I recently had the opportunity to spend my Thanksgiving holiday visiting dear friends on the tranquil island of Bonaire in the Netherland Antilles. It’s near the islands of Curacao and Aruba, and the primary languages are Dutch, English, Spanish and Papiamentu (an indigenous Creole language).

Bonaire is a well-known diving and snorkeling destination as I discovered on the flight over, which was filled with divers from Canada and the United States. There are many well-known dive resorts there, and several are AAA rated.

I spend almost 200 nights a year in hotels while inspecting for AAA, so when I travel for fun I enjoy the home-like feel of apartments, condos or cottages, and I was lucky enough to rent the waterfront apartment just below my friends. One of the fun aspects of traveling this way is being able to go to local markets to stock the kitchen.

The Warehouse Bonaire is quite an adventure. Most items are imported from Europe, specifically Holland, and needless to say it was nice to have Dutch speaking guides to translate food labels.

Much of the fresh produce comes from South America, as Bonaire is less than 50 miles from Venezuela. The variety of packaged products is ever-changing based on what the week’s cargo ship contains.

The island is less than 25 miles long, so the first afternoon we took a driving tour of the south end of the island that included the salt flats. As this was one of the earliest industries on the island and harvesting continues today, I made it a point to buy Bonaire sea salt as Christmas gifts for my foodie friends.

Adjacent to the salt flats are groups of small slave huts where workers rested during the week. On Fridays the slaves would walk seven hours to their homes in the Spanish settlement of Rincon only to return again on Sunday.

Also along this southern route is the Flamingo sanctuary. Bonaire has a large nesting population of these colorful birds, and they can be seen feeding at various locations throughout the island.

At the most southern tip of the island is the Willemstoren Lighthouse. At the end of our day we stopped by Lac Bay Beach for frosty cold Heinekens and to watch the wind surfers.

On the northern tour of the island we spent a day driving the narrow roads in the Washington-Slaagbaai National Park. This desert paradise was once a large thriving plantation that produced aloe, charcoal and goats.

There are many feral goats and donkeys from the time of the Spanish that have become somewhat of an attraction (and nuisance) on the island. Throughout the day we stopped at many areas for bird watching and counted 32 different bird sightings.

On another day we visited the town of Rincon, the island’s original Spanish settlement and the Mangazina di Rei Cultural Park. This living history museum is built around Bonaire’s second oldest stone structure, the government’s warehouse that stored provisions for salt mine slaves. A guided tour is recommended to fully understand the island’s culture.

We did enjoy a few meals out on the town. One was a wonderful restaurant called At Sea, where we enjoyed excellent seafood and attentive service on the open air terrace.

Later, we enjoyed Rum Runner’s Restaurant. It was a lively evening, and we were happy to share our table with several Dutch visitors.

One of the highlights of my trip was seeing the arrival of Sinterklaas (St. Nicholas) and his zwarte pieten (helpers) by boat. There were large crowds of families and children on the docks to welcome him. This annual tradition was one that our friends shared with my children when they were small.

Sinterklaas, riding a white horse, visits each home once a year on December 4th. Children put out one of their shoes filled with hay or grass for his horse, and the next morning the shoe will have chocolate or small gifts in exchange.

At the end of the week, I was happy to volunteer a morning at the Bonaire animal shelter. It is a refuge for animals, mostly cats and dogs. They are well taken care of and many are adopted. It is operated on donations and run by loyal hard-working volunteers.

We also sailed to the tiny uninhabited island of Klein Bonaire and other reef locations around Bonaire for fantastic snorkeling. Unlike most American visitors to this island, I do not scuba dive and being a desert girl I’m not a very good swimmer.

However, I did enjoy snorkeling the shallow reefs. My most challenging and memorable experience was swimming from the sail boat in a very deep mooring to the reef and turtle beach at Klein Bonaire.

I started to panic from the black ocean and strong current but then found myself surrounded by a large school of beautiful, vibrant blue fish. I felt that I was being hugged by Blue Tang love which calmed me, and I continued my swim for a final bit of snorkeling in this beautiful island paradise.