Caribbean Note VIII

Wow!! Last week, so last note. We'll be coming home on Saturday.

While we know you all are experiencing much worse weather than we, it is still pouring here. It has rained seven of the last eight days, and even though we're sitting on the patio in boxers and a nightgown (I'm not wearing the nightgown) the temperature has dropped to 25C (77F) and feels downright chilly! There is so much rain that our neighbors yard is a lake and the walkway in front of our house (the Grand Canal) is deeper than we've ever seen it. Last year it didn't rain from the end of October until the first of April and this Fall it has done nothing but rain; rain and more rain.

You're probably sick of hearing about our construction project, but it's still our everyday news; needless to say we'll have to finish painting outside when we come back in March. What painting we've done is trying to wash away with all the water! Yesterday we gave up and planted our garden and finished placing our coral and white stone gravel. We think it looks very nice, even thought the garden wall is still just primer white instead of Antillean yellow.

The big tree is down and gone and inside the new miniblinds are up and look great. The computer desk and lamps and switch plate covers and new curtain rods and drink fridge and all the little things we've done this trip make the house much more livable and comfortable. (Next time new towels!)

We went diving on Sunday (in the rain) at two of our favorite sites, Chocogo and Invisibles. We had a nice long last dance with the fishes and eels and turtles abut missed seeing the big Manta Ray our friends saw cruising the reef last week. I never did get my new scooter put together, but that leaves something to look forward to next time. When we come back the first of March we will be staying for three months until the end of May, so please think of us when you make your vacation plans, we'd love to have you come and stay as long as you can.

Nine weeks seems like a long time to be away from family, but it's such a short time on the island. It seems like just last week we were watching men dig trenches and pour footings.

Oh, well; we'll be home in just a few days. Hope you are all well and happy!!

Caribbean Note VII

Wow!! When it rains in Bonaire it doesn't bother with a little drizzle or "Oregon Mist". It has rained hard five of the last eight days. It has rained so much that we've been amazed by the sheer volume of water gushing off our roof. We've renamed the walkway in front of our house The Grand Canal and our driveway is our Family Lake. People can't use the sidewalks downtown because of the spray from cars driving along the flooded streets. The stores are out of milk and fresh produce 'cause the port in Curacao is so deep in standing water the container ships can't be loaded. Our friend said he thought he saw Noah gathering lumber last week?!

Needless to say, the rain has caused delays in our construction project so instead of diving this week we'll be painting and planting, if our rain God allows. All the inside work is done and we're pretty happy with the result but outside we even had to rebuild a section of our cactus fence that fell down because of the soggy ground.

The mosquitos have been crazy!! We're going through bug spray (Off!) like it was water and even Rexx is snapping at them when they buzz around his ears and butt!!

The death toll in our house mouse campain is up to an even dozen :( and I'm beginning to wonder if we're going to have to depopulate the whole island before they stop coming to our house. Unfortunately, our trap chopped off the tail of one of our resident tree lizards. Who would've thought that lizards like peanut butter?

So, about now I imagine you're all wondering why you should visit. Sounds like a great place to be except for all the work and rain and bugs and rats and when it's not raining it's all about the scorching heat and crowds of cruise ship tourists?!? All I can tell you is that the coolness of life here far outweighs the little inconveniences.

We took our Canadian friends out to Paradise Moon and had a wonderful dinner at a table overlooking the ocean. The sunset was spectacular and since they too are divers we have lots of common experience in the underwater world we love so much.

Every time we pass by the sailboats in the harbor we see people on the boats going aout their daily routines onboard and think of my son and picture him living aboard his sailboat (with Stephen Stlls singing Southern Cross in the background) and traveling around the Caribbean Sea and one day visiting us and mooring here in the harbor. So in spite of all the "surprises and unique opportunities" presented by island life, we're very happy here!

Two more weeks and home again to Oregon. Hope you are all well and happy too!

Caribbean Note VI

We took a break from work this week and managed to do seven nice long dives in seven days. That might not seem like a lot to hard-core divers, but if you consider that up to this week we'd done five dives in five weeks, this week was a lot more like VACATION! We netted a couple more lionfish, including another one Berit got solo, and have to conclude that the population is growing beyond any ability to control it. We saw the two biggest fish ever yesterday; they looked like Rockfish from the Puget Sound they were so big.

We're supposed to go diving today with the kids from the study abroad program, but it's raining cats and dogs and that prospect doesn't look too good.

We started off the week with the tail end of weather from hurricane Tomas. Some rain, and a wind reversal (from the West) causing ocean swells and surge that came crashing ashore so dramatically on the West side of the island that it took out the dive resort docks (Buddy Dive, Sand Dollar and Captain Don's) that were unprotected by our little offshore island Klein Bonaire. The previous damage done by Omar, two years ago, took out those same docks and all the rest along the west coast as well, including a few houses. So, Tomas was very mild in comparison; and no reef damage either.

We've been hanging out from time to time with the other American Ex-Patriots at the new incarnation of the Paradise Moon Restaurant and have met some interesting people there. We listen (kind of spellbound) to stories of decades of life on Bonaire from people who are local celebrities in their own way and we met the island expert birder who took us out to a number of swampy places where we quietly waited and listened for squawks and squeaks with our binoculars at the ready in order to see (and check off on our lists) some of the 210 different species of birds on the island. It was really quite enjoyable and now Berit has even more motivation to keep the bird feeders in our yard full of seed and sugar. We've identified at least 18 different birds that come to our yard.

The iguanas come regularly and we have a "pet" named Splitty (because of his forked tail) that we have been watching since he was tiny in the Spring that now takes papaya out of Berit's hand. We've been told that it's good luck to have a "house mouse" and, from time to time we'd see one running along our

gutter or on top of our wall. But this trip, we felt like they were increasing in size and number due to our providing food for the birds, et. al. and decided to put out a couple of traps. In three days we've caught six of these guys who look a whole lot more like rats than Mickey.

Next week we have to get back to work. There are rocks to move and cactus to plant and new construction to paint and mini blinds to hang and on and on. The good news is we think after this trip our "remodeling" will be all done (for a while) and we can enjoy our little house more and work on it less when we return in February. With just three weeks left we're starting to think of Oregon more and are looking forward to seeing you all in December.

Caribbean Note V

It's Sunday evening and of all the notable events of the past week I think missing the Verbort Sausage festival might be the most significant. If I'd thought of it earlier I might have asked for a volunteer to make the trek out to Verbort to pick up a years supply of sausage for us. I suppose it's a good thing though; we don't need the "bad" food and we didn't ruin another set of clothes by standing around the burn barrels for three house drinking beer and swatting the sparks and burning embers off while we waited for our turn at the dinner.

Our contractors are finished and we have removed trees and pruned and built and filled and arranged so much in our yard that the iguana's don't know how to navigate in our trees any longer. As we sat enjoying our new yard an iguana crashed through the branches and clunked, dazed, onto the concrete near where we were sitting. Rexx ran over in attack mode and it was all we could do to catch and hold him (Rexx) back until the iguana regained his senses and escaped back into the trees. We had four all at once yesterday eating the papaya that Berit puts out for them.

We dove Tolo and Candyland today with the study abroad boys. Saw all the usual suspects and many turrtles and a lobster. No less than four lionfish escaped us. I think Darwin is at work here. The ones we catch are dim witted and the ones that escape are quick and smart and have above average children who grow up to be quick and smart too.

Today is the twentieth anniversary of our first date and Berit and I are going to the grand opening of the Paradise Moon Restaurant in it's new location on the waterfront. We ended up at the Hotcake House at two in the morning that night so we hope tonight is at least that good.

Not much to say about the elections. More good than bad, I think, and in two years we hope the economy is in much better shape than now.

Caribbean Note IV

Hi Everybody,

Happy Halloween!

Nice to hear from many of you!  It's easy to forget about the election and the World Series and all the hubbub of life back in the states.

Ian and Danica's pictures are posted on the web now and there are great shots of each of you.
http://www.printroom.com/event.asp?evgroupid=239&domain_name=katiejervis&group_id=239

Our construction project has consumed us this past week and in spite of the frayed nerves we've gotten a bunch done.  The electrician is due to arrive any minute to run conduit and wire in the garden for lights, then the construction crew can complete the concrete work and provide a foundation to install the lamp poles we built.  (After looking everywhere and finding nothing we liked, we fabricated our own.)  The big debris pile is gone from the driveway and the stones and sand are waiting to be assembled as a pathway through the front yard from the porch to the front gate.

We're also having a big tree taken out (it's roots are cracking the walkway adjacent to the patio and on and on.)

We had visitors (meg divers) from Canada this week and finally had dinner with out Aquatic Sports buddy John who's here teaching the OSU and UofO students enrolled in the marine biology program at CIEE (the lab on the island that studies reef ecology et al.)

Hurricane Tomas is passing to the north of us and should give us some weather and three meter ocean swells, but will not effect us otherwise, except to keep the cruise ships away.  We've come to look unfavorably on their arrival and the general crush of activity while they're in port.  Now that we've found this little island paradise, we want to keep it to ourselves.

Hope all is well with you; can't wait to hear about Jesse and Sidney's trip to Paris!!

Talk to you soon,
Dad

Caribbean Note III

We're beat!!!! We've been doing yard work for the past two days and are sun burnt, ant bitten, blistered and sore. Digging a hole in this rocky earth should be avoided at all costs but after the completion of our front yard wall and garden planter box on Friday, it was our turn to install a new drip system and start filling the planter with soil. But, what I'm sure you all really want to know is how did Berit's cactus spine injury turn out? Well, it's still in her finger.

We went to see the surgeon on Monday and his advice was to do nothing and let nature take it's course. The antibiotics prevented any infection and the spine is definitely in there but over time it is softening and is in a good place (backside of the middle finger under the center knuckle) so it is more or less out of the way and doesn't hurt much anymore. I suppose Berit will have a war story to tell like a wounded soldier who after decades coughs up a bullet. She'll be at her 80th birthday party and spit out this spine like it was a chicken bone.

Speaking of parties, we were invited to a party by a bunch of American Ex-pat's who've been on the island for decades. Two of the couples own restaurants and others are in the dive industry or real estate or marine biology. We're getting to know our neighbors on Bonaire! We're in contact with a kid from the Aquatic Sports dive shop in Tigard who is down here studying marine biology on a study abroad program through Oregon State. I hear there are at least four students here from OSU.

We caught three more lionfish this past week, two at Andrea I and one on the outside of the second reef at Alice in Wonderland at 110 feet. Pretty exciting stuff! The temperature has been in the nineties which means we'd a whole lot rather be diving than digging! I still haven't had time to put the new scooter together but that will happen sooner rather than later. It will really increase our range and be a kick to play with in the water.

Caribbean Note II

It's 7:30 Sunday morning at the end of our second week and I've been up for awhile. The concrete mixer is going round and the workmen (who have been here everyday) are stacking blocks and stripping formwork from the columns on the new wall. The trucks will be here soon to dump loads of dirt, rock and white stone gravel to complete the work in the driveway area where yesterday the trucks hauled away three loads of mosquito infested swampland. There is still plenty of chaos, but the project is starting to come together. As a fabrication foreman it has been hard to watch these guys "work."

Our latest purple heart goes to Berit for yet another cactus spine injury. She was carrying a scuba tank up our garden stairway which was cluttered with cords, hoses and a wheelbarrow ramp, and "brushed" against our cactus fence and jammed a cactus spine through (I kid you not) her middle finger at the knuckle from one side to the other! You could see the spine where it entered and on the other side beneath the skin you could see it trying to poke through the skin from inside her finger!!

After a trip to the clinic, then across town to doctor #1, then to the hospital and doctor #2 (where we were given a special after hours appointment for surgery), through her evening surgery itself; after all that, the spine was still in place. The doctor cut a "window" through which mother nature would push the spine such that it could be extracted in four days time on Monday. So, we have an appointment for tomorrow morning to return for surgery #2 and get this thing out. She has been on antibiotics and is not in too much pain except when she bumps it, which seems to be quite often.

Stay tuned for next weeks note to hear how it all turns out!!

The latest Lionfish hunt (prior to Berit's injury) took place at a site called Fish Hut South, which is one of the few spots we had never dived. This turns out to be a very nice site for mass quantities of coral and after swimming out over the shallow sand flats we reached the edge where the reef drops off to the depths and right there Berit found our first Lionfish. After a valiant effort to nab it, she managed to chase it so deep into the coralhead we could no longer see it.

Soon after we found fish #2 and shortly after fish #3. Working together we managed to net and bag both of them and later drop them off at the lab for whatever the latest Dr. Mengele type of tests and dissections are being carried out these days. It looks like the LIonfish are winning the battle for the reef.

We are busy but happy with our situation here and hope the same is true with all of you!

Caribbean Note I

We’re at the end of our first week on Bonaire and, as usual, are amazed at how quickly the days pass by. Nine weeks will slip away and December will arrive in no time.

The house was in good repair but after four months was covered in red dust and the Geckos and creepy crawly critters had to be evicted. We arrived on our anniversary (seventeen years) at 5:00 AM and spent the day cleaning and putting everything in order.

October and November are the rainy months here and because the island is just a big rock the streets and countryside are pooled with water, but it’s always summertime and the ocean is warm and turquoise blue.

We’ve been pretty good at keeping our resolve to walk (3 ½ miles) along the waterfront every morning and then Berit works out while I swim laps in the neighborhood pool.

The big news on the island is that Bonaire is changing its political connection from The Netherlands Antilles (which ceased to exist last night at midnight 10-10-10) and is now a “municipality” of the Netherlands directly; still Dutch but even more so. I don’t think we’ll notice any difference.

We managed to get into the water by midweek and on our very first dive Berit found a Lionfish at the entry point, but because it was our checkout dive we didn’t bring our net or gloves or anything to catch it with. We carried on with the dive and while I was fiddling with the new configuration of my gear and electronics, Berit found a Seahorse! This was a site we had dived before (The Lake) and one of our favorites for finding these elusive creatures.

In time we finished the dive and loaded all our gear back into the truck and talked about going home to get the gloves and net, when Berit decided to try to get him in a small mask box with lid. So, she grabbed her fins and mask and jumped back in the water and after half a dozen free dives she finally got him in the box!! It was her first solo Lionfish catch and she did it without scuba or even gloves (to protect from the venomous spines) or a net!! Quite a feat!

We’ll start a new construction project on Monday. We’re building a nice wall and garden to replace the chain link fence along our front yard. In preparation we spent Saturday (in the terrible heat) digging and transplanting and pruning to save as much of our garden as we could from the workmen who will be building our wall and garden enclosure.

Rexx is happy to be back in the sun; he lies on his rug on the patio with his face toward the sunbeams with his eyes closed and seems for all the world like a young girl sunbathing on the beach. He has become reacquainted with all his lizard and iguana friends and enjoys chasing the doves that come to feast on the seed Berit puts out for them every day. Life here is good.

Caribbean Note V

This weeks note is the last for our current trip. We will be home on Saturday night. Our laptop has given up the ghost but friends arrived yesterday and brought a very nice HP notebook computer with them, so this email is sent courtesy of them.

We have been diving all this week, including a nice drift dive from La Dania's Leap to Karpata with a lot of surf on the exit and a night dive the girls did by themselves at The Cliff where they were buzzed by big tarpon. Our friend was recently certified and today gets to start collecting his warm water diving experiences here is Bonaire.

I'm still trying to make it to the Windjammer to catch the Lionfish there; maybe it will happen this week. The manager of the Bonaire Marine Park has built an air operated LP hose "speargun" to spear Lionfish in the coral, but so far it's not working very well. The whole Lionfish extermination attempt is problematic at best.

I did finally find a very nice Golden Coney and, of course, all the usual eagle rays and octopus and squid and turtles and groupers et.al.

We're bringing a friend home with us to spend the month and maybe we can talk him into cooking a nice oxtail or goat stew while he's here. Hope you are all in good health and happy.

Caribbean Note IV

I managed to get on the computer yet again. It's been a struggle! We've spent as much as a couple hours trying to get past the bad video card. We log on and in the minutes it takes to load up and move through the few screens to get on line the computer freezes or spasms out in a multi-colored array of odd shapes and patterns. Once we're on we have a great connection and (most times) minutes or a bit more to check email and such before we're knocked off again. We'll get this fixed when we get back, but will try to tough it out the next two weeks 'till then.

The big diving news is that we found a Seahorse at "The Lake". It was very exciting! We never see them. It was close in, shallow, brown and about three inches tall, hanging on a coral branch in the sand flats. Nice.

It seem like there are more critter this time than ever before. We're visited by some many birds during the day and now by bats at night who fly up onto our patio and eat the bugs off our screen door.

We're still on the Lionfish hunt and this week managed to get two in the net at once at "Chocogo". My free trip to the Windjammer is scheduled for this coming Friday and the latest sighting has three of them together at the crows nest in two hundred and twenty feet. Berit won't be able to come this time (too deep), but who knows, if she misses too many more dives like this, maybe there will be a rebreather in her future?

The vacant house next door finally has a Dutch couple staying there the last few days. We hope we can find out more about who owns the house. It would be nice to have "The Kids House" next door so you'd all have a place of your own to stay when you came to the island.

It seems like the past four weeks have gone by so quickly that we're thinking about our four weeks in Oregon before we return in the middle of April.

Caribbean Note III

We're at the end of our third week and have had another encounter with Dolphins swimming up close in fifteen feet of water at the site Sweet Dreams. We were alerted to their approach by a lady who had spotted them swimming south along the shoreline and drove like mad to get ahead of them and into the water in order to be able to swim with them.

The good old Family Luck is holding! We geared up quickly and were waiting on the bottom when the herd passed by. The lady who warned us of their approach was snorkeling on the surface and counted thirty eight this time. We were below but very near (within twenty feet) as they passed. So we've had a once in a lifetime experience twice in two weeks!

We also found and captured another Lionfish. This time we were at the east coast site Baby Beach in about eighty five feet when I spotted a big Green Moray and right beside him a Lionfish. I deployed my surface marker bouy and we returned to the get-in where I waited in the water while Berit retrieved the net and handed it off to me. I returned to the spot and netted the fish and then back again to the beach where Berit took the net and so the score is now two for two.

We've been seeing our friends for lunch and have had some pretty good home cooked meals. Right now they are in the kitchen working together on a local specialty and later today we will have Roberts Ox-Tail Stew.

I'm taking advantage of this rare occurrence where our computer is working to get this note out to you because we're not sure if we'll be able to get back on. Ever since Mexico the computer is getting more and more problematic (the video card is failing) and we will get it repaired when we come home so if the notes stop coming you'll know why.

Caribbean Note II

This week we had a very unique experience, but I'll have to start the story at the beginning.

Of all the colorful fishes here, one stands out as a particularly beautiful example of camouflage and predation. It is the Lionfish. Unfortunately it is not endemic to these waters and has no natural enemies here. A short time after it was first seen in Bonaire the population began to expand and it was recognized that the Lionfish was going to be a scourge rather than fill a niche in the food chain on the reef.

So the local authorities have asked for help from divers in locating them. Each diver, as he pays the Bonaire Marine Park fees and receives his orientation instruction about protecting the coral, is issued a marker ribbon and asked to tie it off in the location of any Lionfish sighting and report the location so that designated trained volunteers can return to the spot and capture the critter.

http://www.bmp.org/pdfs/LF-Poster-Divers.pdf

Lionfish have venomous spines and their sting is quite toxic and affects heart rhythms as well as destroys tissue in the area of the wound. The designated divers wear thick gloves and try to net the fish and return it to the park headquarters for documentation of size and eating habits and other scientific data collection. The fish are territorial. Once they establish a "home" they don't venture very far from it so the ribbon idea allows time for the Marine Park Divers to go back and find the fish. They don't stay on the same coral head forever though, and after a time do move on.

So Berit and I were swimming along at about fifty two foot depth at the dive site "1000 Steps" when all of a sudden she goes nuts and is shouting through her regulator and waving her arms and when I look, there on the coral in front of her, with feathery arms extended in all its glory, is a Lionfish. We had nothing to use as a marker, so we turned to shore and surfaced and noted a bold scar on the cliff face to establish the location and at the end of our dive, drove to the marine park headquarters to report the find.

The person on duty that day, took down the information and told us there would be a large group of divers going out the next day on a massive Lionfish round-up and asked us if we'd like to go along too. Of course we said yes and the next morning showed up at the site "Sunset" and got a briefing and a net and a thick (left hand) glove to "herd the fish into the net" and were assigned the site "Tolo" to check the previous sightings and retrieve the markers if there was no fish present. The couple dozen divers all took their paperwork and headed off in different directions to find their assigned fish.

The problem is that the Lionfish Database is poorly maintained and has a bunch of "old" location data that needed to be culled. Joi hadn't even entered our fish in yet, so there was no team assigned to collect it. In the chaos and hub-bub of it all Berit wanted to get more information and ask additional questions but I hurried us along to the truck and we were off on the chase.

She explained as we drove along to Tolo (sometimes in a kind of loud exasperated voice) that I was always going off in a rush when there were important things to know like: What was the treatment for a sting? And how were we supposed to transport the fish? Were we supposed to try to keep it alive? Was there scientific data we were supposed to collect? She even reminded me that earlier in the week as I climbed a ladder to measure the ceiling joists in order to hang my bike, I had neglected to turn off the ceiling fan and stuck my head into the spinning fan blade; that I’m sometimes in too much of a hurry to get the job done and that this time, she had wanted to ask more questions.

You know, all that stuff that has so little to do with getting the fish. So, when we got to Tolo we made a map (also Berit's idea) of the three reported sightings (all about three weeks old) and carried it on waterproof paper with us on the dive where we knew depth, distance and colors of the marker ribbons; and with our dive plan complete, jumped in the water to go Lionfish hunting.

All three sighting were to the north at about fifty foot depth so we swam along slowly scanning the reef for a marker ribbon and one by one passed the spots without seeing any fish or even any ribbons. The visibility was fifty feet and we could see clearly, so it was certain that they had been removed and never culled from the database. We had plenty of air so continued searching beyond the range of reported sightings and finally did come upon a ribbon of an unreported color. We searched the area completely and were convinced there was no fish present when all of a sudden Berit was pointing and shouting and going nuts in typical Lionfish fashion so I turned to the reef and saw nothing. I turned back to Berit and she was furiously pointing and shouting up! Up! And when I turned back and looked up I saw an entire herd of Dolphin approaching not twenty feet above us on the crest of the reef!!

We have seen seals in the water but Holy Cow Homer, these animals were magnificent! The largest were leading the herd and as they passed, Berit was squeaking out here best Flipper impression (to no avail) while I counted thirty in the group; all sizes gracefully passing with such power and effortless swimming it made me feel that the best divers in the world could never be more than clumsy imitators of these creatures. They were spectacular; a very unique experience indeed!

After high fives and lots of goofy smiles we turned our dive, collected the ribbon at location number four and returned to the entry still searching along the way for any fish or markers we might have missed. At ninety minutes run time we had completed our search to the north and Berit exited the water while I continued to search south. While we had no reported sightings to the south, I did find another marker ribbon, but after an extensive search removed it and returned to the beach. Our accomplishment was that the five locations we searched could be eliminated as sites where Lionfish could be found.

Of course we wanted to go get our fish at 1000 Steps, but we had been instructed to meet back at our morning rendezvous for lunch and our afternoon assignments, so we returned to "Sunset" and reported the results of our search and shared our story of the Dolphin sighting. It seems that divers who've been here for many years have never seen Dolphins in the water, so we feel very lucky to have had the experience.

The Manager of Bonaire Marine Park, was going out to 1000 Steps to search for a Lionfish on a deep sighting, so it was a natural for us to volunteer to go get our fish and meet him there afterward to turn it over.

And that's exactly what we did. On our trip to Belize Berit found a (very rare) Sea Horse and after telling the boats dive instructor about it was able to lead her back to the exact spot on the reef where she had seen it and "found it again". So with her as our teams lead guide we set out to find our fish, kind of like a needle in a haystack, or in this case a Lion Fish on a certain coral head amid thousands of identical looking coral heads.

Eventually, while I was peering into every nook and cranny, I noticed that Berit was just hanging in the water watching me approach. I thought maybe she was running low on air and wanted to let me know; and then I saw it!! Holy cow!! Doesn't she see it? There's one right beside her!! But of course she had already found it and was just waiting for me to catch up with them.

Earlier, as we hammered out our plan for its capture and Berit was explaining (remember the kind of loud voiced conversation?) that since we didn't know what we were doing she wasn't getting anywhere near it, our plan was settled and I would take care of it in my normal way; I'd just go ahead and catch it. So I put on the glove and deployed the net and very very slowly inched the net near the Lionfish, then slowly reached toward it with my gloved hand and kind of herded it into the net. Easy peasy; one try, one fish in the net!

Back on shore, and the second time in two days we'd climbed up all those darned steps with our gear on, we found the manager at his truck and delivered our fish, still in the net. He just reached in and stuck a finger into the still gasping mouth and lifted our spinney treasure out of the net and placed him in a zip lock bag. We kept our net and glove and are now "official" Lionfish hunters for the Bonaire Marine Park!

The other good thing to come out of this is that three of these fish have been seen on The Windjammer. The Windjammer is the premier wreck dive on the island in 200 plus feet of water and has been restricted from public diving for security reasons because it’s near an oil trans-shipment tank farm on the north end. But, since I'm an Official BMP Lionfish Hunter, I am authorized to do the dive in order to look for Lionfish!! Sweet.

All in all we’ve had another very enjoyable week.

Caribbean Note I

We escaped the frigid North and for the past week have been enjoying the warm sun, sand and turquoise water of Bonaire. After a last minute upgrade to first class (to save baggage charges) we made our way to the Caribbean and arrived on the island in time for Karnival. (Think Rio but on a much, much smaller scale.)

We have been diving at some of our old favorite places like the Andrea's and Aquarius, and we checked out "the Pipe" at Witches Hut. The weather has been mild compared to the 90 degree plus heat during our September-November trip. January and February are two of the most popular months for divers to escape the snow and ice and visit Bonaire. We have been spending time with our friend and he will be flying back and staying with us during the four weeks between trips this time.

The house is still in one piece; all is well here. Berit and I are watching the new season of Survivor and spending a lot of time sitting in our garden watching the birds and lizards play.