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Diane's DiaryOctober 7 Friday We went diving in the am as our local friend Karen is coming for dinner at 6pm so I wanted time to prepare. We went diving at 10am to Something Special, as I wanted to see the garden eels at 80'. Unfortunately, a dive boat from Divi Flamingo came onto our mooring and just let our dinghy hit up alongside his boat. He didn't even have the consideration to move us to his windward side. I asked him to move us but he wasn't very nice at all. His divers were obviously new as they had things dangling from their bodies, were bothering the fish, one almost ran into me and one started surfacing below my head as I was hanging on to the dinghy. So even though I always enjoy this site, I didn't like it so much this time. We got back to the boat around 1:30, and had lunch. I rested some before Karen came. However, she never showed up. Of course we don't have a phone so she can't call us but I don't know what happened. We were looking forward to calling her also. October 8 Saturday Geri invited me to go shopping again so I took her up on the offer. It's nice to have a car again. We had 4 of us ladies going and stopped at 4 supermarkets plus a store that had fresh cooked chicken and ribs. I bought one of the ribs and chicken- more expensive than PLC Makro- about double the price but just a little less than the excellent Pollo Azul chicken store in PLC. However, the Pollo Azul store did have better chicken although the one from here was definitely good. I didn't get back from shopping till 11:30am even though we left at 9am. We had lunch and went diving at 2pm- we just went off the boat today. The Bonaire Regatta is starting tomorrow. The disco started at 10pm so I didn't get a good night's sleep, then at 6am the boat rolling a lot wakened me. I thought a west wind had come into the anchorage so woke up very quickly but thankfully it didn't. We had some sun today but still not to much and not much wind so of course we are running the engine again. October 9 Sunday We had a wind reversal early this am. Last night we had zero wind, it was very hot and I couldn't sleep since I was so hot- my nightgown and hair were dripping with perspiration. Around 7am the wind shifted to the west and the motion of the boat was different. I am a light sleeper and the different motion of the boat woke me up. The sky looked very dark and we could see lightening and hear thunder. Sure enough around 8am, we had a very violent thunderstorm with lots of rain. I didn't even think about collecting the rainwater until it was too late- I only got a little. Anyway, thankfully we didn't get huge winds only about 30knots for a very short time. I thought we were going to get high seas as we did with the wind reversal last year so we weren't going to leave the boat. It actually wasn't too bad and thankfully we didn't get bad rolling although we definitely had some. We didn't want to leave Destiny in a west wind so stayed on the boat the whole day- no diving or swimming for us. We wanted to be close in case something happened to the boat. We of course have zero wind and no sun so I guess we'll be running the engine again. The boat was hobby horsing the entire day so it was no fun. We have a forecast it's going to be like this for the next 3 days also! UGH! I finished book #20 today- Nimitz Class. It was very good and I enjoyed it. October 10 Monday Still more west winds today so we didn't leave the boat the entire day. We aren't getting a good night sleep either since the boat is rolling so much. The Regatta started today and unfortunately, our mooring is the closest possible to all the noise with lots of very loud music and a loudspeaker the whole day- it was horrible. Also, we have lots of kids swimming in the water near us although none have bothered Destiny at all. So, we didn't do much the whole day. I started reading and finished an entire book today- Mayday by Nelson Demille and another author. This was book #21. I have read all of DeMille's books and like this author. He is from Long Island also and has written some books about the Island that I enjoyed. So, I was quite anxious to read this book. It was all about a plane going through decompression so was quite different from his previous books. I enjoyed reading it- it wasn't the best book he has written but it was fast paced and exciting. Of course we have cloudy skies and no wind so we are running the engine again. October 11 Tuesday It was raining out lightly this morning- not a lot but enough to keep us on the boat but not enough to collect much rainwater. The Regatta in front of us is in full swing with loud music from 10am to 10pm and then Karel's Bar starts with their band until 1am! So, it's extremely noisy here between the music and all the kids in the water. I defrosted the freezer in the morning, as I hadn't done it since 9/19. I can't seem to get the temperature to the right selection since Larry put in the new thermostat. We are not getting any rest with all this loud music. The sky looked like it was clearing so we thought we would just walk down to the Carib Inn in the afternoon so I could buy new dive boots. However, I didn't know I should have brought my dive fins with me to try them on so I didn't have them with me. I did try the boots they had and none seemed to fit correctly though. I brought some books to trade and got some good ones from them also. They claim to have the best book swap on the island and I think they do! We also went looking at a few dive shops in town for new boots but none had my size - they said they would be getting them in though. Just as we were walking past Karel's Bar someone called "Larry"- it was Ray from Precious Gale! Lots of news from him - he is getting divorced, Ashley at 17 is getting married to her Dutch boyfriend and he came to Bonaire to help a friend who is also getting divorced, move his boat. So, it was nice to see him again although we were sorry to hear about the divorce. We had left the boat at the green dock as we didn't want to take it to Karel's Bar with the unsettled wind. However, the dinghy was full of water when we got back and it was obvious the local kids had been playing with it. Unfortunately, they must have also started the outboard as we found the throttle way open. Larry didn't remove the key (we never do this here but I always do it in PLC when I go to Plaza Mayor), as we aren't accustomed to anyone bothering the dinghy. We won't leave it there during the Regatta any more! Anyway, we of course don't have enough sun or wind so we are running the engine and water maker again. October 12 Wednesday We still have no sun or winds so are running the engine again. Actually, we tried to get into the marina on Monday but with the Regatta going on now they have no spots right now. We decided to go diving today as the wind seems to be a little better. We dove at Something Special but visibility was horrible - we could barely see the dinghy from the shallow water. The Marine Park boat came by and asked to see our dive tags. Ours were from last January but they go by calendar year. We were going to buy them when we got back to Wanna Dive. Anyway, diving we saw a whole school of scad fish in the thousands that we got in the middle of as they were being chased by some large jacks. They passed us several times and it was really neat! One of the best things we have ever seen! My octopus line got twisted with my regulator but I managed to free them without panicking. October 13 Thursday- Our 20th wedding Anniversary Happy Anniversary! Hard to believe we are celebrating 20 years today- time seems to have just flown by. We were going to go out to dinner but the restaurants are too expensive here for a good nice meal- probably at least $75. We would rather just go to El Morocco in PLC and have an even better meal for around $25 and that will include soup to nuts! We were going to get a pizza tonight instead- even that is $20 for takeout! The weather is definitely clearing- we have some sun and the wind is from the SE- not as good as an East wind but we'll take it anyway. Anyway, we stopped at Makai to give them back a book they lent us. They invited us onboard and gave us some more books. We than went to S/V Vamos - they invited us on board, had some cold drinks and we got to see their beautiful new cat. Larry said it must have cost over one million dollars- it looked like a quality boat. We got back shortly before noon and I made my wonderful sour cream banana cake for a special desert- it takes a lot of time to prepare but is one of my favorite cakes. We left the boat shortly before 2pm to go diving- we went to Petrie's Pillar today. Unfortunately, the visibility wasn't too great and we could hardly see the dinghy upon our return to the boat it was that bad. We did see a scrawled pygmy filefish and scorpion fish. Ray and his friend Tim happened to be at the dive shop and invited us to Bongo's bar for a drink- I said we don't have any money with us but they said come they would buy us a drink. Anyway, we had one drink with them and got back to the boat around 6pm. We were too tired to go out to dinner and wanted to watch the boat parade of all the dive boats go by. Plus, I had bought some great Chandon champagne that we wanted to have. I had brought it from PLC. Tomorrow we will have the other bottle along with a special dinner of shrimp. So, since I hadn't planned on being home for dinner tonight, I didn't have anything to make for dinner so we just had hot dogs instead. How terrible to have this meal on our anniversary but that's just how it goes sometimes. Our bottle of Chandon was excellent- it was $14 in PLC and $21 here so I was glad I bought it there. We had my excellent cake for dessert- just fantastic! October 14 Friday Today is the last day of the sailing Regatta, thank God- the noise has been unbelievable with music from 10am until 2am. Plus, there were lots of kids in the water swimming near the boat. We definitely had the worst mooring, as it was to close to the Regatta headquarters. I did some logs in the morning and emailed the bread article I wrote to the Caribbean Compass. At 2pm, we went diving to Front Porch - right in front of Wanna Dive to see the wrecked sailboat in 60 feet of water. Unfortunately, as we approached the wreck, the current really picked up and was so strong it just pulled me back so we aborted the dive. Larry swam all the way back to the dinghy but I just went up the steps at the Wanna Dive dock. I was pretty shaken up as the current was just forcing me south and I couldn't keep up. I definitely was scared and didn't wait the proper time to surface - definitely in a panic stage. However, we were only down for 15 minutes so doubt we will have any problems. Anyway, tonight I made our anniversary dinner- shrimp wrapped in bacon and cheese, cucumbers and feta cheese in Italian dressing and the cake for dessert. We also had our last bottle of Chandon champagne- excellent again. It was probably better than any meal we would get in Bonaire and even if they did have it here it would be a small fortune! October 15 Saturday We had tank air leftover from yesterday so just decided to dive off the boat. We lost our blue boarding mat in the wind reversal so thought it might just be near the boat. We looked for it but no luck finding it. We finished the dive around 11:15am and had been in the water for 45 minutes with just 2000 PSI in our tanks at the beginning of the dive. We went back to Wanna Dive to get our tanks filled and saw Tim- Ray's friend, while we waited for them to fill our tanks. The water on the leeward side of Bonaire is all churned up from the west winds so the dive shop suggested going out to Klein Bonaire for better visibility. So at 2pm, we left to dive at Sampler on Klein Bonaire. Just as we were getting our gear ready in the dinghy, a dive boat approached- it was the same dive boat we had a problem with at Something Special so we thought about moving. However, it was a different dive master on board who was very nice and even asked permission to join us on the site! We think the female driver was the same as before but it was not her we had the problems with- it was the dive master. Anyway, they even said we could join them on the dive so they were very nice. We did learn to dive this site to the west as that had better coral. We enjoyed the site but there wasn't many fish here although the coral was much prettier than the mainland. Visibility was very bad in the shallows and since the dive group was near us, we just followed them back to the boat. It's a good thing too as I could hardly see the dinghy. I did find a bat wing crab. I was banging for Larry to come see it, but the dive group heard me banging and came to see it too. That spooked the crab with so many people around and he backed up into a rock so it was hard to see him. The dive boat later offered to tow our dinghy back to shore so we wouldn't have to go that far and we could climb on board for a ride back to the mainland but we declined. I think the driver knew how badly they treated us before. We got back to the boat around 5pm and I immediately noticed things weren't quite the way we had left them. The boat was definitely boarded while we were gone! Some kids had evidently climbed up the mooring lines, entered the boat through an open hatch soaking wet, getting our bedding all wet, and generally made a mess with their wet clothes- normally, we never let anyone down below that has salt water on them. Anyway, they took a full box of Oreo cookies and a box of candy we had on the table. I also can't find my watch so think they took that also. We were very lucky they didn't take anything else but that was probably because they were swimming so couldn't take anything else. They also probably thought my watch was waterproof so that's why they took it. We know it was just kids but we felt very violated having our home entered. We were just lucky they were swimming so couldn't take much with them. Looks like we may have to start locking the boat from now on- something we haven't done in a long time. We usually felt safe here in Bonaire but I guess that isn't so. We were going to go out for dinner but just decided it was probably best to just stay on the boat in case the kids came back. October 16 Sunday Around 6pm last night I noticed a large storm off to our west that looked like it was going to stay to the west. Around midnight we were woken up with another wind reversal storm. The wind was only up to around 15-20 knots for a very short time and the storm was mainly north and south of the anchorage with lots of lightning. We only had a little amount of rain also. However, the bad rolling started and we were up till nearly 4am. It was difficult to sleep with all this rolling around. We slept late this morning- till 8:30am. Hurricane Wilma is forming west of us. This hurricane season is getting ridiculous- we are already at the last name of the alphabet and now we'll have to go to the Greek alphabet if there's another storm- that's never happened before! Anyway, we were both tired from the lack of sleep last night. We had west -SW winds the entire day. I had found the wind generator wasn't getting in any amps last night but with all the rolling around Larry couldn't make the repair. It's a good thing I noticed it wasn't working properly as we desperately need the amps. October 17 Monday I was doing some research on the Internet this morning. At 1:30pm, we left to dive Barkadera- a dive site way north of us. The site wasn't so great and visibility was not that good so it wasn't worth all the dinghy gas to get up here. When we got back to the boat I noticed the refrigerator temperature had gone up to 47 degrees- I had been noticing the temperature was increasing. It does usually go up a few degrees during the day but this was way too high and I think something is wrong with it. Hopefully, we'll get a hold of a refrigerator guy tomorrow. We had a nice East wind today finally - only about 10 knots but it was nice to have an East wind again so the boat is pointing East towards the island and we don't roll around too much in this direction.
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