A frog, a pigeon, Ono!

We left Grenada around 6pm and had a really nice sail to Bonaire. We had following winds and seas and put up our ballooner for a super comfortable ride.

Bonaire ended up being a real surprise. We had planned on stopping there only for a few days to cut our trip to Panama but were stunned by the beauty and transparency of the water.

After a day of walking around the town we decided to go and have a chat with the dive shops to see if I could do my PADI Rescue diver course.

The first dive shop we went to offered to do the course in 2 days which I thought was good since we hadn’t decided to stay for more then a few days. But after walking around some more I noticed a sign for Gooddives which offered a 50% discount on some of the Rescue Diver courses for the month of may (it was called May Day specials).

It turned out the dive shop was the one just across from our moorings on the other side of the road. James had seen people training for what seemed like the rescue diver course and had told me the instructor seemed really good. Well he was right! I signed up for the Rescue Diver Course and was shocked at how amazing and how seriously our instructors and the whole dive shop took the course. It made me realize how terrible my previous instructors had been and how much I needed to learn. After discussing all of that with both James and Andrew & Lindsey everyone decided to sign up for a PADI course. James and Andrew did their Advanced Open Water and Lindsey did the Scuba Diving Discovery course. After listening to James telling me all he had done during his dives I was even more shocked at how bad my own Advanced Open Water course had been. I had done the strict minimum while Gooddive gave James and Andrew a more comprehensive course.

For a week James and I tag teamed taking care of the kiddos while one of us was off diving. I spent the first few days in the classroom learning and watching the videos and then it was time for real life training. For the rest of the week other instructors (sometimes with a client) would pretend to pass out in the water or panic, while in the office people kept passing out or falling off ladders! Although it was all for show it was a fantastic training because they would often do it with no one around so that you had to take action and couldn’t ask or rely on anyone else. I have never learned so much in a PADI course and really wish we could have stayed longer so I could have done many more. Sadly we had to move on and after 10 or so days in Bonaire we headed to Curacao for some grocery shopping and chandleries!