We've been in Bonaire for about 1 1/2 weeks, and quite a few things have happened... The latest is that Melanie found a green Frogfish this afternoon. She was quite ecstatic since this was the first one she found all by herself. Frogfish, as you can imagine, are quite hard to spot. :-) We've also seen quite a few Turtles -- there are some fish species that are doing well, but others are on the decline. For example, Bonaireans have started fishing Parrotfish recently, and we can clearly see an impact. Some dive sites, far north or south, are pretty much like we remembered, except for a little more algae, while those in the bay are still on the decline. We don't dive in front of the CaribInn anymore -- the reef is just too damaged. Unfortunately Bonaire is in the middle of a mass expansion, so this isn't likely to get better. There's construction all up and down the island. All this construction is sending lots of dirt into the air and consequently, onto the reef. Visibility has been hit and miss, with very few instances of 60+ feet. Several years ago, we remember 100+ feet vis., but this seems to be a thing of the past.

We've had a few challenges to overcome on this trip, which helps to make this trip a little more noteworthy I guess. :-) In no particular order... We've gotten the pickup stuck, broken a flash, broken an oxygen analyzer, forgot a port section and killed a bird. We dug the pickup truck up to the bumper in coral rubble exploring a new dive site. Melanie took off to get help, while I used the jack to work on the truck -- All the while thinking of all the tools we have in our Jeep... It took me a while to get the truck out, and got a good sunburn out of it. Meanwhile Melanie had been busy finding a tow strap and getting a Taxi to pull us out. I'd already left by then so we met up at the CaribInn a little later. No harm done, except a few scrapes to the wheels from spinning in the coral rubble. :-) As for the flash, since I bought five, the spare was pressed into service. The oxygen analyzer of the dive shop is pretty good, so we don't really miss using out own. I had a spare sensor, but I think the electronics took a hit because the new sensor (and batteries) didn't make any difference. An e-mail to Mike helped get the port down here -- Eric brought it down with him last week. I didn't think I needed it, but we have 2 new lenses on this trip, and one of them needed that port. :-)

The diving has been good, and we're being a little more picky with our pictures. Hopefully we can process them in a timely manner this time! :-) I still have a few thousand to sort and process at home, so we'll see... :-)

View the Scuba Diving > 2008 > 20080506 - Bonaire folder...

We planned a 4 day and 3 nights canoe trip. Our route has taken us on circuit #10 - Jean-Pere. A 3h50 minute drive from Montreal took us to the Domaine. We setup and lunch and we were ready to leave the Domaine at 2pm. We were lucky to have to wind at all for our first ride. It was 26c. We missed the same entry that lead to our first camping site and ended up at another site #10-83 at 4h10pm. Pete was very excited and JS had to trow him over board to scare him so he would be calmer into the canoe. We saw 3 otters on our way over. It took 1h30 to setup kitchen and tent. The dinner that night a southern coucous was so so. JS tried to make a fire with wet wood and we did not have great success. We went to sleep at 8pm. The night was very hot. we had to sleep out of our sleeping bags onto our thermarest. I was very happy that we had taken Cliff advise and that I had made covers for the mattress. It rain that night. We have to mention that until the last morning, we may have seen 20 mosquitoes total. Also, I want to mention that we saw each day and early evening - an helicopter and hydro planes go by.