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Larry's LogFriday we dove again in the afternoon since we moved the boat in the morning to a mooring a little further north. We moved by me getting in the dinghy, releasing the mooring lines and then going to the new mooring and waiting for Diane to drive the boat to it. Once there, I reattached the lines from the dinghy, which was much easier than trying to grab them from the bow using a boat hook. We went further north to get further from the music that plays at Karel's Bar on the weekends and also to try to get better reception on the wireless internet that was setup now. A few people had it and used it from their boats in the mooring field. Unfortunately, while I could see the access point, I couldn't get a very good signal. I said I would talk to the place that ran it tomorrow and see where the signal strength was better. We made our dive at Something Special, a site that was pretty close but had always been good. It didn't disappoint us and although we didn't see anything new, the reef was still very pretty and there were lots of fish. We finished at about 4, went to the dive shop where we rinsed off everything and they refilled our tanks. We then went back to the boat to relax. Saturday was also a busy day. In the morning, I went in to the marina complex to talk to the people at the internet place who operated the wireless network. They said that the spot I was in should be fine and gave me some hints about using a longer extension with no connections in between and to try to get the antenna as high as possible. I went back to the boat and found the long extension cable I had bought that had a little booster at one end. Maybe that would help. I started the PC and moved the antenna around with the long wire but couldn't get the signal any better than "low", and it would still drop out periodically. Finally, I got out a 10 foot long piece of half-inch PVC pipe and tied the antenna to the end of it and held it upward. That seemed to help so I mounted it 'semi-permanently', registered the computer on the wireless network home page and went in to pay the monthly fee. The signal wasn't great but it worked well enough, although the signal would drop occasionally if we weren't pointed east. At least I wouldn't have to take the computer in to shore to use the internet now, assuming I could tolerate the weak signal and occasional loss. By the time I finished that, we ate and then went diving at a site we liked last year, Petrie's Pillar. Just as we were ready to submerge, a dive boat came up to the mooring also and tied up. They were nice about it though so there was no problem. We enjoyed it again and saw a small Green Turtle along with some other interesting things. When we went to the dive shop though, they were closed for the afternoon, preparing for the party they were having later for their fifth anniversary. We left the tanks, rinsed off everything and went back to the boat. We had dinner and later went to the Wanna Dive party, just a few blocks away from the dock where we left the dinghy (close to the boat's mooring). It was a nice party although people had to buy tickets to get drinks and snacks, but they did hire a band that wasn't bad. We saw the Wanna Dive instructor from last year we knew, Karen, and talked with her for a while. She also told us where there were some frogfish and seahorses, so we'll have to look for them. As it turns out, she said there was a frogfish near Petrie's Pillar, but it was in the opposite direction from where we went this morning - oh well, we'd probably go back anyway. We stayed at the party for a while and then came back to the boat where I did some more updates to the PC's software. It was taking a while since the connection was fairly slow but at least it worked. We could still hear the band from the party and then the band from Karel's Bar started up and didn't finish until about 2am. I think we were asleep by then but we were pretty tired the next morning. We didn't do much either the next morning. It was pretty calm and there were some clouds as well; we would be running the engine again. Diane did some preparation for dinner as she had gone shopping and we got some fresh veggies again. We went diving in the early afternoon so after we picked up our tanks, we went over to a site called Small Wall. We had been there many times before but now we had a special reason to go - Karen, the dive instructor that used to work at WannaDive and who we saw at their party, had told us about a Frogfish that was at that site. She had described where it was so we hoped to find it. We went in the water, did the wall and then went up to the depth she had mentioned. We saw the Orange Elephant Ear sponge she said the fish was on and we went down to look. Sure enough, the Frogfish was there. He was also orange (they can be almost any color and change to match the color of their surroundings) but he was just off the sponge on the grey coral near it. Only about 4 inches long, he blended in amazingly well but since we knew (hoped) he was there, we found him very quickly. He moved around a little but when he stopped, he was very difficult to see, even though we knew where he was. After watching the Frogfish for a few minutes, we continued the dive. We stayed at about 40 feet and saw some other interesting things but nothing as good as the Frogfish. On the way back, we looked for him as well and found him on the same sponge, a little further down, blending in even more. The rest of the dive was nice but we had already had the highlight. We returned to the dive shop and then went back to the boat, relaxing for the rest of the day. I hoisted the dinghy to prevent bottom growth and then ran the engine to charge the batteries. The sky was clear but the wind was still very light, and that night was pretty hot again. The wind got lighter as the night wore on and eventually became calm, so it got very hot again. We both woke up sweating but eventually got back to sleep again when the temperature dropped. That seemed to be the pattern for the last few days and hopefully it will change soon but the weather reports are predicting more of the same for this week. It seems when ever we get to Bonaire the wind gets very light (of course, we're here about the same time for the last 3 years). We didn't do much that morning but did go diving in the afternoon. We went to one of the moorings where we had seen a seahorse last year and the year before but he was gone this year. Evidently, Hurricane Ivan really moved a lot of the sedentary fish around. The dive shop staff also said that they get scared and move because people pick them up or touch them. The dive was nice though and there were lots of fish. The highlight for me though was finally seeing a Sailfin Blenny raise his 'sail.' We went back to the dive shop, dropped off the tanks, rinsed the gear and went back to the boat. We didn't do much the rest of the day except run the engine and watermaker, and I hoisted the dinghy. We had a busy Tuesday morning since we wanted to go to Klein Bonaire to dive. I put more gas in the outboard tank, pumped up the dinghy with some more air and we took along the handheld radio, just in case. We then went to pick up the tanks and were at the dive site, Rock Pile, by about 10:30. The dive was very nice, and the coral was great, with lots of soft growth in the shallows. There weren't many fish though. The high point though was the first shark we had seen in Bonaire - a 4 foot Reef Shark. He was swimming in about 25 feet of water and I spotted him and pointed him out to Diane. He was completely uninterested in us and swam away before we could even get a really good look. Coming back from the site, the current against the wind set up some chop but that died also once we got past the point of the little island. After going to the dive shop we went back to the boat, had lunch and just relaxed for a while. Later in the afternoon, once it cooled down a little, we went for a walk to some of the stores around the island. One was a large hardware store where I got the spare bulb for the Alpenglow light above the nav station while Diane went to the variety stores just down the block. She bought a butane fire starter for the stove and I walked over to get a bandanna to try with diving. I didn't want to use suntan lotion all the time on my head so I figured I would try it. It was a bit hot walking around but at least at that time, there was some breeze. Later on, it died again and the boat was hot. Wednesday was boat maintenance, diving and a little party. In the morning, I got started testing the wind generator to see why it has problems at the higher wind speeds. This entailed removing the propane locker so I could get at the terminal block where the wind generator wires were. Of course, removing the propane locker is a REAL pain - first taking the connection apart for the solenoid, then disconnecting the propane tanks and putting them someplace, then disconnecting the propane hose going to the stove, disconnecting and removing the drain to the locker and finally, removing the locker itself. Before disconnecting the wires to test though, I had to prevent the wind generator blades from turning so I had to turn the unit off (it was moving very slowly - not making any electricity anyway) and then I had to climb up and ties off the blades to the pole. Finally, I could disconnect the 3 wires and test for resistance between the pairs. The results, even after I cleaned off the contacts, wasn't what it should be so I emailed the shop that makes them and let them know the results. The readings were still very erratic but generally higher than they should have been. After taking the readings, I then had to put everything back together. And since I was dealing with propane, I had to make sure that the compartment was vapor tight, so I couldn't cut any corners, even though I thought I would probably have to remove it again. I took the opportunity to make a rubber gasket for the drain since I had just been using a thick layer of silicon. By the time I finished putting everything back together and put the bimini back up (so I could climb up and tie off the blades), it was almost lunch time. We ate and decided to dive at a site called Front Porch, one of the closest sites to the dive shop. It wasn't very pretty since the coral had been torn up when they built a beach resort (that has since been torn down) but there was a small wreck at about 90 feet that was usually interesting and the fish life there was very diverse. There had also been a seahorse there for the last 2 years but the dive shop staff said he was gone now, due to Hurricane Ivan. We picked up our tanks and went over and tied up to the pipe in the water (a leftover from the resort) and made our dive. As we remembered, it wasn't very pretty coral but the fish life was very good. We saw a large Spotted Moray feeding out in the open, something we hadn't seen before. We also saw some other very interesting things as well. After the dive, we went back to the shop and they filled our tanks right away so we would be ready to go tomorrow. We got back to the boat around 4 and I ran the engine for a while and then we got ready to go to the weekly party by the dive shop. We went ashore about 5:30 and walked over to the dive shop and enjoyed the rum punch and peanut chicken skewers. We also met some other cruisers as well so we had a nice time. We finally got back a little after 7 so I ran the engine again for an hour and then just relaxed for the rest of the night. We were a little tired in the morning from the party and the noise at night - they were building things for the upcoming Bonaire Regatta and the sounds of electric saws and hammers could be heard until about 9pm. But we went diving in the morning since we are thinking about taking a walk down to the Carib Inn to find Diane some new dive boots - hers were falling apart. We made our dive at Something Special again and got there about 10am. We went in and enjoyed the dive very much, first seeing the Garden Eels at about 65 feet and then going along the reef. I was deeper than Diane at first so I also saw my first Sunshinefish of the year at about 80 feet, always nice. We went along and saw some other interesting things, Arrowline Crabs, Banded Coral Shrimp, etc. On the way back to the mooring though, we saw a large group of divers coming the other way. That meant that a dive boat had also tied up to the mooring. Normally, that's not a problem. We got back to the mooring and saw that they had tied up with our dinghy on their port side - unfortunately we need to get in the dinghy on its starboard side so Diane, who had gone up first, asked them to move our dinghy to the back of their boat. They weren't particularly nice about it and didn't move it back far enough so that when we finally did start to get it, the dinghy was interfering with their dive ladder, so they had to move it again. While the dive boats had priority at the moorings, since we were there first and were already diving, they 'normally' just tie alongside or move us to their stern. If they had observed our inflatable, they would have seen that we needed to have our starboard side clear. Well, we finally got in and got organized and they let our painter go when we were ready. As it turned out, they were ready about 30 seconds later. The dive itself was good but the company at the mooring wasn't. That's usually not the case - most other dive shop boats are just fine, they've even told us about where to find seahorses or frogfish at a site and some have given us drinking water. We got back to WannaDive, and Paul, the guy running the shop, filled our tanks while we rinsed everything off. We got back to the boat, ate lunch and decided that we were too tired to walk into town. So we just relaxed for the afternoon. We were expecting Karen, the dive instructor we had met at WannaDive 2 years ago, and had seen at their party on Saturday, over for dinner at 6. She was coming to the 'green' dock nearby and I would pick her up there. Diane started to make dinner, spaghetti Carbonara, and I watched for Karen, Unfortunately, she never showed up. Diane had spoken to her yesterday but I guess something came up. That's the problem with not having a phone; we're basically out of touch except for the VHF and email. Normally I like it that way but there are disadvantages. We waited until about 6:45 and then ate dinner ourselves. Diane would try to call and find out what happened tomorrow. |