"Hey, do you live here?"

Before I begin, I must state that some cruise ship tourists today thought that Crystal and I were locals here on da island!  It's probably because we are so sun-kissed it's insane.  And we actually know where we're going in town.  But anyway, hasn't it been a little while since we've last spoken?

Well, I know it was only on Wednesday but that seems like a lifetime now that I've become a professional WINDSURFER. Yes, that's right, you heard me, I learned how to windsurf on Friday!!  A few of us rented bikes and biked all the way to Sorobon on Lac Bay (see map below) to learn to windsurf at a place where people come from all over the world!  I hate to brag, but I was killin' it out there.  It was a little bit of a challenge at first, but once I got the hang of things, it was really fun!!  The board was huge and the sail was small pretty much ensuring that any noob would stand up, but still!  I was turning left and right and there was a good stretch of time that I didn't fall that I was going back and forth just gliding along, having a total blast!!  And the fun didn't end there! 

Yesterday we took our bikes down to the southern region of the island for some exploration and some swimming.  We made it all the way to Pink Beach (see map) and went to two beaches for swimming.  Unfortunately, the snorkeling was sub-par due to all of the sedimentation from the sand (corals don't exactly like a lot of sand), but the water was still so beautiful and refreshing, I can't really complain.  Everyone's been really active these last couple of days since we've all had so much free time. 

Actually, on Thursday (yeah, I know I'm going out of order here), I went on two dives with my research buddy, Wiley.  He was hammering rebar into the ground to create plots in which to observe fish species (I mostly tried not to sink and kill corals from holding all the wicked heavy rebar).  It was pretty fun to help him out with his research because I was just his assistant so I didn't have to make the decisions and call the shots, ya know? 

On the other hand, my research has a new development: there were these panels that I put in the water last week to get covered in algae and stuff so I could eventually put them out on the reef to see if baby sea urchins settle on them, and guess what?  They went missing.  Yes, nowhere to be seen.  So that's nice.  I'm going to have to see if I can come up with a Plan B (ugh, but hey, that's science fer ye!).

Let's see, what else has been going on around here?  Nothing much, really.  Tomorrow we'll be dissecting lionfish and looking at their stomach contents so needless to say I'm looking forward to that!!  They said that the pair that dissects and measures the most gets a free tank card (to use for diving, of course) so I'm gonna have to find a good partner, that's all I'm sayin'. 

So on the bottom-ish right is Lac Bay, where we biked to on Friday, and on the bottom-ish left is Pink Beach, which is one of the beaches we went to on Saturday.  Remember, we live like right in front of Klein Bonaire, basically in front of where it has a little point.  We're pretty intense bikers now.

Had to have a little photo shoot next to one of many murals along the road near the airport.  This was my favorite painting.  And that's not a mountain behind the wall, it's a roof.  (I thought it was a mountain from this picture, actually...whoopsie)

Yes, I have weird toes.  Let's just ignore that and look at the sand and the water and the sky! Oh my!

Our pet, Hernando.  Found this little bugger chillin' on our wall the other night.  Not sure exactly where he went, though...

Thanks again for checking out ma blog!  I love you all!

Peace,

Catalina