Bonaire - 9/16/05
There are no happy fun underwater pictures today, however our above water pictures may be seen at this great link
We woke this morning to quite the thunderstorm, with lots of rain and wind and all that stuff. It was quite the fun. Today is the most unhappy day of the trip, since we get to spend it packing. And with all the gear we have, that is not a trivial task. There is the dive gear, which consists of buoyancy compensators, regulators, find, masks, repair equipment, wet suits, etc., and the photo gear which consists of more pieces than most people imagine. Housings, strobes, strobe arms, strobe arm connectors, repair equipment, spare o rings, grease, batteries (shitloads of batteries), chargers, lenses, camera bodies, memory cards, ports, etc. Then there is the regular stuff you have to pack for vacation. Put it all together, and we each have approximately 120 lbs of baggage that thankfully is on wheels.
On the last day, one should not dive too close to one's flight. DAN says 12 hours but we stretch it a bit. We had the option to dive this morning, but chose not to since we are pretty well exhausted by the great time we had. The "last day" is also the "scuba equipment drying day" in hopes that things dry enough before you have to stuff them in the dive bags where they will spent a mushy journey home.
And, of course, the list of things that have to be done when we get home goes through one's head...as the brain begins to seep out the ears. Oh well. Such is life. Maybe someday we can live here :-)