Back safe and sound . . .
AN ADVENTURE GETTING HOME - Much as we enjoyed the trip, the 2-hour flight delay coming out of Miami yesterday evening didn't do much for our spirits as three of us didn't get home until 3AM which meant we arrived home roughly 24 hours after we woke up in Bonaire. That notwithstanding . . .
A GOOD TIME WAS HAD BY ALL - We generally did three dives/day - two boat and a shore dive - and maybe the highlight dive for everyone was the Salt Pier shore dive where we started and ended with a group of about 20-30 squid hovering over us and saw plenty more cool stuff under the pier platforms. And we timed it right too because later in the week, a ship came into the Salt Pier (it's the working pier of the Cargill Salt Works) and diving isn't allowed while ship operations are going on. Whew!!!
CONDITIONS - The tradewinds were blowing a bit harder than usual so that chopped up the water a bit the first day or so. (Of course, when we left on Saturday, we woke up to brilliant blue skies and only a breath of wind.) But generally the water temp was 82-83º on most of our computers. Visibility ranged anywhere from 50-100 feet and probably was 70-80 feet most of the time. There was noticeable particulate in the water at just about every site- a photog's nightmare since it result sin backscatter in the pix - but the red algae that plagued Bonaire reefs about 10 years ago was 99% absent.
WE STAYED AT BUDDY DIVE - That's our operation of choice for the last 20 years. We wouldn't keep going back if we didn't like the place and, more importantly, if we didn't feel they were doing a good job. One nice thing is that they were able to give us our own boat every day so the diving was not only confined to our group, but it also meant we went to the sites we wanted to go to, which included Rappel, Carl's Hill, Something Special, Country Garden, Knife, and more. There have been some post-COVID modifications to how they do things which include lowering the max loads on their boats, offering more boat dives (mainly adding afternoon ones), and spreading those out a bit. You also now sign up in the dive shop rather than racing to the chalk board to get on a dive as soon as its posted and that also helps spread things out. Although the resort was full the entire week we were there, it didn't feel crowded (or over-crowded).
SPEAKING OF COVID - All COVID restrictions in Bonaire, as well as at Buddy Dive, have been lifted. It's relatively life-as-it-used-to-be now and that was a nice break from the "new normal," certainly here in Los Angeles. On the way in, you had to fill out a Bonairean health declaration on-line and which we printed out to take with us, since they also wanted to see it at LAX as well as when we landed in Bonaire. Around the island, 95% of the people were unmasked. The masked ones were mainly employees at resorts and some restaurants. The day before we left, we all went and got COVID tests across the street from Buddy Dive at the Bon Bida Test Center. They handed us a printed copy 10 minutes later and e-mailed us the info as well. $52.50 with the Buddy Dive 20% discount (normally it's $65). We were all negative but on the bus to the airport, I did overhear someone say that two people in their group tested positive and were being quarantined. So this thing ain't over. Since everyone on the plane had just tested negative, most of us were unmasked for the flight to Miami but once we landed and went into the main terminal, we were back in uncharted territory so I re-masked for the rest of the journey home.
TRIP REPORT - I actually managed to write the first draft on the plane but need to work on it some more as well as continue to tweak pix. But in the meantime, especially for those of you not on FaceBook where I was posting shots each day, here's a sneak peek at some of what we saw (with captions no less): |
