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).