Bonaire

Bonaire,

January 19 was Bonaire. Our excursion was to begin at 9:35 so we had room service bring us our breakfast. That meant we had lots of time to relax and get ready. They brought a grand dish of strawberries for our cereal. All of the fresh fruit is one of the reasons why I love to cruise.

When we had our first glimpse at Bonaire it surprised us that we did not recognize it.. I guess they have done a lot of work on the Port since we were here last.

We came to the pier early and we looked around at a few of the shops. Before the tour began we had a nice conversation with one of the guides. He hopes to go to Canada one day.

Our bus arrived and I personally was surprised to learn that it was an old Bluebird school bus. It was brightly painted and had all of the windows removed. I guess that is the island version of air conditioning.

This tour was not what we expected. We thought we were going to a beach with sand and the ability to wade along the waters edge. But this was a coral beach and you could not walk in the water. It was sharp coral. To get into the water you had to walk up on a platform and then descend a ladder. The depth of the water is still unknown to me because Ken went into the water and he could not reach to bottom. You who know me know that I did not go into the water.

We each received a free drink. It was fruit punch and you could have it with or without rum. Because it was so sweet I did not have one but I did get it and had the rum added for Ken.

On the sand there were lots of umbrellas and chaise lounges. I choose one in the shade and Ken of course picked one in the sun. After about an hour we moved to the pool area. This area was very nice with padded chairs and washrooms and showers. I went into the water and we spent the rest of our time in this area.

We were returned to the ship in our school bus. We were back on board by one o’clock. We did not stop to shop.

We decided to order room service for lunch. We shared a club House sandwich and Ken had his piece of chocolate cake, I had a cookie.

We just relaxed for the afternoon and before we knew it it was time for sail away. We had drinks with Fred and Mary and then headed to the dining room. We had not been underway for more than an hour when the captain came on the intercom and announced that we had a sick crew member and we would be turning around and heading for Bonaire so we could get that crew member to the hospital. We were back in our room and watched off our balcony as the Pilot boat arrived, the ship stopped and the crew member was placed on it and taken off to the hospital.

Perhaps it was because of the heat or just the fact that we had been busy we were both tired and we decided not to go to a show and we called it a night.

So our day was not what we expected but it was a great day . Tomorrow is a sea day. In fact there will be 2 glorious days to relax.

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