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Family Dive Trip to Bonaire

SPECIAL NOTE: For those who think my blog posts are long and boring, there is an alternative. Jimmy made an excellent video of our trip to Bonaire and posted it on YouTube. Be sure to check it out, and have the sound on when you do.

Sandy and I used to dive a lot. We would take two or three trips a year to tropical destinations and would usually do a lot of diving on those trips. Through the 1990's and early 2000's I probably did a hundred and fifty dives while Sandy probably did seventy five. I can't tell you exactly how many since we were both pretty bad at recording what we did in our dive logs. When our kids got old enough they all got certified too and we did several dive trips with them. The last one was to the island of Bonaire in 2003.

After that we didn't do any more diving. Our kids grew up and moved off to college. We moved to Singapore. Although that was in the tropics the conditions in the area were not good for diving - mainly very poor visibility. Sandy decided that she had enough and at some point declared that she had retired from diving. I tried many times to recruit the kids for a dive trip but they were all busy with college, and then later with their jobs and families. A lot of years went by. It started to look like maybe I was done with diving for good too. Still, I always hoped that sometime, somehow, I would get a chance to go diving again.

When my mom died last summer I inherited a little bit of money. I decided that I wanted to do something special with it. I came up with the idea of using it to pay for a family reunion. While Sandy and Shannon do a good job of visiting each other pretty often, my sons and I do not. We don't have big family gatherings for the holidays. I thougt that if we planned a trip to an exotic location it would be a good chance for everyone to get together again. Mickey, Shannon and Tim hadn't all been together for many years. They had never even met each others wives or kids or boyfriends or girlfriends. Plus having it in an interesting place would make it extra special for everyone. The final icing on the cake would be to make it a dive trip on the island of Bonaire, a place that all of us had been before to go diving, so it would definitely be nostalgic. I thought that bringing our family together again for a really memorable time would be an idea that my parents would have liked. It seemed like a good way to use my inheritance from them.

It wasn't easy to make it happen. Even with the offer of a free trip it was tough to get people signed up. Everyone loved the idea but there were practical difficulties. Both of my sons were in the US Army so it was really hard for them to commit to time off. The army seems to like to jerk people around just to prove that they can do it. Sandy's daughter Shannon was under pressure at her work too. Plus we had to work around school schedules for Tim's stepdaughters. I was amazed at how hard it turned out to be to give away a free tropical vacation! TV game show hosts never seem to have this much trouble.

Finally I just had to pick a date and start making arrangements. I settled on spring break week of 2018. Tentatively everyone was signed up. The one I was most worred about was my oldest son Tim and his family. Fortunately they were able to make it. Unfortunately my younger son Mickey and his girlfriend Allie ended up having to drop out. He had been in the process of getting a medical discharge from the army for several months and it finally came through in December. It didn't take him long to find a great job working for the VA but since he started just before our trip, he wasn't able to take time off right away. But at least Tim and his wife Shannon, and her daughters Kristan and Stephanie made it. So did Sandy's daughter Shannon and her boyfriend Jimmy. It would have been much better if Mickey and Allie could have been with us. Just like Meat Loaf, I had to console myself with the thought that two out of three ain't bad.

Besides seeing everyone I was excited about going diving again. Since it had been fifteen years since my last dive I wanted to make sure that I was ready. Scuba diving isn't a dangerous activity but it is serious. It's important to know what you are doing and how to respond in an emergency. I considered doing a refresher session before the trip. Instead I decided to do a full PADI certification course. It took me two whole weeks pretty much day and night but hey, I'm an old retired guy and I have the time. I was determined to be prepared so I could make the most of the trip.

Although Sandy and I and our kids are all certified divers, some of the others on the trip were not. Since scuba diving is the main activity on Bonaire, they decided that they would take advantage of the opportunity to give it a try. Jimmy, Kristan and Stephanie all partially completed their certification process before the trip. There are three main parts to becoming certified. The first is classroom learning. It covers everything from physics and physiology of diving to equipment to diving techniques. At the end you have to pass a test to show that you have an effective working knowledge of what's needed to dive safely. Second is a series of pool sessions. In a controlled environment you learn how to use scuba equipment. You practice important skills, such as how to recover your regulator if it comes out of your mouth, or how to clear water from your mask while you are underwater.

The final step to becoming certified is to do four open water dives, demonstrating to an instructor that you know the basic skills required for scuba diving and can use them in a real-world diving situation. Jimmy, Kristan and Stephanie all did what's called a referral, where they completed and were signed off on the first two steps at home at a local dive shop. All they would have to do when they got to Bonaire is the last step, their four open water dives. With tropical weather, warm water, excellent visibility, mild conditions and interesting marine life, there's no better place in the world for beginning divers than Bonaire. It would certainly be a lot more fun than doing their open water dives in a cold lake or flooded quarry in the middle of a midwestern winter. When their four dives were done they would be certified divers and would be able to dive on their own without an instructor. They could spend the rest of the week diving with our group.

After lots of preparation and anticipation, finally it was time. We would fly from our various home cities to Houston, meet up in the airport, and be together on the same flight to Bonaire. Sandy and I flew down the night before. We could have left in the morning but we would have had a close connection. Since United only flies once a week from Houston to Bonaire, missing it would have been a disaster. We met Shannon and Jimmy, who had a ridiculously early flight from Chicago. They had stayed at the Hilton at O'Hare the night before to make sure they would be at the airport in time. Soon we were joined by Tim and his family. They had just barely made their flight out of Nashville. Because of spring break security at the airport had been overwhelmed and they almost missed their flight. Fortunately after that close call the flight to Bonaire was uneventful. We got through immigration and customs and found a large bus that could take all of us to the hotel. After checking in and getting settled into our rooms we met at the restaurant for dinner and the start of our long-awaited vacation.

Our hotel was the Plaza Resort Bonaire. Sandy and I stayed there many years ago and liked it. There were two main reasons for picking it. One was that it had a pretty beach area even though Bonaire is not known for its beaches. In case someone did not want to go diving, we thought it would be good to be at a resort with a nice beach. Secondly, it was an all inclusive. With a large group we didn't want to have to organize everyone for each meal. Here people could eat whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted. It didn't hurt that unlimited house beer and wine were included as well. The wines were all from Chile and they had several choices, including a Prosecco. They were all pretty good. The beer was a local Caribbean brand and, well, as Tim put it, you don't mind if the beer is a little skunky if it isn't that good to begin with. It didn't stop us from drinking plenty of it.

The restaurant at the resort was awesome. It was right on the water, literally five feet from the water. We established a regular table that we used all week where we had a beautiful view of the ocean and the setting sun every evening. The food was served buffet style but was pretty good. Everyone usually found something that they liked for every meal. So that worked out well.

The staff at the Plaza Resort was great. We had read a lot of reviews on TripAdvisor that mentioned Quincy. We soon met him and he took excellent care of us. Every night he would greet us at dinner and before we could even ask, he would bring ice buckets full of beer and wine to our table. Even away from work he was friendly. One day when we were walking to town we heard a horn honking. We looked and there was Quincy, stopping traffic while he got out of his car and waved to us. And there was the night dive too, but I'll tell that story later.

Scuba diving was the main activity of the trip and I'll dedicate some posts to cover that. But besides the diving we had a lot of fun doing other things. The main town on Bonaire is Kalendijk. It's not very big but it was close to the resort and I went into town just about every day. It was only a twenty minute walk. Just about everyone came along with me one time or another. Everyone got to pick out some kind of souvenir of the trip. Most people got tshirts while Kristan and Stephanie got pretty fused glass pendants. We had gelato at Gio's several times. It was always crowded but it was good enough to be worth the wait. Tim and I had a beer together at Bonaire Blonde, the only microbrewery on the island. And a very important thing for me - I was able to get a couple of good Bonaire tshirts.

On days when people weren't diving they could hang out at the pool area. Sandy spent most of her time there but everyone was there for some of the time. Mealtimes were always great, with a variety of food that seemed to make everyone happy. And as mentioned before, we were well supplied with beer and wine. There were many discussions that went late into the night. It was a chance for everyone to get to know people, or to renew bonds from the past.

Finally it was time to leave. We had an early morning start for the airport. The flight to Houston was uneventful. We had time to all have lunch together at Ruby's diner before we had to say goodbye. It was tough after a fun week together.

I certainly had a fantastic time. I think everyone else did too. Maybe we can do it again sometime in the future. Hopefully if we do, we won't have to wait ten years again.