Ashton Abroad: Day 4

Bon dia! It's been four days since I arrived in Bonaire and I've already got a pretty good tan. (And I've been wearing SPF 70 every day!) Every day has been sunny, 80 degrees, and clear skies. The water is incredibly clear, and there's fish everywhere. Some of the best fish viewing is in just two or three feet of water! There's no sandy beaches here, but we share a dock with the Yellow Sub Dive Shop and spend a lot of time snorkeling and sunbathing from it.

There's ten of us here on the program. We live in a house with air conditioning and hot water, which is rare for Bonaire. Almost everyone here runs, so I always have someone to run with! We can run right along the water, too. The first two weeks of the program is Diving Boot Camp, where we dive every day and develop skills. By the end of this program we will (hopefully) all be certified in nitrox, rescue, night, deep, and scientific diving, and also CPR/first aid. After boot camp the real classes will begin, but we'll still get to dive a lot.

The island is small. It's 24 miles long and in some places only 6 miles wide. The people here speak Papiamentu, which is a combination of Dutch and Spanish. I have a guidebook and I've been trying to learn a little. The town, Kralendijk (pronounced Crawl-en-dike), is tiny. We can walk there in ten minutes, and the entire town can be covered end-to-end in about five minutes. There's a grocery store called Cultimara, which doesn't sell milk but makes up for it by selling nutella for $4. There's also an ice cream shop with reasonable prices for waffle cones!

Now for some pictures! (Click to enlarge, and also in my album at the bottom of the page.)