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.