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Diane's DiaryDecember 16 Tuesday At 9:30am we left for a walk to the hardware store. We parked the dinghy near the "green dock" and just walked from there. We also went to super good Woolworth type stores and I found 2 sleeveless Tommy Hilfiger shirts with a collar for about $7 each. That was a good buy! We got back to the boat around noon and had lunch. At 2pm we went to the dive shop to get our tanks filled. Then we stopped at Wanna Dive to get my new tank tapper fixed - it had broken on the first try! We really liked Wanna Dive much better than Harbor Village except they are in the process of putting in a new dinghy dock (there was nothing before - just an old mooring to tie too and than you had to wade in - not much fun!) so we couldn't get in there while they were doing the construction. Otherwise we would have continued getting our air with them. Wanna Dive charges $3USD per fill compared to Harbor Village at $2. However, Wanna Dive has a very nice atmosphere, a restaurant and bar attached to it, a beach and generally speaking the people who work there are super. We like them much better. We decided to dive at Front Porch, which is very close to Wanna Dive. It's not as good a site as some of the others but it's very close and there are supposed to be seahorses. However, we didn't see the seahorses. The coral is also not so terrific either. I do think the other close dive site - Something Special is much better. There is a wreck here at 80' however; our certification only rates us to 60' so it's too deep for us. December 17 Wednesday Sv Halliday Girl asked us if we wanted to go diving with them today so we said yes. We were going to dive early at 10:30am but then they couldn't make it as the refrigerator serviceman said he could come at 11am. Since they were having problems with their refrigerator, they were glad he could come the same day. Since we were all suited up ready to go, we decided to go anyway. We decided to go all the way up to Barcadera but wound up going to Oil Slick Leap instead as we were mistaken with the sites. All the dive moorings are supposed to have names on them but majority do not. Anyway, it was a very far dinghy ride and while it was OK, I thought it wasn't worth all the extra ride and dinghy gas to get up there. Larry thought the coral was better here than at Andrea I. We got back to the boat around 2. I rested awhile as I was tired. Halliday Girl and Precocious Gale were doing a night dive to the town pier tonight for less than $20 per person and invited us to go along. However, as we had never done a night dive and some of the dive is directly under the dock, I didn't think it was such a great idea and didn't want to go. Larry did, but we only have 1 dive light and each person needs two lights - one as a backup light and the other the main light. Anyway, at 3:45pm, I walked to a store that supposedly had citronella oil for our lantern. We can't seem to find the oil on the entire island and it sure would help with all the mosquitoes. Anyway, it was a much longer walk than I thought - all the way down near Carib Inn so it was a hike. The store wasn't even opened after all that! I walked back and stopped at Photo Tours on the way back to ask about the free reef fish ID class they had advertised for Sunday. I got back to the boat around 5pm- tired from walking around in all that sun and heat. December 18 Thursday This morning we went into the Internet café, the grocery store and the retail dive shop for Wanna Dive. We got back to the boat at 12 and had lunch. At 1:30pm, we went diving with Halliday Girl to the Cliff site, which is right near the Capt Don's hotel so it was pretty close to the boat. We had a very nice dive except we decided to do the fish survey. This encompassed holding a slate and writing down all the different species of fish we saw onto the template. Well, this was definitely too much for me as I was having difficulties trying to hold the slate, write down the fish we saw, and dive also. At this point, I am just not a good enough diver to try and do all these things especially since I feel I do not have buoyancy control down pat yet. I did enjoy this dive site and would definitely come again. I just do not want to complete another fish survey until I become a better diver. We needed to do a fish survey before we go on the fish dive on Sunday. Vicky came over at 4:30 to teach me how to make pizza dough as I never made the dough before. We made the dough, I'll make our pizza and we'll go eat it on Halliday Girl with the pizza they made. Mine came out pretty good and will definitely be part of my recipe collection. Thanks Vicky for teaching me how to make it! Anyway, we stayed at Halliday Girl till about 8:30pm and all had a very nice time just sitting talking and eating. I definitely like these cheap nights out! December 19 Friday I walked to the warehouse club by myself to go food shopping at 8:45am this morning. Larry offered to go but I prefer to go shopping by myself unless I go with another lady. Today will be the last supply boat Bonaire gets in until sometime in the middle of January. Hard to believe an island won't get a food delivery for almost a month! But it all gets imported from Curacao. If another cruiser hadn't given us this information, we would not have known. So, I decided I better go stock up. I first walked to the Yokas mini supermarket near the Carib Inn to see if they had the citronella oil. I walked the extra 10 minutes out of my way to go there but they didn't have the oil we need. I guess they just do not have it on Bonaire. I don't know why as they have tons of mosquitoes on this island and definitely need it! Anyway, I bought things like sour cream, which you can't get in VE. I also bought cream cheese - sometimes they have this in VE and sometimes not. I bought lots of the good Dutch cheese like Gouda and Edam as it's about the same price as in VE. I got back to the boat, put the groceries away, we had lunch and at 2:30pm we went diving back to the Small Wall dive site, which we both liked and is close to the boat. We got back to the boat around 4:30pm. I definitely think our diving is improving but like anything new you try, it takes time to get good at it. I just think we need to practice some more. December 20 Saturday At 9am, I went shopping with Vicky to the cheap junk stores Larry and I went to the other day. I needed to be "with the girls" for a while and both Larry and Peter hate to shop so this was good for Vicky and I. Anyway, they had the shirts I bought the other day for half price so that meant they were $3 each! I only bought one as the only other one they had in my size was dark blue and that color is hot down here. However, after thinking about it and for the price I decided it was too good a deal to pass up and went back and bought the other one! So, now I have 4 new shirts! But I use tank tops all the time down here, as T-shirts are just too hot. Anyway, Vicky and I also walked to the supermarket. We had a nice long walk and it was good to get out and stretch our legs. We went back to the boat, put away the groceries, had lunch and they went diving with Halliday Girl. We went out to the Angel City dive site, which Ray said was one of his favorites so we thought we would try it. It's a long dinghy ride from the boat though - at least 20 minutes. Anyway, when we got there Larry's regulator was broken so he couldn't dive. I know he was very disappointed but there was nothing we could do. So he went snorkeling instead. Since I had my gear and we had 2 other divers, the rest of us decided to go. It was an excellent dive site and by far my favorite site so far. However, Vicky was having problems with her mask filling with water. This is definitely no fun as salt water stings your eyes. Anyway, I am still using more air as a new diver so it really was time for me to turn back anyway when Vicky wanted to go back. On the way back to the boat, we stopped at the Carib Inn where we bought the regulator. Bruce, the owner, fixed the problem at no charge. It seems the o-ring in the yoke got loose and broke. When we finally got back to Harbor Village it was after 4pm and we discovered they had shut the water off for the day. We finally got someone to put the water back on for us but we have had it with Harbor Village. We are very unhappy with getting our air there and would like to leave except we have already paid for the air and we don't think they will give us a refund. December 21 Sunday I did a lot of cooking this morning. I made scones for breakfast, biscuit mix, and an apple cobbler. We went into the marina to see about our propane tank as we had brought it in to get filled on Saturday and it still was not ready. We got this last tank filled in VE but when we got it back, the valve was not closed completely so we did not know how much propane leaked out. We decided to get one filled instead of suddenly running out of propane on our way back to VE where we can't get the propane filled easily. Normally, a tank lasts about 3 months but if I use the oven a lot like I did on our way to Bonaire, it lasted 2 months. We went to the dive shop to get my tank refilled. We spoke with a cruiser, Ann, who works there. She had the nerve to tell us we should be "privileged" to use the dive shop. I didn't say anything to her but I was spitting mad! Also, no more showers after hours as they will shut off the water at 4pm. Sounds like a military dictatorship to me! I have just about had it with them. If we could get a refund on the air tanks we have left, we would leave in a minute. Anyway, in the afternoon, I made some Swedish meatballs for Christmas. We are having Halliday Girl over for dinner tonight. I am going to make Spaghetti Carbonara for dinner and Vicky made a cheesecake. Larry went diving with the REEF fish dive but I didn't want to go as I felt I don't know the fish as well as he does. Also, I found it difficult to dive and do a survey - maybe when I get a little better at diving. Anyway, I stayed home and did a Christmas email to everyone, some finances and worked on my logs. At 5:30pm, Vicky and Peter came over for dinner and we all had a good time. After they left, I read some chapters in Ray's advanced dive book that he lent us. We are going to take the advanced dive class with him starting tomorrow. December 22 Monday We waited for Ray to come start our Advanced Dive course this morning. He was supposed to come early but something came up so he decided to cancel. It was really no big deal for us but we would like to get the course in before we leave next week. We need to take our pictures for our PADI ID cards. We were just going to get the pictures taken in town but they wanted a ridiculous amount for 2 pictures so we decided to just take the pictures with our digital camera and use a color printer in the Internet café to get a copy. So, we took our pictures this morning and Larry fooled around with them on the PC. We will give the mail to Skyus' friends returning to the US on 12/27 to mail for us. We went diving in the afternoon. When we got back to Harbor Village before they closed, they already had the faucet turned off. We asked them to turn it on so we could clean out the interior of our BC. The manager had the nerve to tell us this didn't need to be done! I told him our instructions told us otherwise and did he know more than the manufacturer! I think his boss was in the store at the time also. Then, we used their cooler jug to run water into our BC's and he was mad about that. Finally, he said if we wanted to get a refund we could! This was exactly what we wanted as we were as unhappy with them as they probably were with us. He even figured the amount of dives incorrectly (on purpose I suspect). I asked him to see the sheets we need to sign and he was obviously annoyed at this. Anyway, we wound up getting a $50 refund - we should have gotten a little more but at least we got something back. So, we will now go to Wanna Dive to get our air. A little more expensive but worth it we think. December 23 Tuesday We started our advanced dive course this morning with Ray at 8:30am. Before Ray came I made a crabmeat quiche as I was not sure when we would finish diving for the day and it's easier just having dinner already made and ready to pop in the oven. He first went over the test questions for the deep dive, navigation (these are the 2 required parts all the remaining 3 dives are our choices) and buoyancy control. The other 2 elective dives we chose are the night and wreck dive. We did the deep dive this morning down to about 100' at Something Special. We saw the hugest green moray we have ever seen in our lives! He was bigger than Larry! He was so big he scared the shit out of us. We also saw a huge field of brown garden eels that was just fascinating! We had a wonderful dive and I didn't think it was scary at all going down 100'. However, we were only able to stay down for 18 minutes at that depth according to the dive tables. We will have to buy dive computers, as this is a very good piece of safety equipment. We filled our tanks with Wanna Dive for the first time. They let us open an account by taking an imprint on our credit card so we could just pay for the total number of dives taken when we leave somewhere after January 1. Anyway, the dive shop was very crowded. They have rented out all their dive equipment and had to turn people away! It's very crowded with all the tourists coming in for the holidays. We rested a little while until the dive tables said we could go back in the water. After about an hour or so, we went out diving again and did our navigation dive. I didn't do so very well on the compass part but Larry helped me. This was not my favorite part of the class but I could see where the skills are helpful. We had a drink with Ray at the bar and didn't get back to the boat for lunch until 3:30pm. By that time I was starved! So, we had a late lunch. Gayle came over later and gave us a small loaf of beer bread as a Xmas present. It was very nice of her! We left at 5:30pm to go to Jessie's Tuesday night fish seminar that we enjoy so much. |