I figured I would try to write a little more about our stay at Captain Don's Habitat. Since we were on Bonaire last year at this time, this year we planned on doing other activities like mangrove kayaking, cave snorkeling, windsurfing, and relaxing... Well even the best plans go awry. I did 20 dives and Heather and Gary did 19 each in 6 days.

My extra dive at Front Porch was done with the intention of getting a photo of a short nose batfish that we was earlier that day while returning from our first dive on Front Porch. As luck would have it both my camera batteries and strobe batteries were dead when we saw a diver looking at the batfish. I returned a few days later at dusk with fresh batteries in both and Heather snorkeled above me. I looked for about 40 minutes but couldn't find it again. Oh well, I consider myself lucky to have seen it in the first place.

We did a few new dives this year including Oil Slick Leap (probably my favorite), Karpata, Red Slave, and 3 sites on Klein. What else can I say about the diving. It was great as usual!!

A few of the highlights this year were 4 frogfish, 2 seahorses, 5 turtles, a stingray, 2 octopi, and being buzzed by Charlie and family while night diving on Habitat's reef.

I don't have much to report on dining since we mainly ate at Habitat and Buddy Dive. The one exception is Capprichio (sp?). We returned there because of our wonderful meal we had last year. Once again we were not dissapointed!!

The staff at Captain Don's was great! Netto lead us on the night dive at Town Pier. We seemed to be on the boat that he and Sherman were on. We also tended to have Christopher and Jonathan for quite a few dives. Regardless of who we went out with we always returned with a smile (and at least 500 psi

I don't know if this will work but here is a link to some of the photos I took this year.

http://www.ofoto.com/I.jsp?c=19uw7hft.bnoh2mm9&x=0&y=xkhe6t

Oh yea, I forgot to mention that I had the pleasure of meeting Anne and was able to deliver her phone to her, which I hear now had to be returned because it did not work. Go figure.

I am already looking forward to our next trip. I guess it's the classic PBD!!

Rod

Rod,

link worked fine, thanks for sharing great pics!! :-) Denise

Rod,

Absolutely stunning photos. Thanks so much for sharing.

Belinda

Thanks for sharing the great pictures!

Great photos, I'm jealous. You may want to change the label on the Queen Angle fish, you have French...

John,

Thanks, nice catch. It was really late last night when I finally got around to labeling the photos. Also thanks for all of the nice comments everyone.

Rod

John P.... since we're correcting, it's Angel, not Angle... lol

My wife always tells me I'm spelling challenged! lol I guess I rely on spellcheck too much.

Rod

Great pics. Enjoyed the show.

Rod,
Just wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed your photos! You have a real talent. I'm 36 days from my trip to Bonaire and looking at your pictures has got me so ready to see those underwater sights again!
Linda

what kind of camera do you use? great pics!

Thanks for all of the nice compliments. Meredith, I use a Nikon Coolpix 5000, Ikelite housing with a DS50 strobe. I'm in the process of purchasing a second strobe and hopefully a WA and macro lens. That should be about everything I need unless I upgrade to a SLR. Somehow I don't think my wife would go for that since I just purchased this setup prior to last years Bonaire trip.

Rod