Saturday, January 13, 2018

The Sapphire of Bonaire

As a child I always dreamed of having a swimming pool nearby. At the age of 5 I wanted to take swimming lessons, but I was too young according to our local pool. My mother convinced them to let me take lessons and I have been infatuated with water ever since.


At the age of 15 my family moved and needed a new house. My parents found one that we went to look at. I fell in love at first sight of the swimming  pool. My father was concerned that the house was too small for a family of 5.
"But it has a swimming pool" I said.
My mother was enamored with the large yard with an abundance of plants and two fish ponds.
"The house is too small" said my father
"Look at the yard" said my mother
"It has a swimming pool" I said.
"But look at the size of the house" said my father.

My father didn't stand a chance.

And now I live on a boat.  I have my own swimming pool, and I don't even have to clean it.

A swimming pool wherever we go. An ever changing swimming pool. And Bonaire has been the best yet for fulfilling my dreams. Wonderful swimming, wonderful snorkeling and wonderful diving. A friend recently stated  on Facebook "You are never leaving there, are you?" At this point it is hard to think of moving on.

We have passed the 50 dives in Bonaire benchmark.

Let me set up our underwater world for you.



The turquoise waters are the snorkeling waters the beautiful sapphire waters are where we dive.


We get a sense of flying through this alien to us world. Weightless and free. Silent observers of the underwater realm where we are only visitors.


There is nowhere else that I can get so close to the animals. Birds fly away as you approach, schools of fish merely part to avoid contact with us as we swim among them.


There are some fish that just have a sense of majesty, such as the French Angelfish, slowly swimming by, eyes rotating to watch us, often leaving the ocean floor to come closer to check us out. They are often in pairs and can be as large as a foot and a half across.


Parrotfish are some of the most common of the bigger fish. They come in such an array of beautiful colors but the colors are exceedingly difficult to capture in a picture. This is one of my better attempts, an even this is not very representative of their glorious colors.


Picture by Mark on Uno Mas


The parrotfish have very strong teeth and they crunch away at the coral. One of the few sounds that we can hear underwater (besides our own breathing and the powerboats overhead ) is the crunching of the parrotfish breaking down the coral. Apparently a large proportion of the white sand on the beaches of the world are Parrotfish poop. They crunch up the coral and poop out the sand.


Above pictures by Mark on Uno Mas

We are truly enjoying sharing this underwater world with watery neighbors.


We love to hear your comments.

Unknown said...

BEAUTIFUl...thanks for sharing photos of this pristine underwater world...