2020 Hindsight
Barcelona, Spain As we stared at the photo of Berkeley East being towed out of the berth she had occupied for the...
Bonaire, Netherland Antilles
Bonaire (part of the Netherland Antilles) and its two sister islands, Aruba and Curacao, make up the ABC islands. It is a quaint, clean island of about 12,500 people. Their main industries are salt exportation and tourism. And while there are other things to do on Bonaire, all we did was scuba dive.
We had been to Bonaire many years ago so we knew the diving was good. But the Bonaire National Marine Park has protected the dive sites so well and made the diving so easy, that it far exceeded our expectations. There are 85 named dive sites here, but you can have a good dive most anywhere. In fact, the area around the mooring where we tied Berkeley East was considered one of the best dive spots on the island. It took us a few days to realize that the strange noises we were hearing were not coming from Berkeley East, but they were the bubbles from the divers under our boat. We dove every day. We dove from the dinghy and off the back of Berkeley East into crystal clear water with beautiful coral, lots fish, turtles and rays. The hardest part about diving in Bonaire was hauling the tanks into shore to get more air.
There are many cruisers who love diving in Bonaire as much as we did. In fact, nearly everyone we met on a boat here had been in Bonaire for two or three months and they were trying to get permission to stay longer. Unfortunately for them, customs and immigration in Bonaire are becoming a bit more conservative in allowing stays past 90 days per calendar year. It is said that when it comes to cruisers, Bonaire has some of the strictest customs and immigration officers in the Caribbean, but all we found were smiling, welcoming officials who wanted to know how we were able to retire so early in life.
There are so many great pictures we struggled to select a few for the blog. Here are a few, and there are many more in the gallery.
Bonaire was our turnaround point, so after a week, we sadly packed away the dive gear and set sail for the Dominican Republic, our first stop on the long trip home.