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.