July 13th, seven divers left Dayton for Atlanta and then boarded ALM bound for Bonaire, via Curacao. It was the usual group, Tom Skelley, Sharon Lindquist Skelley, Mark Beatty, Randy Thomas, Barb Fissell, with a few additions, John Bishop and Sheila Shumaker. Captain Don's Habitat was our final destination. Barb and Sheila had both been there in 1990, but none of the others had been to Bonaire before.

Although Bonaire is the home of "diving freedom", we were not allowed to dive until we sat through the Sunday morning briefing and made a shore dive. We were given the dos and don'ts for diving Bonaire (no gloves, no pillaging, etc). The shore dive was not a check out dive; we were unescorted and could select our own depth and destination from Capt. Don's baby dock.

After lunch, we were scheduled for our first boat dive. We were on a pontoon type boat with a covered roof and Gaby was our tourguide/divemaster/mooner. We considered ourselves lucky to have this boat (Bonaire Diver) all week and some days we had it all to ourselves. Other divers could sign up for our boat if we were going to a destination that they wanted to dive and we could change boats too. By the end of the week, nobody else wanted to join us and we never did figure out what we did to run them off!

We quickly found out that eating at Capt. Don's was expensive and that the trick was to stock up at breakfast (it was included in our cost), snack at lunch and have a nice dinner. We tried several restaurants at the other resorts within walking distance and ate in town two nights. Other than the Chinese food, everything was good.

Capt. Don's provided entertainment and rum punch one evening and Capt. Don even made an appearance. Capt. Don did a slide show one evening detailing his life and times. John can give the details on this, as he was the only one to attend the entire presentation.

Each day we did an early boat dive and an afternoon boat dive. In between, some hearty souls did extra dives off the baby dock. Tanks were available 24 hours a day for shore diving. We had lockers for our gear near the dock and did not have to haul gear back and forth for each dive. We finally figured out that we were on the same boat for morning and afternoon dives and could leave our gear on the boat after the morning dive. We could even leave our diveskins tied to the boat overnight to dry out!

Some memorable dives were: SW Corner of Klein Bonaire (little Bonaire, an island off big Bonaire), where the currents were stiff and changed several times during the dive depending on your depth; Angel City had two reefs with a sand trench in between so we could explore each reef and even follow anchor chain to the Hilma Hooker and our shallow night dive off Capt. Don's front yard on Thursday, a huge lobster was spotted at 122 feet by two narced divers. All reefs were in good condition with Plenty of fish that were not afraid of the divers.

Friday afternoon, we did not dive, but toured the island via one good Toyota Tercel with air conditioning, a radio and clock and one Suzuki mini-mini van with mushy tires, bus steering, and no air-conditioning! The more Amstel, the better the ride! John wanted to wind surf, but since he was a novice, he was advised to wait until the stiff winds subsided on the windward side of the island. Coincidentally, the wind surfing place was at Lac Bay, home of the clothing optional beach. Wind surfing and kayaking were the two methods to get around the fenced beach, too bad, guys! ! ! ! The wind never let up, so it was off to the Indian drawings, slave huts, salt mines and flamingos.

We went into town for lunch and shopping. There were lots of tee shirts available along with other souvenirs. We were not allowed back in the liquor store that gave free samples after our visit Wednesday. The bakery sold the infamous Bonaire rolls which every restaurant served, but they were as hard as rocks on the outside.

Our outgoing flight was at 7:30 Saturday morning, so we left Capt. Don's at 5:30 in our two vehicles for the Flamingo Airport. After standing in lines for at least 90 minutes, we boarded the plane, not wanting to leave, but frustrated at the speed with which the Bonairians do everything!

Of course, what trip would be complete without a list of things you thought you got away with, but somebody remembered, wrote down and is now making public........names have been omitted to protect the guilty!

• Green Flash- on the rocks, frozen, underwater or on the horizon???????
  
• Poolside inspection, every hour on the hour
  
• Can't find Ebo's mooring buoy, we'll move onto another site
  
• Crack cleaning at the outside shower....and getting help from the upstairs neighbors
  
• Nominees to moon the glass bottom boat tour
  
• School of baby manta rays (whoops, wrong trip)
  
• Did someone have too much rum punch and sleep through dinner????
  
• How many Bonairian goats does it take to make goat stew????
  
• Anyone want to go for a wild donkey ride???????
  
• Sex on the beach is $6.00, but it's only $3.00 during happy hour
  
• Does anyone understand what they are saying on the Venezuelan TV station you are staring at???
  
• Bats, lizards, giant cockroaches and one mad spotted moray eel
  
• That darn bird keeps meowing
  
• Are seahorses colorful wooden creatures attached to a straw?
  
• Find taxi #18, that's where I left my computer
  
• Have I told you that I like my new regulator????
  
• Male/Female waiter/waitress
  
• Male/Female topless sunbather
  
• Revival of the A&E Scuba Club hand signals plus a new A&E handshake