Steve & Kelly come to visit in Bonaire
02 July 2008 | ABC's
Scott Trefethen
So often in life we get busy with jobs, kids and living that we find ourselves drifting away from our friends. It was a tremendous pleasure to find that though separated by 3000 miles for many years our friendship with Steve & Kelly has lasted the test of time.
Within minutes of their arrival it seemed we had just seen each other last week. Talk centered on our respective children and families.
We are a really neat pair of couples when we get together. Jean and Steve are so much alike as are Kelly and myself. It lead to many moments of laughter through the week as we saw the similarities in both our strengths and weaknesses.
As the days passed we spent many hours swimming in the clear azure waters off Bonaire learning the names of many colorful and attractive reef fish. Our evenings filled with sitting in the boat's cockpit sipping drinks watching amazing Caribbean sunsets.
We spent a couple days touring the island. Here we saw pink flamingos and large iguana. There was land sailing and visiting the site of ancient Arawak Indian rock paintings. We liked to stop frequently and see the arid landscape. Bonaire is a desert surrounded by the sea. Tall cactus grows all over and every plant seems covered in long sharp thorns. There are fantastic rock formations left by the receding ocean over the millennia. Many of these have caves and overhangs that shelter wild honeybee hives. To our surprise we ran across heard of wild donkey. One of which walked up to the car a few weeks before when Jean and the kids were on the north shore. The animal helped itself to a large bag of potato chips. Despite a very mild scolding the donkey displayed no signs of guilt for his thievery.
As a treat Kelly and Steve took us out for pizza one evening. We arrived early but there was a tremendous wait to be seated. As is the case with most parents we opted to do take out and eat on the beach with the sun going down. But as so often happens in the islands we were still waiting for pizza when the sunset and had to take our wonderful dinner back to the boat and watch the stars come out. Only last night three planets had been in direct alignment over the western sky. We joked of the illuminate and the joining of the magical pieces of asteroid in the Movie Tomb Raider.
One of the highlights of their visit was the instant attraction between our kids and Steve and Kelly. They began calling them Aunt Kelly and Uncle Steve. Stevie was glued to Steve's side pretty much all the time and Kelly and Juli did some wonderful female bonding while brushing each other's hair sitting on the stern.
Our week with Kelly and Steve seemed to evaporate before our eyes. We have great memories of them having such fun with the crew of the Omarsea. It was one of those special times together when you really hate to see it end.
We are looking forward to getting together with Steve, Kelly and their children in the near future