11/29/09:

The first dive of the vacation is over.

It was wonderful.

I was nervous, as usual, when we got to the dive site. I took all of our gear out of the pickup truck and brought it to the end of the cement pier. I was breathing hard, not out of physical exhaustion, but out of the fear-bordering-on-panic I feel every time preceding a dive after having NOT dived for a extended period of time. (The last time she and I went scuba diving was two years ago in Cozumel, Mexico.)

I helped Mary Ellen getting her gear on. Then I took several deep breaths and put on my own. My hands were numb with anxiety as I pulled the mask over my face, and she and I preceded to snorkel out to the drop-off point. When we got there, I looked at her and said, “Ready?” She nodded. I replaced the snorkel in my mouth with my regulator, let all the air out of my BC, and dropped down to 18 feet. When Mary met me there, we both swam out about ten more yards into the ocean, and went over the edge of the drop-off.

(Above: Mary in diving gear)

I was amazed at how easy it was for me. After I took the first breath underwater, all the fear left me. When I saw that Mary was all right too, I immediately dropped down to sixty feet and leisurely began swimming against the gentle current.

Large purple tube sponges, rope sponges, brain coral, yellow-eyed jacks and queen parrot fish filled my vision. The dive was like a meditation. Easy. Relaxing.

One pair of particularly curious French Angelfish swam right up to my face and hovered there staring directly at me for about thirty seconds. It was if they were saying, “Hey! Where have you been? It so nice to have you back! Nine years is way too long!” (Silly and sentimental, huh? Oh well. Such silliness and sentimentality is a part of who I am. Can’t do much about it!)

I achieved neutral buoyancy quickly, which meant that I had filled my BC with just enough air at the particular depth I was at so that I could stay in one place, neither sinking nor rising. That way, I could hover over the delicate coral and fauna without crashing into it and killing it.

When the air in my tank had depleted to 1000 psi, I motioned to Mary, and we began swimming back in the direction from which we had come at a depth of 30 – 35 feet. Now we were riding with the gentle current. When I was down to 500 psi, we surfaced and found that we overshot our mark by a few hundred yards. So we inflated our BC’s and swam on our backs to the cement pier.

As far as sights were concerned, the dive was pretty unremarkable. As far as instilling confidence, it was an absolutely incredible dive!!!!!

Before I met Mary, I let my fears rule my life, and I never even entertained the notion of attempting to conquer them. In other words, I would never have been to the Caribbean, I never would ski or scuba dive or ride horses or sail. I would probably just sit in front The Tube every night drinking my Sam Adams, watching Netflix and thinking “this is the best that it gets.”

Can’t wait until tomorrow!

11/30/09

After a two-hour nap and a 1 ½ hour loss of electricity (It happens on the islands!) Mary and I went to town for a festival called The Taste of Bonaire. So we dressed up (which means shorts, good t-shirt and boat shoes) and walked the half-mile or so the downtown square.

The place was hopping. There were probably about 100 booths all run by the locals selling anything from carved gourds to jerk chicken to Heineken Beer. The patrons were of all nationalities, but primarily, in descending order, Bonaireans, Dutch and American. (That ranking was arrived at judging by the languages being spoken most frequently – Papiamento, Dutch and English.)

Laughter and smiling faces were everywhere. Little kids running with abandon carrying balloons shaped like poodles and light sabers, little brown dogs running between people’s feet, strings of mulit-colored lights lit the sky, and live music filled the air. Of course, there was also the ever-present sound of the ocean as she sat there a slight distance away, keeping a watchful eye on all of her children.

After shopping, listening to the music, watching the children from the local dance school perform traditional native dances on the make-shift stage, and drinking three or four beers, Mary and I headed back uptown to the a small barbeque joint, Bobbejan’s,  for take-out ribs and chicken.

Back at our place, we ate our dinner out on the veranda overlooking a placid Caribbean Sea, sat watching the ocean until neither of us could keep our eyes open any longer, and then went to bed.

It’s wonderful being back in Bonaire!

(Above photos taken from our balcony by Mary.)