Another week in Paradise

So I survived SCUBA BOOTCAMP! Right after class was over on friday we hit the streets and went to a local happyhour at City. Afterwards me and a few friends were craving Chinese food so we got us some tasty dinner then went back to the house to get ready for our Toga Party!

Suprisingly all 16 of us showed up in togas and ready to play flip cup. Yes, I played my first flip cup game ever haha, and I wasn't too shabby. Around 10:30 we walked to Karels bar and got our dance on and like always we started the party. We were all exhausted so headed back to the house around 1 which is early for us... to find that some of our group was skinny dipping off the dock at Yellow Sub. I did not participate in this activity, and good thing because some of the group got stung by jellyfish! ouch!

Saturday was cloudy, rainy, and overcast for the most part all day.. of course it would be because we had a day off from class. I swear I will be on this island for 4 months and not get a tan, because we are either always inside in class or in a wetsuit. But anyways I stayed in and did homework for a good part of the day. Later on we went for pizza. Of course it took like an hour to get. Everything here is always slower because they are on island time. So you need to get somewhere before you are hungry because you will be waiting and hopefully be hungry by the time your food actually arrives. Saturday night a few from my group decided to go night diving on their own. I opted out because I don't feel comfortable enough yet to go night diving without a teacher.. even with flashlights they say you can get vertigo and not know what way is up vs. down. Freaky! But they said it was awesome, so they might have convinced me to want to try it this Saturday. Afterwards we went out to Little Havanas. Of course my buddy Sennen was there and I met two other kids from Holland Lawernce and Kevin. They are here studying too until December. We also hung out with Jose for a bit. He is the bartender at Karels. We were trying to convince him to hook us up with some drinks. We left Little Havanas at about 2 and I came back and made myself a peanut butter sandwhich. I dont even like peanut butter but the super market here is very limited. NO POPTARTS, or POPCORN or MAC AND CHEESE!

On Sunday we had an island tour at 9:30, ugh so early on a day we don't have to be up. But it was really cool to see the island, especially since we dont have cars and we only get to go where the interns take us to dive. We got to see Gwadomere Lake (spelling).

The lake was absolutely except for all the black soot that covered the leaves. The soot was from a HUGE fire we had here on the island. A lightening bolt struck a Venezuelan oil plant BOPEC and the fire burned for about 3 or 4 days. The flames were huge, I am talking 300 foot high atleast. We were 7 miles away from the fire and could see the flames burning high. We would go out to Yellow Sub Dive Shop and sit on the dock just to watch the fire burn because it was a sight to see.

Anyways planes finally came and poured a foam on the fire to put it out. Well back to the lake, at the lake I saw tons of pink dots. I later found out when driving closer they were flamingoes! They were awesome I have never seen flamingoes so big and pink! Another place we visited and stopped at for lunch was Rincon. Rincon is the oldest village in Bonaire. We ate lunch at some little family run restaurant. I tried Goat soup.. not a fan. As I was eating it I look over and see 4 goats running by in a field. But some of the other local food we had wasnt bad at all. We continued our tour of the island and along the way saw many goats and donkeys. We stopped at this one outlook place with a Huge Cross on top of the mountain. It was absolutely beautiful. We also visited the slave huts, and salt pans. The salt pans are HUGE and look like giant piles of snow, it is really unique to Bonaire to have such an environment to make their own salt.

The tour was awesome but a little long... 9:30am-4:30pm. Afterwards we stopped for icecream, perfect way to end the tour, and also where all our money is going. Best Icecream Ever!

After the tour I got to skype with my bestfriend Kayte! She is in Germany now so we got to catch up and talk about all our cool adventures I miss her a crapton but am glad she is having fun and doing well!

Classes started on Monday. I had class from 9-12 not too bad and then we went to Lac Bay for a snorkel from 2-5. I saw tons of upside down jelly fish. I was so excited because I will be researching them while I am here. Along with the upside down jelly fish I saw a huge 5 ft long tarpon and barracuda! So far things are going well here but I am really starting to miss people back home! Especially my family and Jared :(

But on a good note we got a trip planned for our Regatta Break (10 days) 5 of us are going to go to Aruba for 4 nights. We will be staying at the Holliday Inn which is right where all the activities in Aruba happen. I think we will have a great time! We found super cheap airfare about 55 dollars each way, and the hotel is only 22 dollars a night divided amongst the 5 of us! So excited to show the group around Aruba. We are going to go on the Jolly Pirate and possibly try diving in Aruba as well.

Well, I have a ton of work due tomorrow by 8 am so I shall work on that now. Ayo all :)

Island Black Out, Parties, and Burns

One week down, and the weekend is finally here. I must admit this program is very demanding. But the house knew how to celebrate weekends the right way.. with or without power. We started the weekend off right by getting our hair poofed and all prettied up for our Jersey Shore party. We then had a huge pong tournament and played kings for a while until it was time to hit the town. We went to Karels. Karels is our favorite bar on the pier. They had a DJ and the whole steet was closed off and it turned into a sweet block party! We then decided to walk down a little farther to Little Havanas bar, but since it is bike week there were motorcycles everywhere and I happened to brush my leg against one that was freshly parked meaning I am now taking care of a second and third degree burn! OUCH!

Anyways, that didnt stop me... Little Havanas was boring so we went back to Karels and danced the night away. We met a guy from Bonaire named Sennen he is an amazing break dancer. Once our feet got tired of dancing and after we were drenched in sweat because it is 92+ degrees out here we headed back to the house not realizing it was about 4 am. The cool thing here is the bars do not have a closing time. The closing time is whenever they stop getting business.

On Saturday I woke up around 10 and walked into town with some friends. I had a nice lunch at Buenos Aires Cafe lots of fries and paninis. The service here is very slow though but it is kinda nice having time to just sit and talk with people and not just shove your face, and they don't bring you the bill until you ask for it so you never feel rushed to leave the restaurant. Afterwards, we decided to go snorkeling and jump off the pier until dinner time. For dinner we went to a local pizza parlor. I must say the pizza here is delicious! We then went back to the house and got ready for round 2. Of course we went back to Karels for Block Party numero dos. About half hour after we got there, the whole island went black. Total Black Out. After about an hour of complete darkness and no power the island lit back up and the party got started yet again. Lots of dancing, beers and friends made for a fun night.

Sunday I slept in til noon it was wonderful because I haven't been sleeping well here. Ate some brunch and then studied my fish for my huge AGRRA fish test. I then had to create an underwater site map of the Yellow Sub dive sites. Later on the group took a field trip to Lac Bay. Lac Bay is a gorgeous bay along with a flourishing mangroves and a sea grass bed. Lac bay is also home to many flamingoes, baracuda, sea turtles, upside down jellyfish and sea turtles. Even though I had to sit out this snorkel because of my burn I worked with the interns to come up with some sweet ideas for my independent research project.

When we left Lac Bay to return home to no power our teachers decided to put us up in a hotel.. but guess what Rachael and I didnt get to go because we had power and a/c.. but we plan on going tonight to hang out at the bar and pool and since we have a day of no homework we just have to complete our dive log. Well I am off to town now with Amanda before celebrating Bonaire I'll try to write more soon!

Diving Boot Camp

So today is Wednesday and any other Wednesday I wouldn't have class because Wednesday's are put aside for working on our independent research project. But today we had to be up and ready for class by 9 which isnt bad normally, but I havent been sleeping well here because the rooms are like saunas and I have been getting bitten by lots of bugs, so I was exhausted at class today. But, I had a dive breifing then we went to the Yellow Submarine dive shop to get ready for dive number 5 in Bonaire! This dive we learned navigation and buoyancy. We also have to find 5 objects under water of interest and map the area using distance, depth, kick cycles and barings. It is actually really interesting. We came up from our dive got showered off and had lunch. Today I had a chicken ceasar salad.. only Gibi forgot our dressing so I was eatting just like dry lettuce, not the best meal. But not to worry Gibi made up for it at dinner with his Pineapple chicken. Anyways, I had class til 5 on GPS navigation and coral identification. Afterwards, my roomie Rachael, Tom, and I walked to the grocery store to get some food and then stopped at the icecream store on the way back. We sat along the peir eating our icecream then watched the sunset. On our walk back to the house we got a lot of beeps and catcalls. The men on Bonaire like to make kissy noises at girls... apparently they don't mean anything by it but it makes you giggle and feel kind of uncomfortable. Ehh whatever haha. But I must get back to studying my corals now I got 2 big quizzes tomorrow! Can't wait til Friday we planned a Jersey Shore theme party! I can't wait, this has been the most stressful hectic week of my life.

On Monday I went to my first day of class. Let me tell you I learned right away that I am here in Bonaire to study, not here for a vacation. Right away I got bombarded with work. I had to read a 71 page Dive Manual, 2 journal articals, answer the questions that followed and memorized and be able to properly identify 41 + fish for my dive on Tuesday! Anyways, I went on my first dive of Bonaire today! I had a little bit of trouble hovering but other than that my first dive went pretty well. I saw lots of parrotfish, sargent majors, and I even saw an eel. We then went then came up took our surface interval then went right back down for dive 2. During dive 2 we had a lot of skills to cover like mask removal and replacement, and buoyancy. We then finished the dive with a tour around the reef at 60 ft. I had really bad ear pain on the way up and learned that I am unlike others. Most divers get ear squeezes on the descent but I have something known as reciprocal squeeze which I get severe ear pain on my ascent up...so I now have to train to come up slower. But hey its worth it diving is so amazing, the underwater world is just incredible!

On Tuesday I woke up to another day of intensive dive boot camp and homework. We put on our gear and swam out to the Morey blocks. A few of us were up floating on the surface while the Dive Master John worked with buddies on the CESA emergency ascent at the bottom. As I was floating there I was snorkeling and all of the sudden saw fins! I looked up and saw about 13 dolphins swim right in front of me! My eyes started to tear up because I was so happy. All I wanted to see was dolphins in the wild and right there in front of my face they were. They were jumping and just so happy to be free. Bonaire natives say it is rare to see dolphins that close to shore or even at all. They say you can normally hear them but to be able to see them and see them as close as we saw them is an amazing experience! Then we did some more skills and toured the other part of the reef. I saw some squid and min jellies. It was a good day of diving. I came home did 2 knowledge reviewed and studied more fish!

I will note here that I have been eating rather well here. We get our food catered by a man named Gibi. We get to choose from 3 options a day for lunch and dinner and the options change daily. His cooking is amazing. However, I have been drinking luke warm water... because our ice machine is broken!