Bonaire is a rather pretty island. Since the group I vacationed were hardcore divers most of the time was geared towards getting ourselves submerged underwater.

Over the first 5 days I logged 13 dives. The visibility was outstanding, over 100′ at times, and the sea life was remarkably healthy. The more I dove the more detail I saw. Which is probably due to me becoming comfortable hooked up to an air tank at 60+ feet under water to allow me to observe as much of my surroundings as possible. It’s pretty surreal to be at 80′ depth and looking up wall of coral, there’s a whole different world under water which most people never experience.

Here’s a list of notable sea life:

• Spotted Eel
• Green Moray Eel (huge in fact, probably 5 – 7 feet long)
• Fire coral (others too, but don’t know what the names are)
• Small shrimp dealios
• Barracuda (only a foot or two long)
• Turtle (I think it was a Leatherback, saw a few of these and quite large)
• Stingray (it gave us a shifty glance and decided to keep it’s stinger for someone else)
• Family of squid swimming around
• Spotted Drum Fish
• Large Lobster (3+ lbs)
• Nurse Shark (I was drift diving and almost sat on this guy w/o knowing)
• Large School Blue Fish (being chased by large tuna, it was sort of a dance and pretty trippy to watch)
• Tron Fish (I’m pretty sure this is not what it’s called, but it looked like it had the blue glow suit on)
• Small Blue Sparkle Fish

There was a lot more under there, but this is what I jotted down in my dive log book.

We also went out on a ship wreck dive, which was my deepest dive on the trip – 99′. This was also the same day which I had a little trouble with my left ear not clearing properly. This can be rather painful if you can’t equalize the pressure on your ears. It took me a little extra time to descend, but it was only a couple of extra seconds each 10′ to allow proper equalization.

On Thursday I decided to take the day off to join Sarah, our new German friend, for a trek in Washington Slagbaai National Park. After her stay on Bonaire, Sarah was scheduled to meet a couple of friends in Peru where they were planning on summiting some of the highest mountain peaks in the world. Anyway, this excursion was rather easy and flat. It was also the first time I took my Nikon out of travel bag, I’ve posted a few choice shot’s here.

The night life on Bonaire reminds me much of a small college town. Small bars playing house music, everyone drinking a little too much and having a great time in the process. I was lucky enough to have meet a few of the locals which gave me the privilege of tagging along with them a few nights to see what the island had to offer. Much of the time I had no idea what they were talking about, because they were communicating in Dutch to one another. Most of them are students from the Netherlands working for the resorts and an internship. Well at least the ones I meet though Buddy Dive did. It made the evenings a bit more enjoyable than just hanging around the resort pool bar talking with wasted Navy Seals telling crazy stories of hunting people down. (not that there’s anything wrong with that…)

In short anyone who enjoys scuba diving would love Bonaire and should have this on their list of destinations to hit. But, if you are looking for a relaxing beach vacation, I would not suggest it. The beaches are pretty much non-existent, most are are covered with dead coral (think rough rock). Maybe a trip to Mexico, Hawaii or the Mediterranean may be a better choice for you.