User Error with the Animal Cam!

Short post tonight, mostly to explain why I’m not posting interesting animal cam pictures. Apparently, I badly positioned the camera yesterday so it did not take pictures of whatever animals ate the cat food I put out yesterday. I repositioned the camera three times this morning and I think I have the problem fixed. I put out more cat food so hopefully I’ll have pictures tomorrow. They might just be pictures of stray cats, I’m not sure. It’s raining right now so I don’t know how that will affect things. I may have deeper water to wade through in the morning. The rain is definitely not good for my clothes drying on the clothesline on my balcony!

I had a really busy day, but I didn’t do anything too exciting. I found out that my Spanish teacher, Maria, who is about my age, started doing Aerial Silks classes six months ago. Aerial Silks is a form of acrobatics that you do hanging from silk ribbons. Here’s a picture from her blog.

Maria’s young daughter started doing Aerial Silks a few months earlier. On the beach here in Samara, there’s usually a woman teaching Aerial Silks to girls. It’s really neat and looks like a lot of fun. It’s easy for kids because they are like little flexible monkeys. They twist and spin with no trouble. As all of you will understand, this kind of activity gets harder the older you get. Maria decided to try anyway and she loves it. She has ribbons set up at her house now so she and her daughter can practice. I think it would be fun to try. People who are good make it look beautiful and really easy, but it takes a lot of strength and flexibility. Maria says it’s great exercise.

I went to the beach this afternoon to swim and soak up sunshine. It was a beautiful afternoon but not many people were on the beach. There was a tiny little boy out on the beach with his dad. The little boy was stark naked and trying to be brave enough to run into the waves. I don’t think he had a lot of beach experience. There was a French family with two little girls behind me unsuccessfully trying to make sand castles. They were having fun though and the whole family was very elegant. There are some truly beautiful people here. It can be hard on self-esteem. Almost everybody has tattoos and most of them are unique, interesting and well-designed. The woman who made my fruit drink for lunch yesterday has a moon and stars on her shoulder and a very delicate dragon on their thigh. She is very pretty, and the tattoos are eye-catching.

Okay, I guess that’s all I have. I’m posting a few pictures. My breakfast this morning was a chocolate/banana croissant with cheese and strawberries on the side. I also managed to get a picture of a squirrel. The squirrels here are really interesting and multi-colored. This one was committed to eating a gourd in the tree beside my balcony.

Animal Cam

I had a fairly eventful morning. Brandon let me borrow one of his wildlife cameras so I can see what kind of wildlife lives in this area. My landlady was really excited about the idea of setting up a camera and sent me seven emails about animals that I might see. Her apartments are surrounded by wooded areas, so that all seemed perfect.

When I got here, I discovered that she has a concrete wall behind her house and there is no way to get around it. She suggested that we rig up some ladders so I could climb over. That would have worked, and I was willing to do it, but there are no trails or even clearings behind her house. I wouldn’t mind clearing my own path, but I only brought tennis shoes, shorts and tank tops to wear here. In most of the US, you can walk through the woods relatively safely. Here, a significant portion of the wildlife is venomous. There are fer de lance pit vipers, eyelash pit vipers, poison dart frogs, scorpions, and a whole range of biting insects. After surveying the situation, I decided to look for another option.

As it turns out, there is a seasonal creek down the road a little ways. I asked my landlady if it was safe to go there and she said she sometimes walks there with her four chickens. I have no idea how she gets the chickens there. You have to walk down a very busy road with no bike path to get there. It seems like a dangerous place for chickens, but they’re still alive so I guess it worked out. She also told me to watch out for crocodiles. During the rainy season, it sometimes has crocodiles, but this is the dry season and there isn’t enough water for crocodiles. Otherwise, she thought it would be a great option.

A small path goes down into the creek bed and it’s mostly dry right now. After exploring a bit, I ran to the store and bought some cat food then retrieved my water shoes from my apartment. I waded up the stream a ways, installed the camera on a tree near a dry spot and made a little clearing for the cat food that I’m hoping will attract animals to the camera. I don’t know if anyone ever visits this creek. Hopefully the camera won’t get stolen and I’ll have some interesting pictures to post tomorrow when I wade back in and retrieve the memory card. I’m expecting a bunch of raccoons and coatis, but maybe there will be other things too. I might add some fruit with the cat food next time.

Samara was without water for part of the day because the city was working on the water lines. I wasn’t sure how long I wouldn’t have water, so I didn’t go swim since I wasn’t sure I’d be able to shower when I got back. That worked out okay because I needed to write a letter of recommendation for a student. I got some useful work done while I was waiting for the water to come back on. My landlady knows someone who grows strawberries so she ordered a carton of strawberries for me. They were delicious once the water came back on and I could wash them.

After I finished my work, I went for a long walk on the beach. Lots of people bring their dogs in all different sizes. They seem to have a wonderful time playing in the water. There are also lots of people here with small children. The kids, even the babies, play in the water and build sand castles. It’s really cute. There are bazillions of tiny snails in different sizes with different kinds of shells. This afternoon, there was also a big flock of brown pelicans and some sea gulls fishing. It’s fun to watch them dive into the water. I don’t know how they see the fish.

Rather than cook my own supper tonight, I decided to go across the street to an Italian restaurant. I got an arugula pizza with pancetta, goat cheese and mozzarella then a lava cake and vanilla gelato. It was good and I have leftovers supper tomorrow.

I’ll post a few pictures of my meal and the creek where I put the camera. Nothing too exciting.

Costa Rica 2021

Hello All! I’m in Samara, Costa Rica for the next couple of weeks, so I thought I’d do a few updates. This trip won’t be quite as interesting as some of my others because Covid limits what I can do. Bill also could’t come this time, so you only get updates from me.

I rented a small apartment from a Canadian/American woman who has lived in Costa Rica for the last eight years. It’s a lovely apartment on the second floor and I have my own balcony in addition to a small kitchen. A couple of years ago, a hive of African killer bees moved into the wall of this apartment. African killer bees are extremely aggressive and very dangerous, and they made a giant hive in the wall. The fire department sprayed them with Raid and the wall had to be completely torn out to prevent ants and other creatures from moving in to eat the honey. As a result of all of this, I’m staying in a lovely newly renovated apartment!

My landlady explained that she discovered the bees because she was in the apartment with a man. He ran out of the shower naked with a swarm of bees trailing him. They had come in through the bathroom window. It’s an interesting story, but more information than I needed. Once the bees sting you, they put a pheromone on you that can’t be washed off so the bees continue to attack for days. It was two days before the fire department could come remove the bees so my landlady and her friend were trapped inside by a swarm of angry bees.

The Samara fire department is severely underfunded so all they had were padded suits, Raid, and a step ladder to deal with the problem. The stepladder wasn’t tall enough, so they put it on top of a rickety table. That still wasn’t tall enough, so they put cinderblocks on the table and the ladder on top of that. I told this story to Bill, and he thinks they need to hold a pancake breakfast.

My landlady worked in Mexico for a while and has lived in Costa Rica for 8 years. She speaks the worst Spanish I have ever heard. I think she understands Spanish a little better than she speaks, but her spoken Spanish is spectacularly bad. She has a young Costa Rican guy working for her so I’m listening to a conversation right now. There’s a lot of English mixed in with some of the worst-pronounced Spanish imaginable. She’s definitely a unique individual. Very nice and with an interesting life, but unique.

I started Spanish lessons today. I’m only doing an hour a day plus homework. The lady who usually sells lunch at the school in the truck of her car isn’t doing lunch right now, so I found a food truck near the school that’s inexpensive and has delicious food. I got a falafel salad and a drink made of orange juice, pineapple juice and coconut milk. I’m planning to be a regular there for the next two weeks. There’s also a fruit stand down the street from me with fantastic mangos and watermelons. My landlady has chickens so I have fresh eggs and fruit for breakfast.

I went for a run yesterday morning. It was a really pretty area with wild growing lantanas. Costa Rica needs some bike paths though because I had to keep jumping into the weeds to avoid getting run over by tour busses. There are some serious hills here so it was a good workout! I saw an entire Costa Rican family on a small motorcycle. I managed to rub a blister on my heel yesterday so this morning, I found some edging stones in the yard and used them in place of weights. I did a pretty good weightlifting session on the balcony with the rocks I found in the yard. My family gave me an enormous amount of delicious food over Christmas and now I need to work some of it off. I’m not sorry I ate it though.

People here don’t seem too worried about Covid. It’s unclear whether there are any cases in Samara, but this is high tourist season and there are surprising numbers of people here from all over the world. I’ve heard American English, British English, German, and French and some of the Spanish speakers also seem to be tourists. People wear masks in stores, but yesterday there were volleyball and soccer games going on the beach and the restaurants seem pretty busy. Three people just rode by on unicycles.

I’m headed to the beach to swim in a little while. There was a coati in the yard this morning so I’ll post a picture below. I have video too, but I don’t know if that will post successfully. I hope all of you are doing well and had happy holidays!

Made it Home!

Hello All! Bill and I made it home last night without any serious problems. It was a long travel day, but it’s always nice when everything goes smoothly. Bill did a good job with our last post, so I’ll leave that one to him. Hope you all have a Happy New Year! Here’s Bill’s post:

Well yesterday we left Bonaire 🇧🇶. I wasn’t as ready to be done with vacation as when we left Colombia 🇨🇴. I loved Cartagena – we did everything we wanted to there and it was time to come home. We do still have other areas in Colombia we should see at some point though. Bonaire – we were just hitting our stride there so we could have used a bit more time. Maybe Emily would have had time to improve her kitesurfing abilities. 

I do recommend going to Bonaire if you want a beach 🏝 vacation. There are plenty of activities to do. There are several restaurants that could be good if you don’t go with an all inclusive option. You could feel almost like a local in two weeks I think. There aren’t as many stores as I would think for a tourist spot. Which is okay by me. The one museum we tried to visit a few times keeps odd hours that don’t match their sign. It’s someplace that would be easy to get a vehicle and do some exploring as they are not super busy roads, do pay attention to the signs, namely the donkey and scuba diver crossing signs, they do mean it. 

Our return went fairly smoothly, we were way early getting to the airport in Bonaire. They are quick and efficient getting you through. Plus there weren’t very many people. I did lose my update I had started yesterday and today Emily had a scare about losing her keys, the hotel had them so it worked out okay. Our flight from Miami was also delayed due to New York weather where the plane had come from. 

Yesterday wasn’t a bad travel day. We were able to get crepes and waffles in town. Emily wanted to go and we got up early so we could get the scooter back before they needed to give the keys to new people. Our breakfast was very good. My waffle was super light, probably the lightest waffle I ever had. The best probably is still the one in Peru. 
We were trying to get the keys in the drop off by 8:30 but we were talking to some other Iowans and didn’t leave until a couple minutes after that. We ran into rush hour traffic – a tour bus and a pickup truck with scuba divers. We pulled in the lot and the guy was checking scooters, he may have been looking for ours. He was cool about it, said we got it back just in the nick of time. We were late, he said by 8:30, Emily said he had the island attitude and was laid back about it. It’s a good attitude. 

Our flight from Bonaire to Miami was good, it wasn’t a full plane so we had a whole row to ourselves and a movie about covered the whole flight by the time they were done with announcements. 

We did have an hour delay at Miami, but we had dinner sitting at a table instead of in the waiting area and the pilot made up some time so I think we ended only about 30-40 late. It was still 11:30 or so when we made it to the hotel. We started our day at 7 amBonaire time so 5 am our time. Made for a long day. 

Today we spent a little time in St. Louis at the Gateway Arch and the Old Courthouse Museum. We were going to go to the City Museum but it was closed. It was a nice little addition to our vacation. We did go up to the top and got to look around. The new museum area under the Arch is nice, if you haven’t been in a while it’s worth checking out. They do have full on security like at the airport now, you can leave your shoes on but belts come off. 

I’ve enjoyed Traveling with Emily this last couple of years. I look forward to sharing more adventures with her and blogging them to share with all of you. Hopefully you all have enjoyed our posts and everyone has a Happy New Year! 🎊🎉 

If you do want to “like” something in the blog, leave a comment, or get the email version, you will have to go to the Traveling with Emily link and do it there. We are open to any feedback or answering questions, especially if you are planning a trip of your own. You can also email directly. Thank you for reading!  

Last Full Day in the Caribbean Netherlands

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. 

We think this sign says “there might be an ass on the road”.
It’s windy like this all day every day!

Mangrove Kayaking

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. 

This is my new tattoo! I got it a couple months ago and I really like it. It’s a dragonfly and I’m planning to add some sprigs of lavender for it to sit on when I get home. Almost everybody here has tattoos.
spotted eel
I’m looking at the eel
piles of conch shells
mangrove fish
Jelly fish
Bill in the Mangroves

Saturday in the Caribbean


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.

These are the pictures of the flounder. It’s right beside my head on the right side.
Decorated trees at the Governor’s House. The tree lights change colors.

Snorkel Trip

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!

Downtown
My new metal art
Cactus Alcohol

Friday in Bonaire with Bill!


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!!