Hey Everybody.
The navigation was a bit convoluted of late, but our ship is still on an even keel and our course is, as always, fluid. Who knows what lies ahead? Who indeed; but we’re still enjoying the voyage.
It was nice to see all of you while I was in Oregon to do business with Uncle Sam; all but the birthday girl and her husband busy traveling the world. I was pleased to find you all fending off the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. You are all (I am proud and humbled to say) survivors.
The big news is that while I was off the island Berit fell in love with another man. His name is Titan and he’s come to live with us here. He sleeps outside on the front porch and barks when there is danger. I like him too and happily he seems to like me; lots of kisses and he’s happy to sit on my lap as well as hers. He’s currently unsure of how he feels about all the iguanas, but since he is small the iguanas don’t pay much attention to him. It would be nice to teach him to like Splitty McForkson (he still comes to breakfast as a rule) but chase the others away from eating our garden shrubbery.
We’re still working on the contracts to purchase the house next door, and the drama of dealing with the local notaris and a seller living in The Netherlands has kept us involved to say the least. We have been working to repair the house and get the garden back in shape, but we’re trying to “go slow” until the deal is finally done. As they say on the island: poco-poco; little by little; maybe soon.
We have been lucky to have had a four day streak of no wind and very small waves, so we’ve finally been able to get in some East Coast dives. We started with the southernmost point of Bonaire at Willemstoren Lighthouse where the sea fans and soft corals are in abundance; then went full East Coast with a long dive at Boca Onima, and finished off with a couple of awesome boat dives north of Boca Spelonk at Boca Olivia, an area (truly) inaccessible from the rocky shoreline. All these places have beautiful corals and so much variety of life with big creatures essentially undisturbed by the masses of activity on the west coast. We were joined on our way back to Lac Cai by a huge (hundredish?) pod of Dolphins swimming with the boat and leaping out of the water and spinning in the air around us. The Lionfish count is now nineteen hundred for Berit and me and it’s nice to be able to diminish their numbers on “The Wild Side” too.
It’s turtle nesting season and we helped clean up one of the east coast turtle nesting beaches called Boca Washikemba. It’s astonishing how much trash and plastic debris floats ashore on the waves. So many shoes and plastic bottles and toothbrushes and doll parts and medical waste like syringes and serum bottles. We collected enough to fill a thirty yard dumpster in just a few hours with a couple dozen people. So sad.
This past weekend was the confluence of several local holidays, chief among them was Dia de Rincon to celebrate the almost five hundred year history of the mid-island town here on Bonaire. Also the international Labor Day celebrations and the inauguration of the new King of The Netherlands. So, lots of noise and activity with parades and partying over the four days of events. Things are getting back to normal now and it’s easy to tell summer is on the way because our winter temperatures of low eighties have climbed to our spring temperatures in the high eighties. When we return in August we’ll be trying to cope with another ten degree increase then. So, more diving is always the solution to the heat.
Last month Bob Evans and I fabricated an iguana proof shield to protect Berit’s new Flame Tree and it works great so far. We often see them trying to climb its smooth sides to get at the tender leaves just out of reach. And since we pruned the nearby Oleander they no longer have an adjacent platform from which to hurl themselves onto it. So, I think it’s safe to declare this mission “save the tree” accomplished.
Even though we’ve kept in touch with family and friends and everything seems to be going along as expected with the people in our lives, we sometimes wish we could do more to help with the myriad unsolved problems around us. We ponder and choose and try to fit in where we can and do feel hopeful about the progress we see, but if you know of something that needs doing or someone who needs help or encouragement, please let us know.
As you know we had planned to be back in Oregon by now but the new house et.al. has kept us here. Our current plan is to return at the beginning of June, and with the start of the month host a mega birthday dinner to celebrate the half dozen birthdays we’ve missed since April. We’ll keep you posted.
Love, Dad
