A Week in Paradise....Part 1

Bonaire is a beautiful island off the coast of Venezuela, part of the Caribbean Netherlands. Together with Aruba and Curaçao, it makes up what is known as the "ABC Islands". It is warm, arid and, surprisingly, humid. And it is fringed with pristine coral reefs, making it a divers' and (in our case) snorkelers' paradise.

So here is a brief photo tour of Bonaire.

As we landed, we could see the beautiful turquoise water along the coast, with the darker reef beyond. We couldn't wait to explore it:

Flamingo Airport was, quite literally, flamingo colored. Bright Pink!

Our home for the week was Sunset Beach cottage, perched on the coast south of Kralendijk. The beach in front of our house was a dive/snorkeling spot called Punt Vierkant (Vierkant Point).

Each dive/snorkel spot on Bonaire is marked with a yellow rock. Janet took this photo of the one at our house:

And, as advertised, the sunsets were spectacular. Every. Single. Night.

They were even better when a cruise ship sailed by. This is a Club Med ship:

This is the view from the kitchen table looking West:

OK, enough about the house. The island was beautiful! The largest town, Kralendijk, had a beautiful harbor:

Made even lovelier by Elena posing in front of a Windjammer ship:

And it was very colorful:

With lots of street art:

It is a small island (111 square miles total), with diverse topography and interesting flora and fauna. The southern part of the island is very flat. And one of the area's major exports is salt. Much of Bonaire's southern half has been made into a giant system of ponds and pools which evaporate to produce salt. The salt layers are harvested once a year, washed with a mixture of seawater and brine and screened into different sizes.

The salt pans are green/turquoise in the early stages of production and pink/rose in the later stages. I love the crust of crystallized salt along the edges of the pans. It was very sparkly. And that is crystalline salt ready for export in the background:

The briny water in the pans is perfect for brine shrimp, the favorite food of flamingos. We spied these two having their breakfast:

Looking north along the beach toward the salt pier:

Salt has been an important part of the local economy for 150+ years. In fact, the initial labor was provided by slaves, who slept in these extremely small cabins. The dark side of the island's history.

The salt was divided into different grades, and the collection point for each was designated by a different colored obelisk. Ships anchored near the obelisk of the salt grade they had purchased, and the salt was carried out in baskets to the ships:

The Northern end of Bonaire is hilly. I wouldn't call it mountainous, the highest point is 790 ft. above sea level, but it was very hilly. Most of it is covered by the Washington Slagbaai National Park.

The Northern coast is rocky. This is a blowhole (a marine geyser, characterized by water flowing in and blowing out through a sea cave):