Hands Off (Klein Bonaire) and Salt Pier/Shore - 12 March 2001

Giant Sea Salt Piles	Thirsty yet?	Transporting to the Americas	The Seashore
White Slave Huts

We decided for our last dive on Klein Bonaire, so we signed up for one last boat dive. We asked Monique, the boat Captain, and the folks at the boat pier, "Please find us some Frogfish! We've been looking everywhere for them!"

The boat Captain said, "There's already a boat at the Frogfish site." There's only ONE, sir? Gee, don't put yourself out on our account. Sheesh.

At least it was a sparse group of divers. The trip out was fairly quick, about 30 minutes, but the waves were 3-4 foot and I was very queasy. I'm good at handling my seasickness, having plenty of experience at it, but I decided to leave my camera on the boat and get beneath the waves as quickly as possible.

As soon as we submerged, my stomach relaxed almost immediately. I laid back for the most relaxing dive of our vacation! Swimming slowly against the moderate current, or slowly gliding upside down so I could examine an intricate macro life scene, I was very proud of my buoyancy and enjoyed myself thoroughly.

We started into that current for 28 minutes and drifted 12 minutes back. I saw an amazing Grouper cleaning station! The Grouper was being cleaned by a Juvenile Spanish Hogfish, and the Hogfish was just finishing up. But then the Grouper did this amazing jiggling shake, flaring his gills, and back went the Hogfish for another round. I watched this happen several times, while the Divemaster sent me "OK" queries, not realizing the scene in front of us. Awesome!

Beth took some photos of a large Turtle burrowing in the sand, which was really neat.

After the dive, we turned in our weights, and toured the island, enjoying the amazing salt mountains and the waves crashing on the shore. The little huts are actually old "slave huts", where six slaves would be housed to work the salt flats. (This is actually a challenging dive site, "White Slave" -- white meaning "white huts", since red huts mark another dive site.)

It was a great way to say "good-bye" to this lovely island, since the next morning we hustled to check out and head for the airport.