Bonaire Part 1 - Getting there

One of the things that I love about going to another country/part of the world, is trying to enjoy as much of the journey as possible. 9 hour layovers are one way to do that.

ScubaLab, who does all the gear testing for ScubaDiving magazine was having their 5th Annual Fin Test on the small island of Bonaire. Chances are that unless you are a diver you have never heard of or been to Bonaire. Its part of the ABC islands off the coast of Venezuela. The ABC's are Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao. I'm sure you've heard of Aruba.

I've been lucky enough and very fortunate to have gone to all 4 previous Fin Tests. Needless to say I couldn't wait to go on another one. For Tom, someone I have known for years and been diving with for years, this was his first. Tom and I booked our flights thru American a couple of months in advance. Originally we were scheduled to leave LAX Friday May 11th at a brutal 6am flight to Miami then to San Juan Puerto Rico. A short layover in S.J. then a direct flight to Bonaire. A month or two before we left, Tom had called to request exit row seating. They denied the request and also told him that flight was now cancelled (which it wasn't but more on that later). Luckily Tom was on the ball and quickly rescheduled us on the 11:55 pm flight on Thursday night, which flew us straight to S.J. and gave us a 9 hour layover in Puerto Rico.

It was probably the best layover either of us have ever had. We landed in S.J. around 9am. Found a storage room to store our carry on bags, hopped in a taxi and headed for Old San Juan. The cab driver dropped us off at San Cristóbal Fort. The admission was $10 a person for both San Cristóbal and El Morro forts. Well worth the $10. San Cristóbal was built in 1634 and was amazing. It was very cool to walk down the same tunnels and look through the same lookouts that the soldiers used to do almost 400 years ago. There are still original drawings on the walls that the soldiers drew to identify ships.

After we walked around San Cristóbal for awhile, we walked over to El Morro which you can see from San Cristóbal.

El Morro has a huge grass field leading up to it. And it sits at the end of the peninsula. One of the popular things to do is to fly a kite on the field. Which there were a lot of. There is also a cemetery off to the right, overlooking and almost falling into the ocean.

Once inside your your free to walk around or take a tour like at San Cristóbal. We just walked around and took pictures. Some of the cannons were still along the wall over looking the sea.

After we walked around El Morro for awhile. We walked around Old San Juan and found a place to grab some lunch. I normally don't take pictures of food. But I had something called Mofongo (I think) and it was some Puerto Rican marinated steak server in a wood bowl with smashed plantains. It was so good, I want to go back to S.J. just to have that again. After lunch we continued walking around the shops and ran across some of the motorcycle cops and had to get a quick pic, even though they were hogs.

After several hours and a few beers later we were ready to go back to the airport. Where we met up with CP, Polly and Meg. Now here's part that really made the layover with it. Well when the ticket agent told Tom our original 6am flight was cancelled, it was really only moved back a few minutes. John and Vicky never changed their flight and so they stuck with the 6am-ish flight. Only to have a real delay in Miami and so they missed connecting with us and the plane in S.J. So they had to stay over night and catch the next plane to Bonaire, a full 24 hours later.

to be continued....

Photo of the Week

This week flew by. I feel like we just landed yesterday. It was another great week of testing fins and diving as much as we could. I took over 1500 photos. Thank God for digital. Here is one the best shots I took. I'll post a full gallery when I get back.

Photos from Bonaire

I'm short on words and time this morning. But Bonaire is amazing. We've been in the water 4 or 5 hours a day. I'm still learning the camera and housing (and will be for the next few years). Here are some shots that I have taken in the 1st couple of days. I'll write a full post when I get back.


The dock we shore dive from


Flamingo Tongue


Lizardfish


Redlip Blenny


Smooth Trunkfish