Beauty of Shore Diving...

Most dive sites around the world have to be reached by boat, which means living by someone else’s schedule. The simplicity of diving in Bonaire is that there are over 50 shore dive sites, easily identifiable by yellow stones alongside the road with an excellent ranking system for ease of entry, depth and current. Jimmy loved the convenience of parking the truck, grabbing the gear and walking into the ocean whenever the mood struck. This photo clearly shows where the reef starts as the water turns from light to dark blue. Many sites also had a buoy to use as a guideline.

After hanging at the resort for a few days hoping that my ears would clear, I donned a snorkel vest (an adult version of swim armbands) and snorkeled along the shore while the family dove. Remarkably, I was able to see many of the same kinds of fish, just not the same volume or the diversity of corals (at this particularly rocky site, I saw an eel in just a foot of water).

Underwater Creatures...

We were lucky that a colleague of Jimmy’s loaned us an underwater camera. Unfortunately, the quality’s not great, but I’ll post the best shots to show some of the variety of creatures we saw. This fish was Jimmy’s favorite: spotted trunkfish.

The coolest thing I saw on my one dive was a sea turtle. Ashlynn and I both missed seeing Veronica’s thrilling swim with a sea turtle on the day that Ashlynn forgot her booties and was stuck snorkeling with me. Unfortunately, Ashlynn had the camera, so there’s no photographic proof. This was one of the strangest fish we saw: trumpetfish.

First Family Dive...

I was bummed not to be able to go diving with the girls. Rather than take them out alone right away, Jimmy and the girls teamed up with Lisa, Joe and 13-year-old Chris from Boston to dive the house reef at Buddy Dive, where they saw a small sunken boat. Ashlynn liked playing in the pool with their youngest, 5-year-old Allie. We struck up a quick friendship and enjoyed dinner out together and several happy hours on the sea wall at Belmar. Us girls are already planning a visit this summer.
That afternoon, Jimmy and the girls drove near the salt flats to do their first dive with a shore entry rather than a dock. They really loved seeing the many schools of fish at the Aquarius dive site.

Exploring After Getting Ear Squeeze...

While the girls were busy becoming certified divers, Jimmy was taking me to the medical center. Unfortunately, I had a lot of problems with my ears during my first (and only) dive. I was eventually able to get to depth and had a great time, but knew something was wrong after returning to dry land and my ears continued to pop erratically and I had pain in my jaw. The doctor said there was blood in my ear canals, which is known as “ear squeeze.” He prescribed a nose spray and flu medicine to clear my sinuses, but unfortunately they remained popping throughout my trip and kept me grounded from diving. Jimmy and I spent some of the time the girls were in class exploring the southern part of the island. Here you see large piles of salt at the solar salt works; most of this salt will be shipped to the US for salting winter roads or for use in water softeners.

Bonaire is not a typical tropical island; the palm trees were imported. The natural terrain is dry and rugged covered with giant candle cactus (locally known as Kadushi). By the beautiful Lac Bay, we came across some unusually huge piles of Queen Conch shells (seen here behind the guys playing dominoes). As many of 500 conchs were taken out of this bay per month until they were protected in 1991; the piles are left to bear witness of the volume of past collections.

Girl’s First Ocean Dives...

As all good divers do, a buddy check is mandatory before all dives. The girls were in charge of assembling and checking their own gear.
We were thrilled to learn that the girls would be having private lessons for their two-day PADI Open Water course. Here they are entering the water by the steps off the diving dock at our resort; later they would do giant strides off the dock. Their instructor Job, from outside of Utrecht, has lived in Bonaire for three years. He did a great job stressing the importance of safety and knowing the practical skills while making sure the girls had fun by going out to the reef on each of the four dives. They saw several sea turtles and eels as well as a lionfish. As expected, they were naturals under the water and easily earned their certifications as PADI Junior Open Water Divers.

Fun in the Caribbean Sun...

Bonaire is not known for luxury, so we were thrilled with how nice unit #12 at Belmar Apartments was (middle balcony above). Despite a long day travelling, the girls didn’t waste any time getting into their swimsuits and jumping off the dock into the crystal clear water in front of the resort. Jimmy and I jumped into the pick-up truck that came with our apartment and went to the grocery store, which sold a strange mix of Dutch and American products, but relatively few fresh items. Veronica was so happy that they sold kosher dill pickles that she tried to sneak 10 jars into the cart on a later shopping trip. We gave in and bought 5! By the end of the trip, her eyes had changed from denim blue to green. Not sure if it was all that Caribbean sun or all those pickles.

Bon What?

After much debate on where to go for our first family scuba diving vacation over Easter break, we chose to go to Bonaire, the “Shore Diving Capital of the World.” Located 50 miles north of Venezuela, Bonaire is a “special municipality” of the Netherlands as part of the newly formed Caribbean Netherlands. We flew on a KLM 747 with a stop in Aruba, then to Curacao. We originally had several hours to wait for our puddle hopper to Bonaire, but were happy to be rushed onto an earlier flight when our flight was cancelled. Insel Air’s 15-seater was the smallest plane the girls had ever been on.
We caught a view out the window of where we’d be staying (the white two-story in the center) with crystal blue water along the whole coast.

Dutch Treat Hash Turns Five!

We didn’t let the fact that we were leaving on a 2-week trip the next morning at 5 am stop us from hosting a party at our house to celebrate the 5th anniversary of the Dutch Treat Family Hash. We had perfect weather and a good turn-out. Veronica and Ashlynn laid an excellent trail complete with many stops to hunt for chocolate Easter eggs. Afterwards, we had a BBQ and dyed Easter eggs (this was the girls’ first time since we left America in 2005).
Veronica and Ashlynn baked two giant M&M cookie cakes that they decorated with a windmill and stroopwafel as the symbol of DTH3. Sally, John and the boys joined us for dinner as well. Max, who we’d been dogsitting over the weekend, wasn’t sure what to make of the crowd.

Love the Flower Parade...

I had read on the flower parade’s website that this year’s theme was Musical Instruments. Despite that not sounding like a very compelling subject, I’d planned for us to catch a train early one Saturday morning in April to go to Voorhout to see the parade near the beginning of its 25-mile route. We were all thrilled when we discovered that the theme was actually Musicals and loved seeing floats and hearing the music from Wicked, Lion King, Hair, Mamma Mia, Phantom of the Opera and many others (including Alice in Wonderland shown above).

The Cutest Part of the Flower Parade...

A big bonus for arriving early in Voorhout for the flower parade is getting to see all the little kids with their decorated bikes, scooters, carts, wagons and strollers. We especially liked this Elvis with all the American flags and Grease wagon.

Veronica on Stage...

We were very happy to see Veronica on stage twice in April. First, she played three piano duets at the Centre for Young Musicians Spring Recital. Then she was given one of four Creativity Awards for Year 9 (8th grade) at the Annual Prize Giving for Middle School. Her certificate stated her award was for: Physics (“Space and Moments” topics) and Design Technology (her ability in realizing her ideas in both 2D and 3D). I’m not just proud, but also very impressed, especially considering I never took physics.

Stroopwafel Bakery...

When we go to a street market, the girls always ask to get stroopwafels (syrup waffles). I was thrilled when the AWC offered a tour of a bakery in Gouda that makes one of our favorite Dutch treats. First, we made our own stroopwafel from an already-prepared dough; it took me two tries to be able to cut the thin waffle lengthwise to be able to put syrup on. Then, we watched the automated system in progress that cranks out 2,500 stroopwafels per hour for five hours daily. Once the waffles cook, they are lifted off the grills by the strange red suction cups above to be cut in perfect circles and sliced open.
This machine lifts off the top, squirts on the syrup and replaces the top. The last machine then cools the waffles before sending them to be packaged, which is done by a human at the end of the assembly line. These delicious stroopwafels are preservative-free, unlike the ones sold in grocery stores throughout Holland and in Trader Joe’s in the US.

Jimmy’s 46th...

Jimmy’s birthday was actually while he was in France. He took the paragliding course instructors out for a nice dinner in the mountains to thank them for their hospitality. I contacted them about Jimmy’s birthday, but they were one step ahead of me and had already planned to give him a bottle of local bubbly. I asked them to add a toast from me and the girls and Jimmy was really touched (actually, he was practically a baby about it, but he swears it was only a few tears). Jimmy came straight from Schiphol to the International Festival. Once we got home, the girls presented him with a few token gifts (as his course was one giant gift) and a homemade cake.
The cake turned out strangely flat because they used Dutch self-rising flour, which doesn't actually rise, but the decorations and yummy taste more than made up for the flatness.

Ashlynn Saves the Day...

Months ago I thought of a good idea for the American contribution to the International Festival. Unfortunately, the girls preferred a different idea. Rather than micromanaging their efforts as in past years, I suggested they work on it on their own. Needless to say, two weeks before the festival, nothing had been done. After I threw a tantrum and threatened to cancel our participation, Ashlynn threw a Hail Mary: Why can’t we just do the “YMCA?” There wasn’t really time to recruit the other American students, but there was time to get Mr. Lowe to teach Veronica some basic moves after Ultimate. We were going to dinner the next night at some new British friend’s house where they quickly recruited Lizzy and Katy’s help. In just an hour, they had the whole dance figured out. Check it out here.

Getting Everyone Involved...

One of the things Jimmy always encourages when we design an act for this festival is to get audience participation. Although there was a problem with the microphone and Veronica couldn’t be heard when she requested folks to dance at their seats, some of us stood up and did the motions. Later, she and Lizzy came out into the audience and threw candy to the kids. Near the end, they invited the Russian and Portuguese performers and some of their friends to come on stage to join in the fun. They were a big hit!

Consider Yourself...British?

We had our nationalities a bit mixed up for this year’s International Festival at school. Veronica was asked at the last minute to sing a duet with her friend Kelly as the British contribution to the entertainment portion of the evening. She learned the words pretty quickly, but things weren’t looking good when she stayed home from school with laryngitis on Thursday. Luckily, she recovered quickly. Although she squeaked during rehearsal on Friday, she was fully recovered by Saturday when they sang “Consider Yourself” from the musical Oliver. Several of our British friends said that her Cockney accent was actually pretty good. Click here to see and hear for yourself.

Soaring Like a Bird...

Ever since leaving the Navy in 1992, Jimmy has missed flying. After trying paragliding in 2006, he’s dreamed of soaring like a bird. It’s taken years, but he finally managed to take a two-week paragliding course in Provence, France in March. The weather was uncooperative the first week, so instead of paragliding, his class went skiing twice and did a Via Ferratta (a 3.5 hour climb up and a 1 hour climb down that included 3 ziplines). He also went to Aix en Provence to visit Curt and Veronique.
Jimmy was the only student that stuck around for the 2nd week, so he ended up with private lessons once the weather cleared. He got four flying days in and managed to complete the course with a Club Pilot certification. His longest flight of catching thermals was 90 minutes where he looked down upon birds (who were also catching thermals) and the mountains of Provence. Luckily, in just 3 minutes you can see a snippet of his flights thanks to Veronica’s editing skills. Now, Jimmy just needs to figure out how he can try his new skills on the dunes of The Hague.