uses kites attached to the surfer's body. And a relatively new activity is "land sailing". This uses a sail attached to a go-cart.
We haven't tried it yet, but it does look like fun. Really, though, the diving and relaxing take up most of our time.
We stayed in Room #7 this year, instead of our former "bungalow", Room #9. Room #7 is on the 2nd floor, which turns out not to have been an issue. It has a nice birds-eye view. Really; we were eye-to-eye with a number of birds during the week. And some moths and butterflies. It is a nice, slightly different perspective than being down on the water.
(Note: click on small picture to open a window with a larger version; close that window out to return to this page.)
Our room, from the inn's pier:
The view South and North from our porch:
And out towards the water:
This next picture shows Anne on the deck, with the trees in the background. I am wearing one of the "post dive" outfits that I made. It has a sleeveless button-up top, and a wrap skirt. Very practical for changing into after a dive. (This was actually before going to dive; you can tell because my hair isn't a mess yet.) Still needs a little fine-tuning, but it worked very well.
Next, let's explore the island a little bit.
Updated July 2020