Bonaire – Week 1
Week 1 has been all about getting our new place set up. We only had our temporary apartment for four nights so we’ve been busting our butts getting the new place livable. Shout out to Diver’s Paradise Apartments for being so accommodating! You were a godsend the first few days! I highly recommend staying there if you’re coming to Bonaire and like a self-catering place. Great location and nice fully equipped apartments.
We’ve been in our new house for 3 nights now and everyone is settling in well. I still can’t believe I live here now with my dogs! So much planning went into this move but it still seems unreal that we pulled it off.
For our start-up budget, I made a spreadsheet based on prices of everything from the shops in town. Buying everything new would have been the worst case scenario but you have to plan for the worst and optimize it from there. In the weeks leading up to our move I stalked the for-sale groups for secondhand furniture and we scored some awesome deals. Our place is pretty much furnished except for the guest room, organizational type things, and lighting which we somewhat desperately need but I’ll wait till it comes available secondhand. I cooked by our portable camp light last night 🙂 Buying so many things second hand slashed our start-up costs in half! Win! I’m treating myself to a nice yoga mat since mine didn’t make the cut. And a vacuum because as much as I love my dogs, dog hair on everything drives me nuts.
The only new items we bought are our bed & fridge. Oh the fridge! Can we pause for a minute in appreciation of refrigeration? Our first night we didn’t have anything … the tap water here is about 100 degrees and there’s only AC in the bedrooms so here we sat in our 90 degree living room drinking 100 degree water. I was so grateful to crack that first ice tray! I know the dogs were excited for a giant ice cube in their water too. I love using giant cocktail ice cubes for everyday use.
Which brings me to the other house surprise. We don’t have hot water. A lot of places here have electric water heaters in the shower that heats just the shower water but I think they’re a bit of a death trap so we were really careful not to rent a place that had one – goal achieved! – but we also don’t have hot water anywhere in the house, haha! Details! It’s fine now that it’s summer, we’ll see once rainy season rolls around. It’ll be good for our water bill though since we’re not spending much time in there.
Next up, a truck! We’ve been tackling things in priority order and it’s now reached the top of the list. That’s the last big thing we need to do. That and apply for our residency visas but we’re waiting on some paperwork from the Netherlands to do that, hoping to knock that out next week.
Once we settle the truck tomorrow we’re going diving! I cannot wait to get out there! I went snorkeling yesterday and today and it was awesome to get in the water.
Hope you all had a great day!