This morning we had a nice tour of the mangroves and snorkeled in them as well. I am still not a good kayaker, I prefer my canoe. I can’t paddle a kayak straight to save my life. 
Interesting tidbit of information I learned today, the mangroves are tsunami 🌊 buffers. They also house a lot of fish but that wasn’t new information. 
There is a group that cuts paths through mangroves to create the channels we kayaked through, part of the money from the tag we had to buy is used for that purpose. Everything here is basically protected land or water. 
Our guide was a nice guy, they are a very relaxed and nice people here. They tell you often if you don’t pick it up on your own. They are less PC as well, our guide was a “white negro” which is a translation from the local term. He was happy to be so as that means he is accepted by the locals. He said a lot of the Dutch stick close to other Dutch and send their kids to private Dutch schools. He talked a lot about how slow and laid back the island is. He said you need a golf cart though that will do 30mph. 
Our guide made off hand remarks about our resort, it has the best location for shore diving of the resorts but it is not the Four Stars ⭐️ it advertises. He gives it a two. The new pool gets a four from him though. So they are upgrading. The rooms do have some issues but hopefully with their other work maybe the rooms will get freshened up as well. They should stop driving leaking vehicles on the paths as well. The staff is friendly and they do a good job cleaning. The restaurant I have to agree with the two star ⭐️ Rating, they need to step up the beverage service and add some flavor to the dishes. 

We were able to get a late check out time tomorrow as we don’t fly out until around four in the afternoon. They do charge for it but it will be a good thing. Makes it easier for us to have our room for a base to kill time from before we have to travel. 

Today was our kayaking and snorkel trip.  Once again, it was fun.  Snorkeling in the mangroves was my favorite part.  The mangroves provide a nursery for baby fish and other marine animals.  The mangrove trees provide shelter for the baby fish and they add some fresh water, so mangrove water is brackish.  The water is murky but full of life.  It’s almost like an underwater version of land. Instead of birds, there are colorful fish.  Parts of the mangrove area was covered in sea grass (our guide called it turtle grass), and parts looked like an underwater prairie. There were lots of interesting sea plants. The fish stay close to the mangrove roots where they have protection.  I didn’t see any turtles, but I did see a small starfish. It was hiding under some dead leaves.  I tried to catch it so Bill could take a picture but it did not want to be photographed.  Plus, you aren’t really supposed to bother the wildlife and I didn’t want to hurt it.  There were little jellyfish everywhere.  They lay upside down on the ocean bottom and filter feed.  They can sting if you hit one while you are swimming but they are too small to cause serious problems.  I stepped on a few by accident and they were just squishy.  I don’t think I hurt them since they have no bones.  It’s really neat to watch them swimming around.  There were also things that looked like underwater mushrooms.  I don’t know what they are.  The creatures in the mangroves aren’t as colorful as the ones in the reef since they are there to hide until they are big enough to swim in the ocean, but it was fascinating to see that environment.

Our guide was a Dutch guy who moved to Bonaire 10 years ago after he got divorced.  He loves it here and doesn’t ever want to have to go back to the Netherlands permanently.  The people, culture and environment completely won him over.  It’s so interesting that people can radically recreate their lives in a new place and feel like they’ve found their home.

We also met a Canadian couple from outside of Toronto.  She was a veterinarian and he helped run the business side of her clinic.  They were both semi-retired.  They were avid divers.  They had made over 600 dives all over the world, over 300 in the Caribbean.  Bonaire is one of their favorite places because you can dive directly off the beach and you don’t have to charter a boat.  That let them set their own schedule.

We have to turn our scooter in tomorrow morning by 8:30am so this afternoon, we decided to go for one more scooter ride to explore the northern part of the Island.  There is a national park there so we drove along the ocean and into the park.  Somewhere along the way, our road became one way and we couldn’t go back, so we did a big loop around the entire northern half of the island.  We were a little short on gas, but we made it and it was a lovely drive.  The northern part of the island is somewhat greener than the southern part.  There are big cliffs on one side and the shore drops off into the ocean on the other.  The water is much more powerful on the north and the waves slam into the rock cliff with a lot of force!  It’s a stark environment but beautiful in it’s own way. We have now explored almost the entire island on the scooter!
Brandon texted me today to tell me that David Attenborough did a nature special on Bonaire about bats.  Yesterday, Bill and I saw a research boat that used to belong to Jacques Cousteau, who apparently spent a lot of time here.  So, Bill and I are exploring the same territory as Jacques Cousteau and David Attenborough. That’s neat!  David Attenborough is in his 90s and is still making nature videos that require him to be out in the wild.  He’s incredible.
We got back from our fairly long scooter excursion around 5pm and decided to snorkel around the hotel.  I was hoping to see a turtle or some seahorses but no luck.  It was a beautiful swim though with the sun setting and we saw lots of fish, sea anemones, crabs, jelly fish, and eels.  We saw a school of the pretty little blue fish that are represented in the metal art I bought yesterday.  I might snorkel one more time tomorrow morning before we have to leave.  Our flight doesn’t leave until 4pm, so we’ll have some time.  Overall, it was an awesome day, and I”m sad that tomorrow is our last day. But, at least we had a great trip, and I’m lucky to get to do things like this at all. 

It’s actually sprinkled a couple times today, it feels very light. 

We went snorkeling by Kline Bonaire which means little Bonaire. The boat ride was slow going out and coming back. I’m not sure if they were just trying to make it last the 3 hours advertised or what. The reef at Kline Bonaire was neat, the water was beautiful. We didn’t get to see the turtle others in our group did but we seen a lot of fish and Emily seen an eel. We both seen a small flounder. I’m going to try and get some more of the sea life pictures to Emily to post. I have some videos that I have to watch and screen shot. 
They gave us a “tour” of the coastline on the way back. Our guide was also the owner of the Blue Bay tour company, he was actually very entertaining. Blue Bay has an office on the resort grounds and was easy to set up our tour. It also wasn’t very expensive Compared to other snorkeling trips. It was a good way to get over to the island and back. 
The part of the island we were at actually has a nice sandy beach, Emily and I brought back way more sand than we would have preferred. 

After we got back we cleaned up and went for a late lunch. The live cooking as they call it at the “restaurant” was a very good shrimp dish. 
Then we rode the scooter into town to get Emily a metal fish sculpture she had decided on. We may have to check a bag on the way back. Maybe we can pack different on the way home.

So tomorrow we have kayaking and snorkeling in the mangroves, it is our last scheduled activity. After that we slide into the lame duck portion of our trip. Hopefully we can keep ourselves occupied and our minds off the fact we are coming back to the land of ice and snow. Sounds like you all have had some nicer weather to the north but it still won’t compare to here. 

Hopefully you all have been able to make out some of the sea life from my gopro knock-off camera. It’s a goplus, I think I gave $20 for it. It doesn’t do too bad and with the app it has some decent features. I think you can find them on Amazon if you’re wanting something like that but don’t want to shell out the big bucks. Mine came with a waterproof case and some mounting stuff. It says it does 4k quality and I know there are settings that can be changed for it. 

If anyone has any comments or questions feel free to post on the blog, we do look for feedback on what information we share you are interested in and what makes your eyes 👀 glaze over! Just keep it clean and friendly. 


Below are pictures of the flounder we saw. It’s white and flat so a bit hard to see.

We did our snorkel tour today at Klein Bonaire.  It was beautiful!  The beaches are white sand.  The water starts out clear with the white sand reflected underneath, then it turns a bright, electric blue color then a darker blue as the water gets deeper. As you sail away from the island, there’s an incredible electric blue strip that looks like it’s lit from underneath that snakes along the coast. It was a fun tour and we saw more colorful fish today. I also saw a spotted eel, a flat white fish that Bill thinks is flounder, and some sea anemones. There were schools of colorful little fish everywhere!  Some of the fish were completely white to blend in with the sand. It was good camouflage! Some other people in our group saw a sea turtle.  I was hoping to see a turtle but maybe tomorrow. Tomorrow we have kayaking and snorkeling in the mangroves.  I’m looking forward to that too.

The owner of our boat, who also sailed with us today, was a Dutch guy. Fifteen years ago, he and his wife were planning to move to Canada but then he did some internet research and found a boat for sale on Bonaire.  He had never been to Bonaire or sailed a boat, but they bought it, moved here, and opened a charter boat company that seems pretty successful.  He was really friendly and seemed to be enjoying his life.  He said he was still on p. 6 of Sailing for Dummies!  He now owns at least three boats and does charter work for the resorts and the cruise ships that come in. They take people to snorkel at Klein Bonaire and they do trips where you can snorkel and have BBQ on the boat. He cooks and says the tuna is delicious.  I can’t imagine just deciding to buy a boat somewhere you’ve never been and opening your own business.  I wish I was more like that. It seems like a way that I would lose all my money.

Speaking of losing money, we got back for a late lunch then took our scooter back downtown so I could buy the blue metal-art fish that I wanted.  So I now have a metal art turtle and some fish.  I think they will be beautiful in my house.  I’m packing the turtle with me but the fish will have to be shipped so it will be 4-6 weeks before I get those.  By that time, everything should be pretty well frozen in IA so it will be a nice reminder of warmer, happier times! Bill picked up a diving t-shirt and a Bonaire scooter license plate to hang on his wall.  While we were downtown, we stopped at a Cadushy shop. Cadushy is a liqueur made from cactus.  It’s bright green.  They had samples so we tried some.  I expected it to have a strong alcohol flavor, but it mostly had a strong syrupy flavor. The sample was all I needed.

There are a surprising number of people here with infants and young children. None of them are American as far as I can tell. The children are all well-behaved. They don’t run wild through the restaurant, none of them have had screaming fits and even the babies are quiet. I’m not sure I’d take an infant out sailing, but there was one being put on a boat today as we got off.

Pictures are posted below. They are good but don’t really convey the beautiful water conditions here. Bill has done a great job getting underwater pictures though!

This was a really funny promotional video about the Dutch Caribbean! The Dutch have a sense of humor!

Welcome to the Friday edition of Traveling with Emily!! 
So far this weeks travels have included watching her begin her adventures with kitesurfing, tearing it up on quads in the desert, snorkeling and today had us scuba diving. 

I do want to give a shout out to the Neutrogena sunscreen sticks. They are the best I’ve used and so far neither of us have gotten a vacation ruining sunburn 11 degrees south of the equator. 

Today we did the Discover Scuba Diving or DSD class at the Toucan Diving shop located on the resort grounds. I have to say night and day difference from our experience in the Rosario Islands off the coast of Colombia. We ended up with an instructor and an instructor’s instructor. Our instructor was finishing his dives with students, he still had one more to do after us before getting his DSD instructor certificate. We should have gotten a deal for being test subjects. 
Our dive was 55 minutes with one tank. It was a relaxing swim under water for the most part. Our skills training was pretty quick since it was just the two of us and we just did them last summer. They figured I probably had 25 pounds on my belt last summer and they took me down to 12. Emily had 9. We did have a issue with my first vest but they got me another and things went well for me. Emily’s mouth piece had a piece of rubber missing so you may notice her holding it, she didn’t realize what was actually off until we were already diving or she would have gotten a different mouthpiece. You don’t use your arms to swim with (unless you’re sinking like a rock) when scuba diving so it was okay. 
We got to see some different corals and some eels. Our guides did an excellent job and I do like how they run the DSD program here. 
Emily thinks she would like to focus more on learning kitesurfing than scuba. I’m not sure there is enough reasons to spend a lot of time on scuba but doing more DSD classes and maybe get a certification to go with a guide may not be bad for when the opportunity presents itself but snorkeling is pretty comparable and way less investment. 
I’m still happy with my Cressi gear. It worked well with both our snorkeling and today’s scuba dive. Emily has had a fogging issue but otherwise seems happy with her’s. She did upgrade to some Cressi gear as well. She may not have gotten the film off the inside well enough so we are trying a diver’s trick of cleaning it with toothpaste. 

This afternoon we took the scooter into town and hit a few more shops that were open today. One has some really cool metal artwork. Emily got a turtle and is thinking about another piece. 

We are signed up for a snorkeling trip tomorrow to Kline Bonaire and Kayaking with snorkeling in the mangroves on Sunday. We have decided we will go into town early on Monday and check out a museum or two and have breakfast. 

As far as Van Der Valk Plaza Beach & Dive Resort Bonaire goes, I would probably stay again if I make it to Bonaire again. The facilities are good and are going to be better after the construction is done. We have the ability to get everything we need without much trouble. There is a couple options for tours, the dive shop and a casino. We did check out the casino on Christmas, it wasn’t very big or fancy. Hopefully their new one will be better. We got $5 each at the door and we donated an extra $6. Neither of us are into gambling. The food is good and there are multiple choices. 

Tonight they had a BBQ, it wasn’t bad. Brisket, ribs, grilled chicken on a stick, corn on the cob, beans, coleslaw and what not. The meat wasn’t actually smoked, they cooked it and then finished it on a hot grill. Not bad though. They set up everything outside so it was more BBQ like, I think they could have still served the same way and it would have been fine. 

Enjoy your weekend!! 

We were up bright and early this morning for our scuba lesson.  The scuba place had equipment for us, so we were able to go.  It was a much better experience than last time, and I only sucked water into my lungs once during the training!  It was easier this time partly because we had done it before and knew what to expect.  Our instructors were both young Dutch guys and they were good teachers.  One of them was becoming a certified scuba instructor and the other supervised, but in practical terms, we had two dive instructors.  Both did a great job and they have a better scuba environment here than in Colombia. Rather than training in a swimming pool, they have part of the ocean near the hotel roped off and you train there.  It’s much easier to do it that way and once the training is finished, you just swim out into the ocean.  

I still had some problems. The equipment is really heavy and hard to manage. My scuba mask is new and it kept fogging up.  It was fogged the entire time and I had trouble seeing clearly.  Apparently, you are supposed to let it sit overnight covered in toothpaste to clear off the film that new ones come with.  I wish I had known that.  My regulator (the thing you breath with) was also broken.  There are pieces that you bite into to hold it in your mouth. One of mine was missing and the other was barely hanging so I had to hold the regulator in my mouth.  This will be apparent in pictures that I’ll post with this blog.  Despite the problems, it was a way better experience and I’m glad I tried again. I was under for about 35 minutes and I think Bill was under for about 50.  He did great and was able to film and dive at the same time! After half an hour, I was ready to surface!  Bill went back down for another 10 or 15 minutes. I’m really glad I tried but I think I like snorkeling better.  About 30 minutes in, I started to feel desperate to surface.  It might be partly because my mask was so foggy or maybe scuba is just not my thing.  I really want to be a water rat, but I think I’ve spent too much time on land! My mask is currently sitting in the bathroom covered in toothpaste so it should be ready to go for our snorkeling trip tomorrow.  

I met a French Canadien family at the scuba shop.  They have done scuba all over the world and seemed really excited to talk to someone about it.  They were also impressed that an American could speak even bad French to them.  It was nice to be able to practice French with them.  We mostly hear Dutch and Dutch Creole.  There have been surprisingly few other languages.  

After our scuba lesson, we set up a kayaking/snorkeling mangrove tour for tomorrow and a coastal snorkeling tour in 3 different places for Sunday.  I’m really looking forward to both of those.  Bill’s underwater camera is great and he has gotten some really fun pictures and video.  He is more into technology than me, which is good because I would have probably ended up with almost no pictures.  The internet here is not good so I’ve had a hard time posting pictures.  The hotel rooms only have internet sporadically but I’m going to try to post stuff near the restaurant tonight.  The signal seems stronger there.

This afternoon, we went souvenir shopping again.  More stores were open so it was more fun.  We found a store with beautiful metal art.  I love metal art!  The art is made by a Dutch artist who lives here and is friends with the store owner.  I bought a very pretty turtle and I think I’m going to buy another piece to hang over my fireplace.  It’s pricy, but I’ve been waiting to hang something over the fireplace until I found something I loved and these pieces are lovely.  One piece was a big octopus and the owner had a picture of someone’s house with the octopus above the fireplace.  It was striking but I’m not sure I can pull that look off in my house.  There were also some beautiful sting rays in sets of three but they also don’t really go in my house.  There is a school of bright blue fish that arch and I think they will be perfect.  The store ships stuff to the US so I’ll have to do that.

There is live music at the hotel restaurant tonight, so we’ll probably see what what’s like for a little while.  Hopefully I can post more pictures tonight.  I have some from yesterday that I wasn’t able to post plus the scuba pictures from today.  If anyone has questions, feel free to email me!

The following pictures are from yesterday. I’ll post scuba pictures with Bill’s post if I can get them to load.

Happy Boxing Day! 

So we’ve spent another day on the island, we are well fed for now, we have water, today we did have to forage for our own lunch as we were not going to be at the resort during the 12:30-1400 time frame they allow for lunch. We ended up getting hotdogs and fries at the Scu-bar next to the resorts dive shop, Toucan Dive. It was a good lunch. 

We had planned on trying to get some lunch downtown but we were too efficient about getting souvenirs and there were still a lot of places closed today. We were somewhat surprised as there was a cruise ship docked today. That’s a lot of tourist’s dollars they missed out on. They did have some little independent street vendors set up but things were a little spendy for what you got. Jewelry must be a big tourist buy, a lot of places where we go sell over priced jewelry. 

We went on a quad tour at 12:15 today, the reason we missed the buffet lunch. Bonaire reminds me of being in the southwest United States. The terrain is covered in cactus 🌵. They use the cactus to make fences to keep the roaming donkeys out and there is a distillery here that makes liquor out of it. It can also be eaten, mostly in a goat soup. 
We were feeling the humidity this morning but on the quads it felt very dry with the dust. I was eating Emily’s dust as she took the lead behind our guide and she maintained it the whole tour even after our stops. She made sure to keep the others that we’re trying to get in front of us behind us. 
Our tour took us out into the desert or so it seemed, on the east side of the island. The thing about the ground though is it’s not regular sand and gravel, it’s mostly coral gravel/ sand and some other remnants of the sea floor that has pushed up to become land, it had aspirations I guess. Where we were the ground looked very much like the sea floor where we want to snorkel. Very rough, not someplace to be without shoes. We visited a lighthouse that has been refurbished and is currently solar. They also have radar on it for looking for human and drug traffickers. There was a old lighthouse keeper’s house that had not been redone and sounded very dangerous to allow people in, some (limit 3 at a time) did go in, I snapped a few pictures from a ways off. I’m not looking to end my vacation early. I already bashed my toe on the tub, not as cool as Emily’s toe injury from Kitesurfing. The tour was fun but very dirty!! 

Tomorrow morning we are probably doing a discover scuba class again, providing they have equipment for us. We have our books and waivers to do tonight. If they don’t have equipment they will take us out snorkeling I believe to the little island we can see from shore, Kline Bonaire. I’m hoping that they have equipment. I like the scuba idea but I think snorkeling is actually a very good alternative. It really doesn’t take a lot of effort to snorkel in the salt water, unless you have low single digit body fat you float fairly well. It is nice to get closer some times and scuba would make that easier. I think there will be mostly snorkeling in the future just because of the easy and low equipment needs compared to scuba but I do like being able to try it with the discover scuba class. 

Before dinner tonight we went for a scooter ride around the south end of the island. It was an excellent ride. Scooters are a good fit for the island, it’s not very big and scooters don’t go very fast. On a regular motorcycle you can cover the 10-15 mile we went tonight pretty quick, on the scooter we took about an hour. We did stop at several places to see some of the sites along the road. The road is actually a black top of sorts. Seems like it’s harder as it doesn’t have ruts, it does have rough patches and areas where I am guessing they have cut in utilities under the road. The one road that goes around the south end is one lane once you get past the area where they load salt onto ships. Mostly on the inland side is salt ponds and the ocean side is areas people go diving or kitesurfing on the western side. 
Not much goes on when you get farther south and on the eastern side. The trade winds come from the east and would blow you into the rocks. There maybe some beaches north of where we turned to head back to the resort, it was getting to be dinner time and we had an early lunch. 
Along the road We did get to see some donkeys and flamingos. We stopped at the slave huts and the obelisks that were indicators for grade of salt and where to park you ship to get loaded based on what you wanted. 
We also encountered a motorcycle street race. I knew the scooter wasn’t up for it. They were running some quick bikes. There was a lot of black marks on that section of road. We came up on an area that I could see they were doing burnouts at a bit before we came upon the riders parked on the side of the road. We got to see the start but they were to far down the road to see which one was the winner. One of the bikes parked was a 214 mph off the showroom floor bike. That’s a bit overkill for a place with a max speed limit of 38 mph. 

Dinner tonight was not as crowed as last night. We are thinking either a lot of people left or they figured out they really didn’t have to be there at six like the note stated for a full evening of dining.  

We’re going to fill out our scuba stuff and hopefully post our updates. We need some internet, our connection has been spotty. US Cellular also didn’t have a plan for certain on this island so all I have is wifi. One of these trips I am going to learn about doing the international SIM card swap. I’ve read about it and it sounds easy but I haven’t really seen it advertised. They say a lot of times you can do it at the airport. We are on vacation and don’t really have a lot of need for our devices, we do like to get these updates out though. 

I haven’t seen any places that offer special island food, I think the things I have noticed is a Caribbean chicken that is chicken legs in a sauce and fruit. There is a Caribbean ceviche and that was on the buffet so I skipped it. I’ve had some that was good, I didn’t care for the Peruvian ceviche though. And there is a cactus soup with goat. No rodents on a stick or fried under a brick here. 

Hopefully we cam get these and some pictures posted!! 

We’ve had another busy day and I’m wearing down.  Bill has a long update so I’m going to make mine short.  I’ll add pictures with his. This morning, we took our scooter into town for some shopping.  Bill needed a hat for our 4 wheeler tour this afternoon, we needed a backpack for water bottles and I wanted a cup.  Many stores were still closed for holidays, but we found everything we needed.  We ate an early, light lunch then left for our 4 wheeler tour at 12:15.  It was really interesting.  Bonaire is basically an island desert.  The entire island got pushed up out of the ocean probably relatively recently in geological terms and the whole place is made of rock and fossilized coral. Fossilized coral has the same consistency as concrete with sharp edges.  The tour was fun, but it was the roughest 4 wheeler ride I’ve ever had.  The guides went pretty fast along the “trail” which was a semi-flat rock surface with holes and crevice. It used to be the bottom of the ocean.  We visited a lighthouse and a bat cave.  The bats were deeper in the cave so we didn’t see them but we did see some feral goats and donkeys and a bazillion lizards.  That’s the only thing that can live here.  

We were coated in a thick layer of dust after the tour so Bill took a shower and I went to swim for a little while.  The water here is really amazing.  It’s beautifully clean and blue.  I swam without my snorkel gear today and there were all kinds of little fish swimming under me.  It’s hard to tell how far away the bottom is because you can see right to it.

We had some time before supper, so we took a lovely scooter ride in a loop around half the island.  We got some pictures of the salt producing operation and some other historic sites.  We found some ocean sponges on one of the stops we made.  The weather was perfect by the time we went.  The sun was setting and there was a nice breeze to cool things off.  The part of the island we visited was greener than other parts we’ve seen.  There were powerful waves crashing on one side of the road and wild bird refuge ponds surrounded by green plants on that other.  It was a very nice evening.

I’m exhausted and Bill is writing a more thorough update than me so you’ll all get a better story and pictures from him!  We have scuba tomorrow morning at 8:30, so that should be an adventure!

Sent from my iPad

Merry Christmas 🎄🎁 from Bonaire!!! We had an excellent day!! We didn’t have any set plans for the day, so we embraced the “caribe lyfe” as they say here and took it easy. 
Food here for breakfast and lunch seems to be the same things each day. I tend to have meats and cheese with bread for both and some fruit added in occasionally. They do cook to order some things at all meals and those options are usually good, I’ve only done that for supper once so far. The rest of the choice have been good so I haven’t done it more. The staff still needs to work on providing drinks. I’m not sure if they are purposely slow due to most are ordering alcoholic beverages and they are trying to keep costs down? You would think they would be Johnny on the spot though with water. Speaking of the water here, it’s desalinated sea water so it’s very good. 

We went into town on the scooter and looked around a little, there wasn’t much to do since it’s Christmas and most places were closed. We are going to go in some morning for souvenirs. The island is known for diving with a history in donkey and salt exports. There is also a slave history here as well. I’m going to guess most souvenirs will be dive related. 

The salt fields/concentration ponds are owned by Cargill. It’s interesting to see the big piles of salt and it’s not in a D.O.T. Shed for road use. I know slaves were used in the salt production back in the day and hopefully we get a chance to find out more of the history of all that at some point. 

After our scooter cruise downtown we were going to snorkel. I had a good idea in theory to take the scooter out to some of the other dive sites and snorkel but, the accesses along the beach road are very rocky with some sharp corals and we don’t have aqua sock or shoes for the water with us so… 
we came back to the resort and went snorkeling for quite a while. I got some videos and pictures with my little camera. I am able to save pictures to my phone so we do have some of those, for some reason it won’t let me save 720 resolution videos though. I may have to see if I can change some settings either on the phone or the camera so we can get some of those posted! 

Snorkeling was fun, I think that was the longest I have had my face in the water. We seem to do really well with snorkeling. I’m hoping it is helping to prepare us for scuba if we get to do that on Friday. 

They had a “special” Christmas dinner tonight, not sure what made it special. I had to wear long pants because they put a note under our door yesterday requesting no shorts and to dress to impress. Emily looked very nice, she usually does though. Food was basically same type, there were more deserts, nothing that was impressive though and there were still plenty of shorts and sweatshirts to be seen. They are probably not going to get long pants tomorrow for Boxing Day dinner, I only brought one pair of legs. (My Columbia pant/ shorts)

We are sitting out by the ocean doing our updates. It’s very nice out, the breeze is strong but keeps it a nice temperature and there are a few waves 🌊 we can hear. They are picking up the cushions to close this area down, so it’s time to wrap this up. I should find out about the exercise area but I also feel like relaxing. 
I hope everyone had a wonderful day and enjoyed however you chose to celebrate Christmas.