The next morning, while Carol snoozed, I dove Captain Don’s reef off Klein Bonaire. The water was alive with fish, and I wanted to go deep to check out the overhangs and little caves that might hide new additions to my list. At about seventy feet I spotted a movement through a crack in the rock. I whipped out my trusty PC light and drifted in close. A second later I was eyeball-to-eyeball with a glasseye snapper, the first I had seen outside of Paul Humann’s book. I immediately regretted not replacing the handy Sea and Sea MX-5 I had sacrificed to the reef gods in Honduras (I imagined it floating ashore on some abandoned African beach, covered in barnacles) as the red and silver flashed by my face and disappeared deep in the rocks. I ascended slowly through hundreds of creole wrasse wearing Mardi Gras colors and rejoined the group in a shallow cruise over the reeftop, then broke away for a visit to Captain Don’s plaque. I gave it a little dust-off and read the inscription, silently thanking the guy who did so much to save a great place. It’s got to be an honor and maybe a little weird to have a memorial dedicated to you while you’re still alive; personally, I think that’s how it ought to be. Flowers for the living, and all that.

By the time I made it back to the room, Carol was wide awake and ready to do some more exploring, so we took the coast road south to the salt works. As I drove, I explained the purpose of the yellow rocks by the roadside, and now and again we saw divers gearing up next to their vehicles. After stopping for snapshots with pink water and snowy white salt hills for background, we followed the road as it narrowed to one lane, past the weathered lighthouse and around to the windward side, driving on the sliver of land pinched between salt pans and sea until the sight of wave crests spouting into the sky brought us to a halt. We made our way afoot over the broken heaps of bleached coral and rough limestone until the stony shelf that makes up the unprotected shore spread before us.


The land breeze that cools the inhabited lee side is a stiff sea breeze on the windward, and it blew straight in our faces, carrying spray from the waves that flung themselves on the rocks in steady rhythm. The contrast of blue sea and dark, tortured rock with the flat shallow salt pans simmering in the tropical sun at our backs made this one of the more vivid memories of the trip. That portion of the coast is populated only by sea birds, crabs and a number of odd monuments composed of driftwood and various found objects left on the rocks by the waves. According to one of the locals, these started out as markers put up by fishermen to fix points on the shore, necessary for the lack of geographic landmarks, but additions have been made by visitors to add a slightly bizarre, artistic twist to some. I liked the archaeological/folk art interface; Easter Island by way of Burning Man, perhaps. They gave Carol a Blair Witch vibe, so after a few minutes we returned to the truck, turned about and headed back around the southern end of the island, visiting the much-photographed slave huts and obelisks on the way back to the Plaza.

Wonderful pictures-that first one ought to be on a postcard or something. Thanks for sharing-as our time draws nearer, I am getting more and more excited about returning!

Great discriptive writings of your travels and the pictures are beautiful!

Great report so far! Have never seen the sculptures before posted here...they are odd aren't they! But I guess thats Bonaire pop art...use what's available...and trendy dontcha think!