Caribbean Note I

We’ve been here on the island for five weeks and miss you all. We have to thank Facebook for the contact we’ve had with you and enjoy seeing your posts from time to time. I decided I wouldn’t burden you with a weekly note this trip but I do want to know how you’re all getting along and want you to know that we think about you every day. Our news is as usual; all good.

We arrived to daily rain and opened the house in a downpour. We met our neighbor next door and found he was selling his house, so we made him an offer which he rejected out of hand without even a counter offer. We hope to have another shot after he comes back to planet earth.

We arrived in time for Karnival (think Rio) with all the Fat Tuesday fun and a big costumed parade through town. But we finally settled down to diving and got our gear together (including my Nimbus 2000) and did our checkout dives in preparation for our first round of guests.

We have been kicking around the scuba circuit for years and we were glad to have them come for a visit. We did a bunch of dives while they were here and were surprised to see that the lionfish were waaaaaay more numerous and much bigger than when we were here last Fall. Our friends were great guests and we had a wonderful week.

Around the middle of March, Berit and I signed contracts with Stinapa and Bonaire Marine Park and were issued spearguns (the wee ELF – Eliminate LionFish) and became official lionfish hunters, authorized to catch, eat and even sell any lionfish we can find. Kind of like Buffalo Bill and Calamity Jane; we’re the new law in these parts. Our total catch now is fifty-four including some nice sized fish which Berit cooks for dinner or happy-hour snacks. One of the fish refused to go quietly and while Berit was bagging him the little sucker stung her in the palm of her hand. The spines are venomous and the sting is very painful, but not usually life threatening unless allergic to the venom, but she not only finished bagging the fish, but took him home, fried him in butter and coconut oil and ate him. So I guess the score is Michael and Berit: 54 - lionfish: 1. We now have a safer strategy for bagging them so don’t expect the fish to “get the upper hand” again.

We had a week between the first visit and round two of guests. We used the time to get the patio painted (still in the rain) but it really made a difference and the house looks pretty nice now even though we still have the garden wall out front to finish painting.

Our visitors left yesterday and the time they were here was all about diving during the day and playing cards during the evening. The ladies were taken for sisters by everyone we met and we finally had a chance to hike up Mount Brandaris, the highest peak (700’) on Bonaire. It was like the scene from that Tom Hanks movie where he was stranded on the island and climbed the tallest point and could see the entire island, North, South, East and West with ocean all around; very cool. We also celebrated Berit’s Birthday at one of her favorite restaurants and did a night dive where our lights filtered blue ultra violet and we wore amber lenses over our masks to reveal all the florescence of the coral and reef critters; also very cool.

Didn’t mean to torture you with such a long note; maybe a few short letters are better than such a long one. Anyway, we’re into our chores zone now and will be attacking the long list of things that need doing. It’s been nice to have filled March with vacation fun, but April will be balanced with work. And now that the rain has stopped, the painting will get done.

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.