Tiny Island Life

The Keys were small …. Bonaire is smaller. I haven’t even started my job yet and I’m already seeing people I know around town.

We’ve been in our house just over a week and are pretty well settled at this point. We still have some logistics to take care of but we’re a bit stuck on the remaining items until our contracts come from the Netherlands and we can file for residency. Once we file and get that magical stamp in our passports it’ll unlock the next level for us. Until then, we might as well DIVE!

So what does the magical stamp unlock? So many things! Our access to healthcare being the biggest. It also gives us the ability to get a local bank account and a drivers license which we need for work. Hopefully we can start those processes in the next week or two.

We haven’t even unpacked our cameras yet. That tells you how busy we’ve been but we have managed to go on a few dives. And you know what? Sometimes it’s really nice diving with no camera. When you have a camera, it’s a different dive, and sometimes I just want to be in the moment. I still have to pinch myself that we live here. I can’t believe we have world class diving minutes from our house. This will really help us hone our photography skills. The only way to improve is practice, practice, practice and it’ll be easy for us to shoot, evaluate, make changes, and try again here.

I can already tell that life here will be quieter than our life in the Keys which was already pretty quiet and chill. That’s all I’ll say on the comparison aspect. I have a terrible habit of comparing places that aren’t comparable. No two places are so I’m not sure why I do it. I’ve done it my whole life and it just detracts from the present moment. Both places are awesome in different ways and that’s perfectly okay! It’s past time to break that habit so you won’t hear me do it again (I hope!).

We also discovered the movie theater here. Such a nice surprise! Friends invited us to see Yesterday last night and we had a great time. It’s two minutes down the street and outdoors. I just need to use bug spray next time because the mosquitoes here and everywhere absolutely love me.