Bonaire 1: Saltwater therapy

When I was young I noticed how well my cuts healed in saltwater. Now I notice it about my internal wounds. There is just something elemental about the chemistry and minerals in salt water. Or maybe it's just the buoyancy.

There are over 100 dive sites around Bonaire to choose from

We've been on the island of Bonaire for almost two weeks now and glad to report feeling happy. In case you have never heard of Bonaire, it's part of the Dutch Antilles, 50 miles north of Venezuela and on the same latitude as Nicaragua. The land is arid, native vegetation leans towards thorny. Lots of goats, iguanas and donkeys. About 17,000 people live here and like most quiet Caribbean islands, it suffers brain drain from local people leaving for better jobs in the states, Holland or nearby sister islands, Aruba and Curacao. People here speak Papiomento, a language that mixes Dutch, Spanish and a little of dis and dat. Lots of Dutch tourists and resident. The mix is very congenial, no one seems in a rush, most are quick with a joke. I think we all seem to agree that we are lucky to be here, despite the heat.

We ended up here by accident. Plan A would have us in SE Asia right now, likely Vietnam. So Plan B put us here with no dive gear, not even a snorkel. Luckily we managed to find some used dive gear and snorkeling equipment so we are up and running. 

Diving is the best reason to be here. The entire island is surrounded by reef and has been part of a marine park since about 1994. Normally we use dive boats to get to the reef. Here, however, our car is our dive boat. We have tanks in the back of the care most of the time and gather our gear to head out when we are ready. This is the "rainy" season so the past few days it's been between squalls. That has also decreased our visibility. Doesn't seem to disturb the reef denizens and that's who we come to see. Every dive is a mystery, anticipation about what will we be lucky enough to see? One day it's a eagle ray who swims by us, then stops, turns towards us and head by us within 10 feet. The next day it's beautiful school of squid, hovering nearby as we take our first look around. And there is so much we miss, to be sure, as it's alive with creatures covering nearly every square inch of sand and rock.

Here are a few of our favorite creatures to date:

Frogfish, looks like a sponge, right?

We did manage to find a frogfish, (with the help of our dive shop (shout out to the awesome dive folks at Dive Friends Bonaire) who told us about a resident fellow sitting regularly on top of a sponge. The photographers that were swimming around her were another great locator!

We are still on the lookout for seahorse, might need another assist from better eyes than ours, we look and look in their habitat and have yet to be graced by the sight of that lovely little shape.

We are here until 12/5. It's such a luxury to be in one house, one location for one whole month! We will try to post again before we leave with updates from the sea!

Staten Island time

Jeff with the new World Trade Center behind.
Lovely building 1776 feet tall. Just opened 11/3

We have had an improbable and delightful linking of islands in these last few weeks. It began on Long Island where we stayed with our friend Karen Allen and her lovely dog Lily. Fall colors at their best and we enjoyed time cooking, laughing, sailing and a quick trip into the City to see our friend Alessandra Levy (daughter of the fabulous Geri Levy) perform with her group.

From there it was a short drive to Staten Island. We wanted to visit NYC without paying more for parking then for our room. Staten Island was a perfect solution. With the free 25 minute ferry to the lower end of Manhattan only a half mile from our fire house apartment, hosted by Suzanne and Anthony, it was an easy jaunt into the city. The new bike share program was our friend and the incredible indian summer days provided a great four days of island experience on Manhattan. Our remarkable and talented nephew Byron lives in Harlem so we got to see him a few times. We walked the Brooklyn Bridge, rode the park, saw Motown and got a vip pass to the Empire State Building thanks to Byron. And MoMA. Oh my. No place like NYC.

The view up the Hudson from the Empire State Building

After Manhattan, we jumped on the NJ turnpike and headed for the eastern shore of Maryland, there Tilghman Island. Waterman, crab cakes, ducks, dogs, deer and the big skies around the Chesapeake River replaced the concrete and crowds of NYC.
we visited more with Karen, at her house on

With a quick two day drive to inland to Atlanta, we visited our sister in law LuAnne and left our car and warm clothes with her and caught a plane to the island of Bonaire. Flipflops, dive shops, fish and gin clear water for the next 30 days.

Karen's Simplicity Cottage on Harris Creek, Choptank

Standing on the dock of the bay.

Lily, the wonder dog.