Having completed his Divemaster course, Luke Evans continues his island adventure in Bonaire on a six-week internship at Buddy Dive Resort
The second week of my Divemaster internship started very different, as I had a special guest join me on my adventure – my girlfriend Brooke, who had flown out from England to experience the beauty of Bonaire firsthand herself. While I was at work, she could make herself busy by ‘tanning and lazing by the pool’ – her words not mine – and this meant after work and on my days off, we had lots planned.
For the start of the week it was very much the same thing – always the morning rush of boats and getting everything ready, as well as feeling slightly more a part of the team as I was given a dive team shirt and a name badge. So with ‘all the gear’, I went back to helping guide on lots of different boats with different guests everyday.
A large part I forgot to mention in detail in the first week was moving into my staff accommodation, which was an apartment about six minutes away from Buddy Dive – Papa Cornez Apartment C with my new roommate Christion. It’s a lovely little place with supermarkets close, as well as an easy commute to Buddy Dive on my handy new electric scooter – a massive change to driving my car, as well as a tractor and other machines from where I work at home. Definitely a lot smaller!
At the end of the week, after racking up lots of experience in guiding and most importantly docking and tying up the boats, Brooke and I had some plans to put into action – as well as getting her set up to do a Discover Scuba dive as she had never done it before and wanted to experience what it was like to be a diver. She had come on the boats before, but just as a snorkeller.
First up we went to the donkey sanctuary, which is a must do on the island. A non-profit sanctuary that helps the donkeys of Bonaire, picking them up from the streets and giving them a home. Its such an amazing place where you can see not only adult donkeys, but baby and juvenile donkeys, flamingos, tortoises and iguanas up close. They have a drive-through area which lets you drive around a plot of land that houses nearly 840 donkeys, which are all very friendly and come say hello and to get a scratch or are to looking for food (if you have any). Brooke was definitely a favourite as she got swarmed by lots and lots of donkeys everytime we stopped! This was not the last time we would visit as you can come back many times and get different experiences.
For my other day off, Brooke and I went down to Salt Pier with some snorkel gear and saw her first turtle – well, actually first five turtles as it is the ‘go to spot’ at around 5.30pm for turtles. After this we had some nice food at one of the many food trucks of Bonaire. We also managed to do some sightseeing and visited 1000 Steps again, but this time with Pelican Pizza (which I highly recommend) as well as shopping around Kralendijk, picking up some souvenirs and getting ice cream at the famous Gios.
