Caribbean Note #48

Greetings from rainy, but warm, Bonaire,

All the news will follow, but first, allow me to digress.

Back in the olden times, around 1975, we lived in a 2^nd floor apartment that backed up to a wooded area of very large trees.  It was during the time I was trying to quit smoking (Geoffrey was a new baby) and I would go out onto the balcony and sit there and smoke the occasional cigarette so as not to smoke around the baby.

There was a huge tree adjacent to the apartment complex and as I sat there smoking I wondered if I could make the leap from our balcony to the tree.  It was pretty far and there were no limbs at the second story level, but there were thick wrist sized vines growing up the trunk.  The tree was quite a bit taller than our three story building and I thought that if I could leap onto and grasp those thick vines they would be able to hold my weight and I could climb up into the branches above.  So I finished my cigarette, climbed up onto the balcony railing, took a deep breath and jumped.

Everything worked out as expected, except for the fact that those thick vines turned out to be Poison Oak.  By the time I had climbed up and back down that tree, my arms were scratched up pretty good and over the next few hours my arms began to swell and by the next day were covered in oozing pustules.  The worst part was that everywhere the open wounds touched new skin the stuff would spread and take over and man did it itch.

I discovered that if I held an affected area under really hot water the itching would subside, and since, by now, I was essentially covered with sores, I got into the shower and sort of scalded myself from head to toe.  This brief relief was followed by the realization (over the next few days) that my hot water treatment had managed to spread the poison oak more or less uniformly over my entire body.  To make a long story short (or at least less long) the sores eventually scabbed over and healed up, but I've been scrupulously avoiding poison oak, poison ivy, and any other kind of skin irritant from that day to this.

Until now! Here on Bonaire I've managed to get into something similar and, as I write these words, I’m on day six of a too familiar adventure.  Yes, I’m older and wiser, so I tried to determine what plant could have been the culprit (thanks, Jerry Ligon, for all your help with that) and began to treat the affected areas right away with Daktacort, a hydrocortisone cream.  Still don’t know for sure which plant was responsible and the stuff is spreading, though very slowly, and it looks like the original sites are healing, so maybe in another week I’ll be back to normal.  Yikes! What a mess!!

In our last note I told you about our painting project and the new neighborhood pool project.  Well, the painting project, which was to take three or four weeks, is now in week twelve with no end in sight; and the pool project was cancelled by the neighborhood association because the owners could not agree on the design and cost of the new pool.  This pool project has been talked about for years and now is tabled.  The subject will be brought up, yet again, when the new board meets in the spring of 2014.  I was afraid this would happen and once again it has. We’re stuck with the crappy old pool for now.

We've been working toward the third renewal of our Sedulas (residency permits) since we arrived at the beginning of August and it looks like we’ll be able to finish that process next week.  Four months out of each year devoted to renewal.  Wow.  We love Bonaire. On our fifth renewal we can do five years at a go instead of annually; can’t wait!

Our interest continues in the kid’s abuse hot-line, Respeta Mucha (Respect Children) and the afterschool programs Jong Bonaire and the Junior Rangers, along with a new program designed to assist abused women and children called Bea Vita (Beautiful Life).  This is essentially a poor island and in spite of new money and improved services since 10-10-10 the plight of the Bonaireans has not improved.  The budget for the island High School has been cut again and while political action and activism are on the rise there is still a lot of suffering here on the island.

Speaking of suffering, hurricane season is officially over and the cruise ships are back so our wrecked streets are once again clogged with pod people by the hundreds.  I suppose it’s good for the tourist industry and the restaurants, but it sure makes it hard to go to town.

Tina was just here for a nice two week visit and in addition to diving and joining us in volunteering to help with the annual Duo Xtreme Mountain Bike Race, she brought along the locations of “buried treasure” and we spent a couple of days “GeoCaching” by using a handheld GPS unit to find boxes of trinkets hidden by others playing this world wide treasure hunt game.  A couple of the twenty five places here on Bonaire, required a long hike to reach and of course a search to find the spot, sometime on top of a huge boulder or buried under a rock or stashed in the out crop of a cliff face.  We signed the enclosed logs and took or left objects for others. One cache had a travel bug with a message that it wanted to go to the Pacific Ocean so Tina took it and will place it in a cache on the Oregon Coast at Canon Beach. We found nine caches; it was great fun!  

At our water station at Washington-Slagbaai Park gate.

Found it!

We took Tina diving on “the wild side” and she did here first solo dive too, and as always diving here in our beautiful crystal blue waters was wonderful.

Lionfish hunting continues unabated with our total in the 2500 range now.  There are more frequent opportunities to dive with rebreather friends, which is awesome, but still only occurs occasionally.  I sometimes dive solo with my scooter and am able to cover several kilometers of reef and explore places I wouldn’t otherwise be able to reach without my trusty Magnus 950. (When I write that I always feel like Harry Potter gushing over his Nimbus 2000.)

Berit and I celebrated the 23^rd anniversary of our first date and our 20^th wedding anniversary.  Matt and Garrett are both Happy Birthday boys since the last Caribbean Note and Geoff and Amber will be traveling with us to Missouri for Mom’s 90^th next month.  Everybody’s getting older!

Berit’s crown has been bothering her for some time now and she’s been avoiding having a root canal because of the new evidence of the negative effects of that procedure, until finally the tooth became very painful and last week she was the first of us to visit the island dentist and had the tooth pulled.  All went well and since it was in the back you can’t even tell she’s missing a molar.  Any additional work can wait ‘til we’re back in the US in order to visit her regular dentist.

OUCH!!!!

Sunday is Dia di Gracia here on Bonaire and Thanksgiving is fast approaching; in just four short weeks we’ll be back in Oregon.

After our weekend trip to Missouri for Mom’s Birthday, we’ll be back in time to cook Christmas dinner, so you’re all invited to our house on Christmas Day for the usual celebration. And just for the record, if any of you want to host the family gathering one day, we’re fine with that, as long as you invite us too!!

Shoes filled with straw are being left in the markets and images of Sinter Klaus and the Back Piet’s are everywhere here!!  We feel part Dutch; Christmas is coming!!

All our love,

Dad

Caribbean Note #47

Hey Everybody,

It’s very hot here in the southern Caribbean.  I hear you’re having quite the opposite weather in Oregon.  Sorry to know you’re dealing with cold temperatures, but happy to remind you that we’re only a plane ride away.  Come and see us!!

The plethora of birds is singing in the garden and the iguanas are gathering for their breakfast of salad scraps and old fruit left over from meals past.

Our big news these days is we’re having our houses painted.  We’ve done more than our share of this sort of thing in years past, so we’ve hired Stefan (PRO-Home) and his crew for the job.  All we really have to do is unlock the gates before we go diving and admire their work when we return.  This project includes building a new security door and some necessary roof repairs on the new house and should be complete in three or four weeks.

Our owners association is finally taking action to build a new pool in the neighborhood.  We have witnessed quite a lot of drama in emails and at the meeting to approve the design and accept the contractors bid.  Wow, I thought dive club politics were problematic.  We were shocked at the emotion invested in this decision making.  But, I think it’s all settled now and I expect to see bulldozers and backhoes any day now.

We’re still trying to exercise daily and have established a routine of early morning (weekday) “Insanity” warm-ups followed by a long walk along the waterfront; plus a (Saturday) uphill walk to Sera Largu and a long bike ride on Sunday.   I’m sure there are a lot of people doing more, but at least we’re trying to stay with it.  It seems we often try to find a reason to skip it today, but so far we’ve been pretty good.  We’ve been taking Titan on these walks and he seems to really love it!  He’s all jumping around and happy and when we’re out in the mundi, on the hiking trails, we let him off the leash and he exhausts himself running after the goats and bounding around in the sticker bushes and cactus like a little gazelle.

We’re in the middle of our annual residency renewal process and it’s going slowly, as usual, with the never-ending glitches in the operation of the island bureaucracy.  But poco poco as they say here, little by little we’ll get it all done.

The Sailboat Regatta and annual Extreme Mountain Bike Race are coming up soon, along with a Royal visit from the new King of The Netherlands. So life goes on here as always.

We’ve always had an interest in local politics and have been looking for a way to make a positive contribution, so we’ve agreed to help fund a new foundation established to provide kids with a hotline and access to resources when they find themselves with problems they can’t solve and nowhere to turn for help.

In addition we’re interested in a friends desire to create a community center where anyone can get a meal without the normally requisite hoops to jump through like paperwork or proselytizing that typically are part of programs for the poor.

Meanwhile the investigations continue into corruption in Island Government and the charges brought against current and former government officials along with myriad environmental scandals that affect Bonaire’s reef and wildlife.  So, there are still plenty of local issues to interest an activist child of the sixties.

We’ve been taking advantage of the calm September winds to dive the "wild side" of the island whenever possible.  I’ve been lucky to meet a few rebreather divers who are here on extended stays and have done some nice long dives with them.

Berit and I are looking forward to visits by Tina and later Bobby, and also my cave diving buddy Dave and a group of rebreather divers from Canada who will all come to Bonaire in October.

We’re still finding a bunch of Lionfish but see a definite reduction in their numbers in recreational depths.

Divers still come to the island in droves, but it’s nice to have a break from the cruise ship passengers; too bad hurricane season doesn’t last all year.

Our 20^th anniversary, along with Garrett’s Birthday are coming up next week and we’re kind of starved for news from home, so please drop us a line and let us know how everything is going in your lives.  We think about you every day and hope all is well.

Love, Dad

Caribbean Note #46

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

Caribbean Note #45

Damn!

It seems strange to be writing this installment of the Caribbean Note from cold rainy Oregon.  So much has happened in the past four weeks.

Rexx began to have issues with his heart and lungs at the beginning of March.  We took him to see Dr. Jan every few days and it seemed, at times, as though the medication prescribed would stabilize his condition, but in the end we could see that it was unkind of us to continue and by the end of March we had to let him go.  We take solace in the knowledge that he had a long happy life and will now stay forever on our sunny warm island.  He was always Berit’s snuggle buddy and it will take a long time to heal this wound but the memories live on.  Rexx was a good friend. 



Caribbean Rexx - 2009

R.I.P. li'l Rexxy

 

As you know, our original plan was to return home together but Berit has remained on Bonaire to complete the business of (finally) purchasing the house next door.  It has been essentially empty for the five(ish) years since we purchased our house here and has been on the market for the last two years.  The offer we made then was rejected but the market has fallen here too, so the owner finally relented and we agreed on a contract sale.  We took possession of the house two weeks ago and have been making repairs and cleaning since then.

The garden was in a much neglected state and we’ve done an extensive pruning in order to get the plants back to a manageable size.  All is going along as it should and we expect to close the sale and sign in the next few weeks.

 

Because we made no provision to be gone at tax time I’ve returned alone to get the paperwork together and resupply Berit with her favorite brand of coconut milk and restock her dwindling cache of Lara Bars and a certain kind of chocolate bar sold at New Seasons.  Just because you live on an Island is no reason to give up the essentials.

Of course I’m looking forward to seeing you at the Old Spaghetti Factory on Sunday and I too am taking advantage of an opportunity to embrace one of my guilty pleasures; a nice plate of spaghetti with brown butter and Mizithra cheese.  I wonder if Semper Kontentu Goatcheese Bonaire makes Mizithra?

Along with all that was happening during the past month we had a nice visit from our friends Bob and Noelle.  In addition to doing a bunch of great scuba dives at our favorite places we enjoyed sharing the chaos and were able to sail our ship in the rough seas with the support of a great crew.



Congrats, Bob!!!
March 21, 2013

Bob brought me enameled tools (mine have rusted in this tropical climate) and new electronic toys.  With his electrical expertise he sorted out our fuse box issues and together with Berit made sense of our circuits.  Bob and I built an iguana proof guard around Berit’s new Flame Tree to stop them munching the tender new leaves and was my right hand man when we were forced to change a flat tire on a remote coral rubble beach.  Where, incidentally we met Tom and Mike who stopped to help and turned out to be the renters of our good friend’s condo.  We had recently said goodbye to Doug and Dianne on their return to Canada after a month on the island and here were these guys from the New Jersey area who’d stumbled across us at Tailor Made who just happened to be staying at Villa Makoshi and were nice enough to stop and offer to help!  Now that’s a small world.

Meanwhile, as Bob and I worked to jack up the truck in this incredibly difficult terrain, Berit and Noelle spotted the elusive Manta Ray (that we have been hearing about for months and had never seen) and grabbed their fins and jumped back into the water to swim with it.

Anyway, we had a great time with Bob and Noelle.  We hiked the Pink Rock Trail in the valley of the bees and Kayaked in the Mangrove Swamps.  It was Bob who took the Facebook picture of Berit and me with the Mega-Bertha Lionfish container, and Noelle who cooked breakfast for two weeks.



Now that we’ve established a larger presence on Bonaire with the newly expanded Pement Family Compound, we expect to have more visits from family and friends who might choose to stay longer in their own “house next door”.

As always, life goes on.  Our new return date is set for June first and so if any of you are thinking along the lines of a late spring vacation, then, as Bob Barker used to say, “come on down”.

Love,

Dad





Caribbean Note #44

All hail Oregonians! Here’s all the news that fit to print from the Southern Caribbean!!

Bats!  We set up the camera on a tripod and Berit snapped about a gazillion pictures of bats coming to the Chibi Chibi sugar bowls.  You really can’t see them clearly on the wing but in the photos they’re pretty awesome looking.

We have also encouraged our new population of young Iguanas by planting the Flame Tree last month and have been diligently trying (broomstick swinging wildly) to keep them away from the tasty little budding leaves and flowers they love to eat.   Aaarrrgg!  We’ve put a funnel barricade around the trunk to keep them from climbing up but they somehow get into the treetop anyway!?

It was nice of Mare to post the Pement Kids Hiking photos from 1986 on Facebook. I have fond memories of those days of camping together and especially the Lost Lake Camping Trip and hike up to the old Forest Service Fire Lookout Tower on Mount Hood!  That was the trip we canoed around the Lake and caught so many salamanders.

You’ll be pleased to know we finally took delivery of Berit’s new bike!!  It only took a full year to receive it from The Netherlands!!  But it’s pretty cool and much easier to ride than her old clunky city bike.  We made it a full kilometer up the kilometer and a half long Karpata Hill (stopping twice to rest before turning back) and know that one day we’ll succeed in getting all the way up without stopping.  After six flat tires from the thorns, we’ve had Kevlar liners installed and are all set to give Richard Sichel a run for his money.  We did our longest ride yet when we entered the thirty seven kilometer fundraiser ride for the local “Boys and Girls Club” Jong Bonaire.  We made it to the finish and boy were our butts hurting at the end of the ride!!

I managed to back into another truck while we were picking up scuba tanks at Yellow Submarine Dive Shop a couple of weeks ago and so we’ve had an education in what happens in order to make an insurance claim here; lots and lots of hoops to jump through.  We also took the opportunity to try and get the spare tire free.  It had become rusted in place under the truck.  Good thing we never had a flat out in the mundi; even the latches on the tailgate are covered in rust.  But all will be in order when we return in August; the truck will be repaired while we’re home for the summer.

We’re still in negotiations to buy the house next door, but still no news of a breakthrough.  Our neighbor has agreed to sell on a five year contract but wants us to buy his truck too and roll it into the deal, but it’s not something we want.  If we end up with it we’ll just have to sell it; we certainly don’t need the headache of a second truck on the island; just the headache of a second house.

Our friends Doug and Dianne just left after a month of diving and enjoying the island.  And Bobby was supposed to be here the last couple of weeks but got bent diving in the Caymans, so cancelled his trip in order to recover properly.  Our friends Bob and Noelle will be here tomorrow to stay with us for the next two weeks and we’re looking forward to their visit very much.  Bob and I volunteer together (along with Bobby) at The Oregon Coast Aquarium and have become good friends.

The end of March will bring Berit’s Birthday and then we’ll be home by the first of April.  We’ve been here seven months (with a Christmas break) and it still doesn’t seem like too much of a visit.  I think we’re becoming Bonairians for real.

We had a bit of a scare with Rexx.  He wasn’t eating and became very ill.  On Tuesday, the Vet diagnosed him with congestive heart failure and his lungs had so much fluid present he was breathing in a very shallow and labored way.  The vet gave him an injection and put him on meds and for a couple of days we were thinking he might not make it. But by Thursday he was looking a bit better and after his visit to Dr Jan today it looks like he’s on the mend.  He’s eating and while he’s still stumbling around kind of drunkishly he seems much improved.  We have high hopes that he’ll be well enough to travel in three weeks when we return.

We hope you’re all surviving the winter snow and ice and staying warm and are all in good health.  It will be nice to see you all again.  We’ll plan a family dinner soon.

Love, Dad

Caribbean Note #43

Hi Everyone,

Wow!  We're watching the news with interest as the cold air envelopes all of you in below freezing conditions with snow and freezing rain.  Icy wind is blowing across the country from kids in Oregon to Mom in Missouri to Paul in Chicago and to Colette in North Carolina.  Berit and I are feeling a little guilty here on Bonaire.  The water temperature has dropped from 84 degrees to 79 degrees and we've added hooded vests to our normal 3 mil exposure gear and still get out of the water talking about how cold it has become.

I suppose "hardship" is truly relative and in spite of the many hard knocks we all take in life it's important to count our blessings and focus on the positives in our lives.

We enjoyed seeing you all over the holidays and sharing in your joys and helping to shoulder your pain as life continues to bring each of you a measure of happiness and sadness along with myriad challenges and daily opportunity for choice in future direction.  We're constantly amazed at the courage and strength you each demonstrate in your lives and are very proud to know we are your parents. Our advice to you is this: take courage.

We returned to Bonaire to find Rexx in fine shape for a 15 year old dog, and in spite of his advanced age he can still sometimes run and jump around and act like the puppy he once was.

Uncle Paul flew back with us and for a week we were able to relax and share memories and catch up on family news and still find time to double his diving experience in our warm blue waters.  We were lucky to find octopus, squid, turtles, eels and of course lionfish at some of our favorite dive sites.

Berit and I have found the reefs have been helped a bunch by the efforts of the hunters and sometimes we can't find a single lionfish on our dives.  We were lucky to have been invited to dive with our friend Hagen in an area off limits to divers and found the reef teeming with the invasive fish.  It goes to show what the situation would be all along our reef without hunters.  We took 150 fish that day without effort.

Our latest quest has been to find the elusive seahorse and have found one at Oil Slick Leap and heard tell of three  more at Salt Pier.  We're looking forward to the arrival of our friends Doug and Dianne from Canada to continue the search.

We get far less news here from abroad, but are watching the machinations and national political chaos with interest.  I feel pretty good about the way things are going back home and have hope that more will be accomplished in the second term than I had expected.  Go Barack!

We're also watching Tiger on his comeback trail at Torrey Pines and have heard rumors that he's getting back together with Elin.  The rumor is he's willing to sign an agreement that says, if he cheats on her again he'll forfeit a 300 million dollar trust fund.  Wow! That's an expensive dalliance. So much for our telenovellas.

Robert says "Hello" and is very much a part of our lives here as usual; he has a new puppy named Bumpy.

We were disappointed that we were not visited during the last three weeks by Splitty McForkson and believed he'd become iquana stew for someone, when he finally showed up looking fit and happy.  We wonder now if maybe Splitty is actually a mom and was off tending to her new family.  We have seen a new crop of small green iquanas but of course have no way of knowing who belongs to whom. We're calling them Scrappy Doo, Scrappy too and Scrappy three, because we can hardly tell the apart!

Local government issues remain strange but manageable, and there have been a couple of recent changes.  The iconic Netherlands Radio broadcast towers at 1000 Steps have been removed and the decades old brothel, Patchi Place, has been closed.  For even casual visitors to Bonaire, these were places synonymous with the island and landmarks everyone used for directions.  Time marches on.

As for us, we're still waiting for Frank at De Freewieler to receive shipment (from Holland) of Berit's new bike, and we're working our way through season four of The West Wing which remains one of our all time favorite programs.  It's amazing how these ten year old story lines could be taken verbatim out of the current headlines.  Aaron Sorkin is a genius!

Thanks to our friend, Jerry, we have a new acquisition for the garden; a Flame Tree which we're told will bloom with vivid red flowers in a couple of years.  So, you see, we too are planning for the future!



Digging the hole.



Mission accomplished!





Hope all is well with you.

Love,
Dad

P.S. STAY WARM!!