This latest trip to Bonaire has been the best, and the worst.
We woke up at 2:00am on October 15th for a very early morning flight to Bonaire. Eric and Sebastien met us at the airport and we all had a great time on our way down through Miami and San Juan. We had pizza and took plenty of pictures in Miami. Sebastien is an especially fun subject since he doesn't like to be photographed. :-) We all slept a little bit on the flights and had a take-out dinner (by the seaside) of sausages from the Argentinian Grill. Sunday morning we had an early breakfast at the City Cafe and then picked up some groceries from the Cultimara. We dove the Calabas II reef behind the Carib Inn that afternoon, and continued to dive 2-3 times a day for the next 3 weeks...
Sebastien, having only dived in Canada, had an especially great time the first week. It took several days for him to get over the "excellent" visibility (only 40-70' this time of year) and all the fish! In Canada, he could count all the fish he'd seen on one or two hands. We could already see that many from the shore before entering the water. :-) Over the next two weeks, we all noted how his buoyancy skills and trim improved. I guess that's what happens when there's stuff on the bottom you can't touch! :-)
Eric and Sebastien stayed in room #2 (next to ours), and we usually dove the same spots mornings and afternoons. At first they followed us around, but it didn't take long before they were diving their own plan. Having other divers along also pushed us to log a few more dives than our usual - we're well on our way past 200 dives now. The coral spawning probably urged us to dive a little more too. You almost felt obligated to go see what was spawning before it was too late - after all, Coral spawning only lasts one or two weeks.
We had the chance to re-visit some of our favorites restaurants - Mona Lisa's, Capriccio's, the Argentinian Grill, Boobejan's, Donna and Giorgio's, and the Rib Factory - but also discover a few new ones like the Garden Cafe, the Sushi bar, and La Guernica. The Garden Cafe offers excellent homemade lebenese vegetarian food - we went back for take-out more than once. The Sushi bar was alright, but the fish was a little soft, especially the tuna - we probably won't be back. La Guernica was quite an experience - when Melanie asked how they prepared the pasta side-dish, she was told "cooked". My baked patato came as fries, and the food was generally quite bland. Over at the Mona Lisa, Rudy had a heart operation recently in Holland and is being replaced by Martyn. We were well received at the Mona Lisa, as usual, and look forward to going back again and again. We might even try the new outdoor tables next time. The cook at the Rib Factory has changed and the ribs aren't
quite the same - probably still the best in Kralendijk though.
The diving was great - we showed Eric and Sebastien a few of our favorite marked and un-marked spots. R.B. North (as we call it) was definately a great find - we found schools of Chub, Permit, and Terminal Phase Parrotfish at the entry, and then a carpet of Damselfish and Stripped Grunts amid fields of Staghorn Coral. Close to the reef we found Turtles, matting Squid, and a Southern Stingray. Joyce and Tom thought they'd seen a new species of Eel at Tori's Reef, so asked us to come along and photograph it. We dove Tori's Reef and stayed over the sand flats for 90 mins. If you look carefully in the distance, you can occasionally see the head of an Eel poking our of the sand. They're quite shy but we managed to take a few shots and identify them as Short Tailed Eels - a new species for Bonaire. On this trip we also encountered a small group of dolphins swimming along the reef. One of them showed us his belly as he swam by, with his belly button easily discernable. The waters around Bonaire have been quite warm in the past few weeks/months, and several sites are showing signs of coral bleaching. Some sites in the north are also getting quite overgrown with algea. Generally, Bonaire reefs have been under pressure for several years, and their slow decline is perceivable if you look for it.
While we were in Bonaire, Hurricane Wilma hit Florida and Hurricane's Alpha and Beta were named. The weather this time of year is quite variable - it would rain almost every morning before sunrise, visibility was poor for Bonaire (40-70 feet), and we encountered current quite often. One morning we went to dive Red Slave with Eric and Sebastien, only to call the dive at 15 feet because the current was too strong. 
We drove up the coat to R.B. North where I promptly flooded my camera upon entering the water. When I noticed the enormous amount of bubbles coming from the port connection, I tilted the housing port-side down to let the 8 inch port take the water, and then pulled the whole thing out. I probably should have un-clipped the port right then and there, but I set the housing (still port-side down) on the shore and took off my BC. Running to the pickup with the housing, I tripped and scratched the port on the sand. I finally un-clipped the port when I reached the pickup. The damage didn't appear too bad - I was using a Canon EF 17-40mm F4.0L environmentally sealed lens, which survived almost intact. The camera wasn't so lucky. The housing's TTL circuitry also suffered, but a little rubbing alcohol with a hand-pump cleaned it up nicely. I was able to get another housing up and running using our spare Canon 20D body. It took a few hours, but I was also able to polish the scratched port nicely. It's unfortunate that it would then get stolen on the return trip.
I had stowed our windbreakers in the large StormCase iM2975 we normally use to secure equipment on location. Since a large case like this draws attention from would-be thieves, I'd packed only the rinse tanks (compressed), wetsuits, and ports in it. After all, who'd want to steel a bunch of ports, right? Well, it turns out someone at the San Juan Airport knew exactly what ports were and what they were worth. Retrieving our luggage at the Montreal Airport, I opened the case to take out our windbreakers - that's when we discovered the theft. I can't really post the whole story yet, but I can say that I found the ports on eBay and contacted the appropriate authorities. The theft happened in the San Juan Airport in transit from Bonaire to Miami. I'll leave additional details for later when this whole thing has been concluded.
As I said earlier, this latest trip to Bonaire has been the best, and the worst. The diving and photography was excellent, but this trip has also been our most expensive when you consider the flooded Canon 20D body and the stolen ports. As Melanie said, it's the price of doing what we do...
So, where are all the new photos? We still have about 70 to post-process from our last trip in May, and we came back from this latest trip with over 2,500 we have to prune, select, post-process and submit to MVPix. You can expect to see new photos appearing every week or so for the next few months. We'll probably put together a few highlight pages as well and send e-mail notifications on occasion.
