More diving and the National Park

Last Monday we moved from the Black Durgon Inn (which was a little quiet and far out of town) to Wannadive Hut  (http://www.wannadive.com/) which is in town and has a bar. We have a studio room so can cook our own food which we need to because there are no cheap restaurants on Bonaire. It's actually renowned as having some of the best restaurants in the Caribbean!

Tuesday we were invited to go diving with a couple of guys staying here from the US (see http://www.tacomascubacenter.com/ for the dive shop they run if interested in diving near Seattle (Brr!)). We headed up to the Washington Slagbaai National Park with a truck laden down with 15 cylinders and 5 sets of dive gear. Extra air was added to the tyres before we left! Note the the roads in the park are untarmacced and generally 4 wheel drive only.

We left a little later than planned due to some excess beer (not us) on Monday night but made it up to the park around 11am. Very rough country and hot and dry. The track around the park is one way and takes around 3 hours to drive with 2 hours to the cafe stop after you've started. We stopped a couple of times on the way to the dive sites at an area where you can clearly see the uplifted reefs, a blowhole and an old lighthouse. At every stop there were lizards and iguanas swarming to the car looking for food. We also saw many wild goats and donkeys.

Our first dive site for the day was Boka Bartol. A mild surf entry and then a fair surface swim out to the site. A nice long dive with beautiful coral and lots of life. We saw a foot long lobster at 29m - biggest I've ever seen and our first turtle of the trip. Just a small hawksbill but lovely nonetheless. After a short surface interval we did our second dive at Playa Benge. Another surf entry (the sea is a little rougher in the park compared with further south) and  a swim out over the shallow reef and sand channels. More good coral and fish life and a buzz by a metre long jack.

Unfortunately, we didn't have time for another dive in the park as we needed to be in the water by 2:30 to allow for enough time to drive back to the exit of the park by the 5pm closing time. Instead we stopped for at the park cafe where we ate our picnic lunch and ccould see more wild goats and flamingoes! On the drive back we had to slow for a young donkey that had got separated from its mother on the road and couldn't work out how to get off the road. Aaah!