Basura: How I spent my winter vacation, in Bonaire

“Live as if you were going to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were going to live forever.” — Mahatma Gandhi

Our month on Bonaire was lovely.  We had updates on the weather in West Michigan during February, and we understand it was quite brisk.  Our weather on the island was nice the whole time.  We enjoyed being outdoors, and found ourselves content to sit on the patio watching the birds, the swaying palm trees, and the small lizards and the big iguanas that explored the area.  The warm trade winds blew.

Bonaire is a small island about 50 miles from Venezuela.  It is one of the ABC Islands; Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao.  Aruba is known for the beaches, Bonaire for snorkeling and diving, and Curacao for fine dining and shopping.  Bonaire was once a Dutch colony.  It gained its independence.  With the volatility of Venezuela, considering Hugo Chavez, and now Nicolas Maduro, Bonaire voted to realign itself with The Netherlands.

Bonaire is a small island, about the geographic size of Kent County, Michigan, with a population of under 20,000 people.  The official currency is the U.S. dollar.  English, Dutch, Spanish, and the local dialect, Papiamento, are spoken.

On the south of the island, there are salt works.  Sea water is flooded by opening a channel, into what I think of as paddies, and then the channel is closed. The sun burns off the water leaving the marketable sea salt.  It is piled into big hills of salt, then loaded onto ships and taken to different destinations.  The salt ship pier supports are encrusted in coral, and it’s a fine snorkel/dive site when the ships aren’t in, which is most of the time.  Sea turtles and barracuda are frequent visitors, as well as all the usual suspects one might see in the reefs of the Caribbean Sea.

We stayed at Coral Paradise Resort a little north of largest city, Kralendijk.  Coral Paradise is a small resort, with eight rooms.  They arrange for a vehicle.  In our case it was a Wingle, a small Chinese pickup truck with a front and back seat in the cab and an open bed behind, with wooden racks for dive gear.

Bonaire has many feral donkeys and goats wandering where they wish.  I find it interesting that all the donkeys have the same brown and tan color scheme, with the goats showing great variation of color and markings.  The animals were domestic livestock many generations ago, but have been on their own for a long time.

Flamingos are around, usually standing in water, feeding, and preening.   Sometimes the big birds are flying, which is always a treat to see.  Flamingo legs look improbably thin, like three foot long pencils.  But it works for them.  Frigate birds are in the air, riding the wind currents and updrafts, seldom flapping their wings.  They are properly named magnificent frigate birds.  There are parrots and ospreys and gulls.  There are finch-like birds, and jay-like birds, and some gorgeous yellow and black ones whose name I can’t remember.

We have friends on Bonaire.  They’re a married couple originally from the U.S., but have lived in Bonaire for a number of years now.  Kenny has a Polaris RZR side by side ATV.  He invited us to join them on a ride.  Mrs. Basura declined, but the three of us went out, from their house, and went through the wilds for hours.  Every once in a while we’d hit pavement, but not often.

We went by Lake Gotomeer, full of those big beautiful pink birds.  It is believed that flamingoes get their coloration from eating a steady diet of shrimp.  Anything eaten all the time might get tiresome, but I think Mrs. Basura would last longer than most before boredom set in.  She’s fond of shrimp.  We got up into the interesting little village of Rincon, found the cliffs, overlooking the island, and went down by the salt works.

We found remnants of an old cotton plantation, long in disuse, but still with some volunteers still producing bolls after these many years.  We paused by the section wooded with lignum vitae.  The wood was prized in shipbuilding because of its hardness and density.  It was often used for making the blocks used with tackle to hoist or lower sails.  It weighs 78.5 pounds per cubic foot.  Widely accepted as the heaviest wood in the world, although there are a few others similarly dense.  This wood has been listed as an endangered species.  For a point of reference, water weighs 62.3 lbs. per cubic foot.  Thrown into water, this wood sinks.

Some beers I enjoyed:  VENEZUELAN – Polar    DUTCH – Heineken, Amstel, Amstel Bright    BELGIAN – Duval, Leffe Bruin, Leffe Blond    DOMINICAN – Presidente    BONAIREAN – Bonaire Blonde.

Margaret, Kenny’s wife, was going from one place to another, and drove along the shore.  She thought it would be nice to take a few moments to walk on the pier, where she saw an old fisherman cleaning his catch. She took out her wallet, looked inside, and said, “I have fourteen dollars. If you want to sell some of this, you take the money and give me $14 worth of fish.”  He said OK. They were red snapper and what some locals call gray snapper (my fish ID book calls the gray ones Cubera snapper). He kept scaling and cleaning fish, and they talked while he was doing it.

The entrails went into the sea, where other fish, perhaps a turtle or two, and maybe some opportunistic gulls, made short work of the offal. He provided his ideas of the best way to prepare them (baked for so long, at moderate heat). He had two plastic bags, and put half of them into one for Margaret, and kept the other.  Margaret, for her $14, went away with eight nice sized snappers, fresh from the sea, cleaned and scaled and oven ready.

She told the old fisherman, “I know this must be worth a lot more than the money I gave you.”  He said, “It’s not about the money.”

That night, we were invited to share the fish. They were excellent. We ate about half for dinner. The next day I had one for lunch. The next day Margaret went back, found the old fisherman, and gave him a very nice fruit basket.

I like to look at fish. I also enjoy eating them. On Bonaire, I ate red snapper, Cubera snapper, barracuda, wahoo, salmon, cod, and a couple of entrées from the sea insect category; scallops, and shrimp.

I snorkeled almost every day. The water is warm and unusually clear. I saw everything from huge tarpon to tiny blennies. I generally went by myself, though I did go on a boat excursion to the small, undeveloped island named Klein Bonaire, and saw the incomparably beautiful blue chromis. Mostly I snorkeled not far from the resort.

My thinking is that fish swim where they want, and wherever you are, if the fish are interesting, it’s a good spot.  Angelfish and parrot fish were everywhere.  I spent some time hovering over a sharp-tailed eel, in 4-7 feet of water, and observed him or her hunt for half an hour or so. Eels scare up more than they catch, so I wasn’t the only observer watching the scene play out. Other fish of different types followed along, snatching up those that got away from the eel.

I enjoy reading, and indulged myself. I read with a NOOK, the Barnes&Noble e-reader. Coral Paradise has WiFi. I can browse e-books on the B&N site, download samples, and order and download books. It’s easy to do, and takes only moments.  I no longer carry a load of books in my luggage. My NOOK is about the size of one paperback book.

We’ll go back next year. We’ve already made our reservations.