Caribbean note VI

Wow! Six weeks gone and we'll be leaving for home on Saturday. This should be the last of these little blogs 'till we see you at Rose Festival next Sunday to watch Amber's team win in the Dragon Boat Races.

All the loose ends have been coming together nicely this past week and things like repairs and accounts and gas suppliers have all resolved as if to make sure our list of "must do's before we leave" won't be an excuse to stay longer.

 We've been diving more these days. Berit and a girl we met on Bonaire Talk, buddied up yesterday at a site called Karpata while I did a solo dive to 378 feet. (Nice to finally have a reliable source of Helium.) The edge of the reef is a nearly vertical wall with sand ledges and Gorgonians all the way down. After 400 feet it just keeps on going. I saw a bit of everything from big lobsters and turtles to Queen Angels and schools of Blue Tangs and Jacks.

The entry/exit at Karpata is a bit tricky with wave action and surge, especially with (3) extra sling bottles, but they worked together to drag the cylinders in and out again. The big Iguanas have become quite tame from people giving them snacks at the site; they all begged for handouts as we sorted our gear in the hot sun. After diving we stopped by one of the local restaurants for snacks,cold drinks and chit chat. It was the kind of day we had in mind when we decided to buy our little house.

Caribbean Note V

This week was a tough one for us. My friend Paul died on Monday while diving off the coast of New Jersey. Paul was the guy I dove the Submarine Spikefish with on my east coast trip last summer. We also dove the caves together in Mexico and hung out at various times as well. I won't belabor the issue, but there’s an article from his hometown paper if you care.

Other than sweating out the search for a couple of days we really haven't done much new. Berit has had a stuffed up head and sore throat, so we've stayed out of the water. She also sat on our glass top coffee table and crashed through into a pile of glass. It was pretty dramatic but she was lucky and only had a small stab would to her hip. (No stiches.) The list of all we've accomplished in the last five weeks is pretty impressive, but we've still got a ways to go before we're ready to come home in two weeks

Caribbean Note IV

This is the end of our fourth week on the island and we've been busier than ever trying to get all our ducks in a row so we can enjoy our vacation paradise. We've accomplished a lot here, but there are more loose ends than ever and every few days a new problem to add to the list. The latest was installing the gear table I built in it's proper place beside the hose bib on the dive locker side of the house. As I was digging to set the concrete blocks under the table legs, I discovered that the drain pipe from the washing machine was smashed and full of rocks. I dug all around the broken section of pipe and called a plumber to replace it. After sawing through to achieve clean ends to wok with he tried to snake out the remaining rocks only to find the pipe was truly full of them . . . so we dug until we found the end which drains into a kind of rock filled french drain system and determined the solution was to dig a big hole at the far end and push all the rocks out into the new hole.

At the same time Berit was asking why the white clothes were getting yellow stains on them and the answer was because our water was not filtered and the old iron pipes on the island were rusty inside so the first water from the pipes when you open the tap was rusty. So . . . we decided to dig up the water pipe too and install a water filter system where the city water enters our property. After digging here, there and everywhere it seemed logical to dig and finding nothing, we gave up and called for a local laborer to come the next day and "find the pipe." Which he did; about four feet down through the rockiest "soil" you can imagine. By the time he was done there was no time left in the day to dig out the hole to solve the problem with our drainage so the digger agreed to come back the next day and keep digging.
Meanwhile our plumber came back and replaced the broken section of drain pipe and installed our water filter on the water pipe and went home too. The next day no laborer showed up by late morning so I started digging and filling holes and making new ones until I was all done at 5:30. Man, what a workout!! In the new batch of pictures you'll see our problem and the solution.

Also in the new batch of pictures is the method (we were shown) for replacing missing cactus in the cactus fence. Dig a hole and put in dirt; find a cactus arm and chop it off with a machete; put the arm in the hold and voila! it will grow. We only tried one to see if it works. Maybe next trip we'll work on the cactus fence.
Anyway, we still have lots to do and only three more weeks to get it done. Berit has had an ear infection for the past week. We spent a couple hours last Monday at the clinic where she was examined and prescribed ear drops and told to stay out of the water for a week, so tomorrow will be the first time we've been in the water for awhile.

Caribbean Note III

Well it's been three weeks and this weeks Caribbean note comes from my fellow islander who is making life here really easy for me. She's doing all the girl stuff like cooking and shopping and washing clothes, while I get to do all the boy stuff like pounding nails in wood and playing with dive gear. I'm really glad we're in this together. She's a great dive buddy too!!

Caribbean Note II

We're at the end of our second week and have been diving everyday after breakfast and taking care of business and exploring the island in the afternoon. We've seen reefs covered with coral gardens and schools of brightly colored tropical fish along with big groupers and barracuda. The leeward side of the island is calm and the beaches allow easy entry into the ocean. But I want to dive the windward side where there has been so little diving done. We've scouted this other side of the island and have seen some of the roughest coastline ever with sharp jagged rock sculpted by the wind driven breakers. The shoreline looks deadly. Where there is an occasional break the rollers roar through with huge waves that crash and surge onto the rocky beach. 

I haven't found a way to get into the water, or more to the point, a way to get back out. We met a group of people who are friends of our dive buddies and went to dinner with them a couple of times. They are from Vancouver Island and dive the same sites we do in the Pacific Northwest. Two of the couples are buying property here so we'll soon have a local contingent of Puget Sound divers on Bonaire. Small world. We've purchased a dive truck and I'm building an outdoor workbench to better manage rinsing and assembling our gear.