 |
 |
 |
        |
||
|
|
|
10/1 Saturday We arrived at the airport at 11:30 PM. There to greet us was the Sjoerd. He hailed a taxi and we went to Bellafonte. He helped us with our luggage and checked us into the room. As usual, he gave us wonderful service and welcomed us back to Bellafonte. 10/2 Sunday Had a great night sleep. We slept in until 8:30 am. Woke up, made coffee, and gazed out at the ocean. Sjoerd had stocked the fridge with breakfast items. Dave made us breakfast. We finally got dressed around 10 AM. We rented our car from Budget. They upgraded us from a Rav4 to a brand new Toyota pickup. ($50 a day including insurance) We then headed into Kralendijk. Stopped at the ATM and then went to the grocery store. We bought provisions for the week at More for Less. Water, beer, rum, chicken, beans, mustard, etc. $120 NAF. We ate lunch at City Café. Split a BLT, had 4 Amstels for $32 NAF. Checked our email at Cyber City. One hour for $14 NAF. The time carries until you are out of time. It seems atypically hot this year. We returned to our room, snorkeled a bit and tried to plan our week. We got distracted and played some Cribbage. For dinner we were going to eat at BobbiJan’s ribs, but they were not open, so we ended up at Pasa Bon pizza. We had two salads, a medium pizza (hot sausage and mushroom) and some beer. ($60 NAF) The pizza was superb, the service was slow, but they were busy. PIA is the cat of Pasa Bon. (Pain in the Ass) 10/3 Monday Sleeping in is easy to do on vacation. 10 AM was our wake up time. We drove down south to hidden beach and snorkeled. The reef was very close to shore. The first thing we saw was a huge school of parrot fish. (Or is it a flock of parrot fish?) There were lots of soft and hard corals. This site is highly recommended. We came back to Bellafonte and rested for a bit. Ate left over pizza and saw our friend Jacque. We then snorkeled Tori’s reef, did a great kick out to the buoy and then kicked in and swam to the shore. We saw quite a few fish. Some juveniles that looked like stars twinkling in the water. Dave took a picture of a beautiful anemone. We came back, cleaned up and went to the store. This time we went to Cultimara. We purchased wine, crackers, salami and frozen cauliflower. Dave is cooking a gourmet dinner tonight. Menu: Chicken Kip, beans and cauliflower. We will see how it turns out. The sunset was gorgeous as always. 10/4 Tuesday We awoke at a reasonable 7:30 AM. As always the view is wonderful. Looking from the balcony room 305 you can see all the way to the bottom of the ocean. We had scrambled eggs and corned beef ala Carroll for breakfast. We browsed the stores downtown and checked the Internet. We stopped at Plaza resort and picked up our marine park tags. $10 USD. Home by 11:00 AM We got ready to go north and snorkel Andrea I. We saw lots of fish and corals. We saw a strange looking worm. He looked like a centipede under the sea. On the way to Andrea we saw our first donkey. The last time we were here we saw them all over the place. Since they have rounded them all up and put them into a donkey sanctuary we didn’t see many. We ate lunch at Buddy Dive. We were planning on Lion’s Dive but they were closed. Buddy Dive bought Lion’s dive so everything is under renovation. Our lunch was still good. We had Cheeseburger and chicken tenders. Food was good, beer was cold and the view was to die for. $40 NAF We had dinner on Gibi’s patio. He welcomes people into his home each night and serves authentic Bonairian food. When we arrived Gibi greeted us with a warm Bonairian welcome. Since it was Tuesday night, the Bonaire talkers were there. We met some nice people of note we met Jake and Linda Richter who started Bonaire Talk. They now own Cinnamon art gallery. We also met Renee who does guided snorkel tours, she used to own the Woodwind. The food was fantastic. Dave had the grilled Wahoo and I had the ribs and goat stew. Goat does NOT taste like chicken. It was interesting though. Entrees were served with mac salad, rice, French fries and funchi all served family style. Gibi has a nice thing going. Had a great time $70 NAF Returned to our room, sat in our patio spa, all in all a great day. 10/5 Wednesday We slept in until 8 AM. Dave made us the typical breakfast. We packed provisions for the day and headed to Washington Slagbaai park. Before driving north, we stopped at Budget and traded our brand new pickup in for one that could take abuse. The older one was a 2002 Toyota, much smaller than the one we had. We arrived to the park at around 10:30 am. We met the park ranger that we had seen on Hunter Reno’s show, Islands, on the Travel Channel. He showed us the map of the park and informed us on what routes were closed due to flooding. Dave gave him a hard time about being famous. He seemed like a really nice guy. For the next 4 plus hours, we drove around the park. We saw numerous astounding sites. The road was quite rough but I would highly recommend it. Returning our “loaner” to Budget was quite easy. The agent did a quick check and chuckled at how dirty the truck was. We thought it was a great idea to suggest changing cars for the park. This helps them keep the new vehicles nicer longer. We returned to Bellafonte and spent time in our patio spa. How relaxing…. Happy hour at Karel’s beach bar takes place between 5 and 7. We imbibed on two for one Amstels ($3.75 NAF for two) for a while and then headed over to Stiflers for dinner. Even though the service was a little slow the food was good. We split the Stiflers party grill. We still had enough food for another meal. We played Cribbage for a while, until Dave lost and didn’t want to play anymore. 10/6 Thursday Snorkel spots. Hidden beach. The water was a little rougher today. We kicked around for about 20 minutes. Dave thought he saw a shark. We saw lots of soft and hard corals and lots of red fish with the big red eyes. Airport reef. We decided to do the easy entry. Here we saw two huge queen angels, a couple of small barracuda and some great brain coral. After cleaning up we made a trip to the grocery store for a few supplies. (aka alcohol) We then drove over to the donkey sanctuary. We talked with the lady that runs the place. She has beliefs as to how animals should be treated. The donkeys were very friendly. We also went into the iguana garden. When we went to exit the garden, the iguanas charged us. We think they wanted food, never the less, Dave jumped the fence. For lunch we had the leftover Stiflers from dinner. Yum, yum. We snorkeled from Bellafonte to North Belnum and back. There was not much coral, mainly rubble, but we did see quite a few fish. At 5 PM we headed back to town to check internet and then Karel’s for happy hour. We ate at Casablanca. Had a nice bottle of Pinot Noir. The name was Trapiche. We also had the mixed grill for two. There was so much food left over, I think we can eat for three days, yum. 10/7 Friday We finished our breakfast foods and then did laundry. We had to do laundry because we are leaving for Curacao tomorrow. We then headed north to snorkel. We did Andreas II. The water was very still. We saw lots of fish and squid. The coral was much more beat up than last time, but it was still a very relaxing snorkel. We then drove north to Gotomeer. This is where the flamingo sanctuary is located. We pulled off at the lookout which gave a great view to the lake. As we drove along we saw many of the pink Bonaire flamingos. The road led us through Rincon and then we stopped at the Indian Inscriptions. They were quite impressive. You could tell the native Indians were tied to the sea. On the way back we stopped at Bongo’s beach bar and had a drink. I think the name was a Tahitian something. It was rum, juice, ice, …… Quite refreshing after a salty morning of snorkeling. We returned to Bellafonte to cool down for a lazy afternoon. Our room, 305, has a spa tub on the patio. It was quite nice to laze in privacy. Happy hour at Karel’s beach bar “we are going to drink beer until our change runs out” At about 4 PM we stopped in to visit with Sjoerd and said goodbye to Jacque. We also settled our account for the week. Ironically Sjoerd mentioned that he was going to Aruba the next day to see Queen in concert. We are going to see Queen at the Hollywood Bowl in a few weeks! We caught the tale end of happy hour at Karel’s. They had a mariachi band playing. The bar was much busier tonight. (Saturday was the first day of the regatta) For dinner we had our leftovers from Casablanca. We still couldn’t eat them all. The rest of the evening was dedicated to packing and relaxing in the spa. 10/8 Saturday Today was moving day. We awoke at about 6:30 AM. Actually I awoke and Dave slept an extra hour. We cleaned up and packed the last few things. We left the room by 8:30, filled the truck with gas, and headed for the Flamingo Airport. Check in was quite painless. Bonaire Express. Our flight went off right on time to Curacao. |
|
Copyright
|
