Bonaire

Bon Bini, as the locals say. Welcome to Bonaire!

Lo and Pat on the beach at Bonaire. I had to wear a t-shirt to snorkel since I already had a sunburn on my back from the previous day's snorkeling.

This stop was a surprise to us as the ship was schedled to go to La Guaira, Venezuela. However, the road between La Guaira and Caracas is in a very bad state and so the captain substituted Bonaire, one of the ABC islands: Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao.

To our great delight we learned that not only does Bonaire have world class snorkeling, it also has more flamingos than humans. We even saw a flock of flamingoes flying over our beach, their vivid pink colour a brilliant jewel against the sky.

Quite by chance once of the crew was with us earlier when we swam with the turtles, and she told us that we could walk to the beach at Plaza Resort. They evidently have a reef just off the beach so the snorkelig's good there. Perfect!

We met up with our 4 table-mates on the beach who kindly shared their lounges with us because there were none left when we arrived. We were still practicing Extreme Relaxation: slept late, lunched in the dining room (definitely our preferred place) and then sauntered over to the beach.

Is there anything more inviting on a hot day than a crystalline turquoise sea? I don't think so. Hans and I were in the water just as fast as we could get there and the fish were glorious. As promised, the reef was very close to shore. We could have seen our fill without even lifting our feet, but there was more to see if we ventured out a bit further.

We saw our first sea snake! It was really quite cute, a pale grey with white polka dots covering its length. It wasn't very big, maybe 2 feet long and curled up in some rocky outcroppings. And it showed no interest in us at all.

I also saw a woman stand right at the edge of the water, legs spread and pulling the bottom of her bathing suit aside to pee in the water. Yuck. I'm sure most of us have peed in the ocean but at least we're more discreet about it.

We loved Bonaire. It's clean, with colourful pastel buildings like in Curacao. Definitely a place to visit again.

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