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Diane's DiaryNovember 21 Sunday We had a nice time with Spice Island Lady last night- Papillon was there also. We came back to the boat around 8pm and had leftover spaghetti carbonara for dinner. The disco started at 10pm and was so loud there was no way we could sleep - it sounded like it was in our bedroom, so we both stayed up. I read while Larry worked on the PC even though the battery was low. The band stopped around 3am, we finally got back to sleep and around 4am the low voltage alarm went off waking me up. Larry didn't hear it again- his hearing is definitely going, as he can never hear it. I woke him up so he would turn it off. Then at 5am it started to rain out again. Too bad I didn't put the buckets out as we could have caught lots of water again. We can start filling the starboard tank already as it's down to 3/4. We need to run the water maker every few days anyway though Larry did give it a fresh water flush in the marina. Anyway, we didn't get up till 8am, as we were both tired. I am sure tonight will be an early to sleep night. We moved moorings although it was only about 6 boats further north. We would like to get back to our old mooring again if possible. The further north we are the less noise from the Friday and Saturday night band. Anyway, the batteries were severely down today so we needed to run the engine. We have some wind - around 10 knots from the SE with about 75% sun. We will try diving again after lunch. We have invited SV Caravela over for drinks tonight- they were very nice in bringing us the magazine and driving me shopping. They wound up staying till 9:30pm and Larry and I were half asleep by then- we had been up almost the whole night before. They said they were going to leave fairly soon as they have to be up in PR before Xmas or we would have had them over another day. November 22 Monday We had some more rain again last night but not enough to get anything into the buckets. We were both tired since we didn't get to bed until after 10pm and are usually in bed sometime after 9pm. Anyway, we slept in so missed the weather today. I made some biscuits for breakfast as we were both hungry since we didn't have dinner the night before. S/V Papillon came over at 8:30am as we had not turned our radio on yet. Mooring number 6 with the seahorse underneath it opened up and they reserved it for us. So, we moved again this morning. We left to go diving around 10:15am but our dive tanks weren't filled yet so we had to wait for them. We went out to Klein Bonaire and dove "the knife". The mooring was in deep water and I though we might not see it upon our return dive but we did. Anyway, it was an OK dive but not great. There were some nice coral formations but a lot had been destroyed. Later we found out it was from Hurricane Lenny in '99. The dive was OK but I wouldn't waste the dinghy gas to come out here again. When we got back to the dive shop, we had to leave the dock for a while as a big dive boat was coming in to pick up passengers and there wasn't going to be room on the dock. So, we didn't get back to the boat until 2:15pm, had a late lunch and than did some Thanksgiving emails. November 23 Tuesday More rain! It's cloudy and 100% overcast. Chris Parker, the weatherman, said we are going to get more rain today. So we decided to go to the Internet store. I went too so we could close the boat up and spray for mosquitoes. The boat needs to be closed at least 10 minutes to get rid of them but keeping it closed as long as possible is much better. I did some shopping and we got back to the boat around 12:30pm. We had some lunch and it finally stopped raining. I decided to take a nap. At 5pm SV Papillon came over- they wanted the route along the VE coast. They stayed until 8pm so we only had a light dinner after they left. November 24 Wednesday We left around 10am to go up to Andrea 2. Normally we really like this site but the visibility still isn't great- we could only see about 40 feet. I did see a turtle at the end of the dive after Larry was already in the dinghy. However, visibility was so bad I couldn't see him great. It was a very disappointing dive. We got back to the boat around 1:30 and just as we were having lunch, it started to rain out very hard - AGAIN! So we had to go below. I did some more emails. I made a nice shrimp scampi for dinner. I finished my John Grishman book someone gave me- "The King of Torts". It was OK but very predictable and not up to his usual standards. I went into the marina by dinghy as we are trying to see if they will let us use a part of the marina for Thanksgiving dinner. They wanted 300 guilders or about $170USD to rent out the unused restaurant so forget it! They would not even let us use the unoccupied bar and pool area. So we had to cancel the affair. Now we have absolutely no plans for the day, which is very depressing. Dolphin Street is leaving early in the am so we stopped by to say goodbye - we will really miss them. Since they are headed west, we will probably never see them again. November 25 Thursday Thanksgiving Day! Well, we had no plans for the day so it's very depressing. Last year when we were here, Halliday Girl (who is Canadian) had invited us over. We went into town so Larry could use the Internet and I could call Mom and Dad and Aunt Mary. I finally spoke to Mom and Dad as I used an Internet phone and the lines were down for a few hours. But Aunt Mary's number was busy. It was good to speak with my parents, as it had been a long time since we spoke- back in August! Actually, the one phone call for about 20 minutes to call Mom was $6. Yikes! That same phone call in VE would have been less than $2USD. Think we'll wait to get to VE before we make any more calls to the US! I did some shopping and got the Miami Herald paper. The paper is ceasing operations to the ABC islands as of 12/1. It's a shame as we really enjoy getting a US paper. We did get the news when we were in the marina but now that we are back on the mooring we don't get anything unless we listen to the BBC at 7am. We are just getting up at this time so generally don't listen to it. I guess the paper didn't make enough $ to justify the expense. But I will really miss it. I made some lomito, risotto, and we had a nice bottle of wine for dinner. It was not nearly as good as my Mom's fantastic cooking so I definitely missed being there for the day. Wish I could have just transported myself back to their house for the day! It really is hard being without you family on the holidays. November 26 Friday This morning I made some salami rolls (salami, cream cheese and olives), English matrimonials, and tortillas stuffed with cream cheese, scallions and red peppers. Unfortunately, the tortillas I just bought yesterday were not very good. I guess I should have just made my own but they were very time consuming. Since the visibility is still not great I told Larry we shouldn't dive to far away from the boat since it's a waste of dinghy gas to go to far. We have about 12 gallons left. Hope we don't have to buy any here, as it's so expensive. So we decided just to dive at Front Porch. Larry wanted to see the yellow seahorse and we had never explored the wreck in about 90 feet. We saw a huge grouper near the wreck. It wasn't nearly as good as the Hilma Hooker but we enjoyed it anyway. My flashlight batteries were getting low so I didn't get good visibility inside the wreck. We tried to find the seahorse before we went to the wreck but didn't see it. Fortunately, at the end of the dive, 2 divers were near it and we found it. It was really cool as it was very large, yellow and was in the open so it was easy to see. Now that we know where it is we can come again. Anyway, we saw a lot more fish this time than we normally do- 1 scorpion fish, 2 queen angelfish, 1 large bar jack and 2 moray eels so even though the coral is not very good here the fish certainly made up for it today. We are going to do a night dive off the boat tonight. We got back to the boat around 1:30 and had lunch. I did some emails and logs this afternoon. We won't go diving till after 6pm but I would like to go down when there is still some light left as this is only our second night dive- the last one we did was for our Advanced course. The night dive was great except the current was very strong on our return. We both think the current shifted on our return. It was also a full moon, which means the current was at its strongest also. We had a huge 5-foot tarpon follow us for most of the dive and he definitely unnerved me as he kept coming very close to us. He didn't mean us any harm though - he was just using our lights to look for fish. However, it was spooky to keep seeing this huge fish out of the corner of your eye getting close to you! I definitely panicked on our return when I realized the current got so strong- I didn't think I could make it back to the boat. I surfaced as I only had 300PSI left and wasn't even sure if it was our boat or not- I just couldn't stay down any longer. I really did enjoy the dive though and would like to do it again. I enjoyed seeing all the fish sleeping- it's a totally different perspective diving at night but it definitely is a lot scarier. November 27 Saturday We were both tired from doing 2 dives yesterday so we wanted to take diving easy today and do a nice easy dive. So we went to the Cliff this morning which was OK but not fantastic. We got back to the boat around 1:30pm, had lunch and then were going to take it easy for the day. Papillon and Odetta left today so we took the mooring Papillon was on - #5. Mooring 6, which we had been on, had 2 different mooring blocks, 3 lines and a dive boat was now anchored very close in front of it so we wanted to move. Larry had to take down the forward awning to do this however. Also, we had a seahorse directly under our boat so we always had a lot of divers under the boat. We just read and relaxed the rest of the day. I was woken up at 3am and than again at 5am when the low voltage alarm went off. It also rained during the night so I didn't get a great night's sleep. We actually overslept and missed the security net- the first time we have missed it in a long time. November 28 Sunday Another dark and dreary day! It looks like it will rain out at any moment! I made bacon and eggs for breakfast and some more salami rolls for lunch. I read some and did some emails. We were meeting Sally from Zahi to go diving or we probably would not have dove at all since the weather was so bad. But she doesn't listen to the radio here so we had no other way of contacting her so we just met her. She had promised to show us where the frogfish were at Petrie's Pillar. Unfortunately, she only had a half of tank of air so couldn't continue the dive with us. We didn't find the frogfish but we did see a loggerhead turtle eating that was awesome! We did the whole dive in about 40 feet of water and considering the weather; we actually had an excellent time. We saw a French and Queen angelfish, Burrfish, and about 5 moray eels. When we surfaced, we discovered it had rained out and was still drizzling now. We got back to the boat around 4pm in the pouring rain. I collected more rainwater! I made a big pot of spaghetti sauce and added canned beef, chorizo, mushrooms and sun dried tomatoes. We had to run the engine again for several hours - we've had to do this daily since we got to Bonaire! We just aren't getting enough sun or wind. We are here 5 weeks today and the weather has been really lousy the entire time. I don't think we have had 1 good day yet. We had some more rain at night also. November 29 Monday It looks like more rain again! Larry's mask is leaking so he needs to get another one so we walked down to the Carib Inn this morning. Two huge cruise ships are in port so town was very crowded. We hate it when it's this way! There are just too many people walking around. The sky cleared up a little but we still aren't getting enough sun or wind so will have to run the engine again. Anyway, at 1pm we went up to Petrie's Pillar again as Larry wanted to try and find the frogfish - we didn't but did see the turtle again. We have heard he's a resident at this site. We both like this site - it's much better than the one further south - The Cliff. November 30 Tuesday Finally a beautiful day with lots of sun! However, it did cloud up later in the day. We had low winds so decided to go out to Klein Bonaire. I made scones for breakfast. We left the boat around 10am to go pick up our tanks. We dove at Rock Pile and the visibility was excellent even in the shallow waters. We really enjoyed this dive although it's a long dinghy ride and coming back east is difficult against the wind. However, the wind wasn't up too much today so it wasn't too bad. When we got back another cruiser called us to say our mail came into the Internet store. So, after lunch we walked over to get it. It cost us $40 to get it but we hadn't gotten the mail since we were home in April. We have cancelled most of our magazines so only get a few left. Larry loves Practical Sailor, we both like the SSCA bulletins, and we get a few extra that are expiring so it's nice to have good reading material again. A boat we know slightly, Lady Diane, called us to reserve a mooring for them. We did and kept trying to call them over the VHF to tell them we got it but got no reply. When they weren't here by 4pm, I was concerned as they were only coming from Curacao, 35 miles away. Well another boater picked them up on the VHF- they were 18 miles out, their engine died, and they were requesting a tow. Larry was in the Internet café so wasn't on board. I helped trying to get them help, as did the other boat. I spent about an hour on the VHF making calls for them. But by this time it was after 5pm so it was getting difficult, as it was late in the day. We managed to get a dive boat to go get them - at the tune of $116USD per hour and it took about 4 hours! Ouch! We stayed on the VHF until 10pm and told them to call if they needed help. So much for our quiet evening just reading our mail! |