Bonaire 2024 (page 5 of 9)

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Day 5: Feb 14, 2024

Valentine's Day! We've spent the last couple Valentine's Days on a dive trip and this is the third in a row. A quick breakfast, and then we were scheduled for two morning boat dives.

Today our dive master was Julia (from Holland) and our boat captain was Sarah (from Denmark). They were both tall, blonde Europeans although Julia looked A LOT like our goddaughter Tegan.

Our first dive was at Country Garden, named for the large outcroppings of rock that had coral growth an looked like little English gardens. We'd been talking about not seeing any lobster, and found out that the lobster "born" in Venezuela float along the currents and end up in Bonaire, to grow to full size. The lobster"born" in Bonaire end up in Florida. No lobsters born in one area stay there due to their lack of ability to swim in the currents at such a small size.

When we first dropped in, Julia had to go back up as her ears wouldn't equalize. We waited a bit and she was able to drop down and start our dive. It's definitely different for the dive master to have ear issues - it goes to show it can happen to anyone! Of course, after commenting we'd seen no lobster, we saw more than one on this dive. We also saw a couple moray eels pop up from their hiding spots for a short amount of time. They are small, like a garter snake, not the huge scary looking ones we've seen in past vacations. There was a sea urchin or two - also common in other dives but rare here. Honeycomb cowfish are very interesting looking fish and we've seen a lot of them here.

For the 2nd dive, we headed just down the coast a bit to "Small Wall" This used to be a shore dive but due to construction & development, this is now a boat-only dive area, just off the coast by very nice looking houses and the Black Durgon dive shop. Before this dive, we'd talked about seeing a Goliath Grouper on prior dives (us and another couple) so of course, as soon as we dropped in and went down, THERE was a Goliath Grouper, just hanging out. He headed off soon after we dropped down but it was impressive to see him right away. A bit into the dive, Greta found a scorpion fish all on her own - he was a big one but didn't move. They look like a piece of coral unless you happen to notice their eyes. The rest of the dive was interesting but no other amazing things to be seen. Lots of parrot fish, trunk fish, and some cow fish - still a beautiful dive.

After we got back, we rested for a couple hours and decided to dive Buddy's Reef again (there had been an octopus seen there the day before, although we didn't see him today). We headed out and did a big loop to the south. Along the way, we saw a lot of fish we've seen but also a couple cool things. There were a couple porcupine fish chasing each other - they are unusual because they look like a spotted shoebox - long & regtangular. Mike saw a massive lobster who kept walking along the bottom towards him. Greta pointed out a larger black/white fish we'd never seen before. Mike got some good pictures and later we discovered it was a Black Margate, which is a nocturnal fish. What it was doing in the upper levels with the little guys in the sunshine at 3 PM was not apparent, so once discovering what it was, it was a lucky sighting. It was not listed in any of the on-line fish guides (probably because it normally isn't out in the daytime), but it was in the Bonaire Diving Guidebook that we had.

After we got back to the room for "good" we just relaxed for a few hours. Reading, eating a bit of snacks, and getting a couple pops from the nearby bar (it's $3 for a can of coke at the bar, but only $2 if you get it from the front desk - lesson learned). Greta got a couple pictures on her phone of small lizard in the bushes and a pretty red dragon fly.

We had reservations for "At Sea" in town for a fancy Valentine's Day meal. It did not disappoint. We chose the "Tasting 5 course Surpise meal with wine pairings" . Expensive - but why not splurge today? We told the server ahead of time of things we didn't like or were allergic to, but other than that, it was a completely "Surprise" Meal. We tried to write down what all we were eating and drinking as it came out, but it was very detailed and so we didn't catch every detail but took pictures along the way. The menu we were served consisted of the following:

Champagne
Two appetizers - a grain seed cracker with a wasabi dot, and a macaron (one of each for each of us)
Side of bread with a butter emulsion of Thai Green Curry
An Amouse Bouche that was a little fried/bready cup filled with onion foam, leeks and potatoes
Austrian white wine - paired with Wahoo with cilantro tomato salsa and red onion
French white wine (Instinct, from south of France) - paired with asian vegetable dumplings in an asian broth, decorated with a sous vide pumpkin and pumpkin puree topped with radish
Chilled Chilean red wine with hints of black berry & spice - paired with two preparations of pork. One was a pork cheek with garlic sauce and the other was pork mixed with something (potato?) topped with mini corn, popcorn and cream sauce
African wine, similar to a port - paired with a cheese plate. This included toasted Dutch sugar bread with cranberry spread, and four cheeses (Dutch cheese, a pecan cheese, an Austrian cheese and camembert).
The dessert course was a sherry (Bypass) with flavors of fruits and nuts - paired with a plate of chocolate. The chocolate lips had a creamy mango flavor, the chocolate hearts on a stick had a darker chocolate filling, and then then a brick of chocolate that said Happy Vanletine's Day!

It was an amazing meal, and quite an experience to go with it! It was a wonderful way to end the day.

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