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Trip Reports: Kathy and Larry - 2nd two weeks of September 08
Bonaire Talk: Trip Reports: Archives: Archives 2006-2008: Archives 2008-08-01 to 2008-12-31: Kathy and Larry - 2nd two weeks of September 08
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Kathy Hall - Bonaire Sept 13-27 (BonaireTalk Deity - Post #11461) on Friday, October 3, 2008 - 6:47 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Hi to all.

Well, no delays or anything, and the flights were right on time. Delta is the way to go from Tampa, though it is silly we have to fly to ATL first to get to Bonaire non-stop. On the way back, I wanted to parachute out in FL. :-) Anyway, the view coming back in over water and seeing St. Pete/Tampa laid out in lights over the water was breathtaking. I was glad to be home, sweet home.

On BON, we were house sitting many animals, and adjusted to that and were so happy. But to our absolute horror one of the animals who was sick ran away on us. The mood of the trip was ruined, but we pulled enough out of it eventually, that we still had some wonderful dives and a good time on island. :-( Still very sad to talk about.

Well, I discovered a shutterfly instant webpage thing, so I loaded it while there. Still haven't uploaded the last day's diving or the topside pics, but at least this is an easy way to show them. We got to night dive during coral spawning, so that was very cool.

Also, it was a very eely trip. No that's not the same sharpnose eel in the pics, we saw them every dive, and they were always with fish friends who seemed to protect them. Odd. Turtles were always at Karpata, did it three times. :-) I think we got in 20 dives for me and 22 for Larry. Was happy when I hefted that last tank off the truck to turn in. whew

Food was great, especially Papaya Moon. Yum! And Pasa Bon and really, everywhere we ate was delish. :-) I cooked some nights and we took food home others, so we did well $$ wise on food.

Here are the BON pics so far:
http://recdivers.shutterfly.com/

Use the slideshow, much faster.

OH, and if anyone can ID that pink or red and yellow striped sea snake looking thing in Larry's pics, it would be appreciated. No shots of its head, just the body -- but there aren't supposed to be sea snakes in the Caribbean....so would appreciate input. I'm posting them below. thanks
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(Message edited by recdivers on October 3, 2008)

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By David Frank (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #708) on Friday, October 3, 2008 - 7:34 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Harlequin pipefish.

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Denise K (Extraordinary BonaireTalker - Post #2139) on Friday, October 3, 2008 - 7:49 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Looking at the top picture, see how the top surface seems to come to points... I think you may be seeing a pipe fish rather than an eel or sea snake. Maybe ?? See what I mean in this picture of a harlequin pipe fish http://www.pbase.com/imagine/image/62299685%2Charlequin Not the same colors but the shape of the top surface is points as your picture is.

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Denise K (Extraordinary BonaireTalker - Post #2140) on Friday, October 3, 2008 - 7:50 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

ooops I did not see David's answer while I searched for an answer. :-)

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Kobi in Virginia (Supreme BonaireTalker - Post #8504) on Saturday, October 4, 2008 - 9:16 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

Nice, pics Kathy! Glad you're home safely.

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Meryl Virga (Supreme BonaireTalker - Post #5551) on Saturday, October 4, 2008 - 10:38 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

Kathy nice pictures! Especially love the flamingo's. Were they taken at Gotomeer?

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Roy (217 DTG) cya at Lac Bay May 10th (Extraordinary BonaireTalker - Post #2460) on Saturday, October 4, 2008 - 1:27 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Lovely pictures Kathy & Larry, great clarity and colour

I can't help wondering how scary that Ray, head on, must have been on a night dive!!!!!

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Kathy Hall - Bonaire Sept 13-27 (BonaireTalk Deity - Post #11464) on Saturday, October 4, 2008 - 8:21 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

I honestly don't know what the site is where we found all the flamingos. :-) We just rode around the island, backward - driving south.

Found this field with a swamp and I saw all those flamingos, so we pulled up and walked. A family/herd of goats was to our right, and Billy Goat Gruff decided to lead his fam out. We were sorry to disturb their grazing. I like that, wild grazing animals. Babies. All that. I love the wild side of Bonaire.

On that night dive, we were coming in, and all of a sudden this huge eagle ray was right in front of me and my hand wasn't on my camera as we were in like 7 ft of water going in, so I shined my flashlight on him so Larry would see and get in front of him. No fear, only respect. We'd had such a great night dive. Nobody is commenting on my octopus! lol Larry was tying a strobe to the biggest piece of rubble he could find, and in the meantime, I saw an octopus, all fanned out like an umbrella, baby blue as baby blue could be. I didn't have my camera on yet. WAH! But I turned it on, and he scurried, going long, and changed from blue to orange. My pic posted is of him changing.

Was quite a night. That dive was at Windsock, and we went under the pier. sigh Was amazingly beautiful. Too beautiful for words. Or even pics.

The only other night dive we did was a dawn into morning dive at Sunset Beach, next to Eden. Wow. I'm still stupified by all we saw.

Be sure if you look at our shutterfly webpage to click on the movie links on the right. Though they do get severely distorted when I load them. Still........

I couldn't find anything about it being illegal to touch a squid. And Larry did touch 2 squid. They wanted more. We were not harassing in any way, they came to him, he touched them, and they came back for more from him. Now, I'll touch a turtle back, or send love to every creature I encounter, but Larry...I don't know if he found squid who were ready to mate, lay eggs or something, but he had a special bond. I took vids of him petting squid that were in his face, and they changed colors, in ecstasy as they were touched. He had to leave them, they wouldn't leave him. It was beyond awesome.

I found my first frogfish while he was squidding, and I'm so glad I have a rattle so I could call him over to take BETTER pics. :-)

It seems, I take a cursory pic and he comes behind me and takes great ones. I'm just the spotter? lol Doesn't matter. I just love to be there.

But on Angel City's second reef, if you go south (to the left) you will see and interact with all the schools of predator and prey. I was in all my glory being part of it. That memory, I will keep till my dying day. It was glorious. I have a video of that. :-) Just remember, I got all the color, the cool, all that, that is left out of a video. I was so happy to be in the midst of such...energy. Life.

It was awesome, all of it, esp. the diving.

The hardest part: Not fun to dive when all you are thinking is praying for the kitty to come home and all you do on the way home is search, then walk, and search search search, and still hope, when there is no hope? We grieved deeply about that kitty, very deeply.

No Bonaire next year, we had 2 years bad luck there, on top of the land, underwater was always, each time of the 4 times we've been...exquisite/unbelievable.

Time to explore further. We want to see something different, and not EVER be in such a position again. Vacation is vacation, not meant to be quiet about, or lost, or lose friends over.

Anyway, who the heck is hitting my web page? 5k? Good God, is all I can say. Bonaire is a paradise, but it IS a desert island. Surviver mode above ground, paradise below the sea. If you ever have to do a land search for a person or animal, realize it is ALL cactus and briars, long pointy hard needles in the land around the island. Not at all what you'd think. It's a desert island, for sure. Every bush has thorns.

But I am glad to be home. Florida is going into a "humidity is lessening" mode. Bonaire, above the water was constant SWEAT as humidity seems to always be high. But, it is one mile from the sun, right? :-)

G'night all. I felt I shouldn't, then felt I should, share our vacation with you guys. It was our BIG vacation this year, I saved for a year to have 2 weeks to go away, and it was an investment in our time and money, it was our vacation. So it can't be all sorrow and hiding away. There were moments, and I wanted to share all of them. xx



 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Denise K (Extraordinary BonaireTalker - Post #2141) on Saturday, October 4, 2008 - 9:09 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

thank you for sharing . .
hugs

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Skip C (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #152) on Tuesday, October 7, 2008 - 9:37 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

Thanks Kathy!

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By dfwtravler (BonaireTalker - Post #87) on Tuesday, October 7, 2008 - 2:47 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Wow! Kathy you and Larry did great. Them are some awesome pics:-)I still have not got around to posting any of mine from last trip. Oh well maybe sometime. Thanks for sharing....

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By matthew (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #143) on Tuesday, October 7, 2008 - 5:20 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Kathy, where did you see the Harlequin pipefish, we found one last week at wiches hut. Love your pictures

 


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