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Larry's LogSaturday morning the refrigerator still seemed to be working so I guess we found the leak. The thermometer is still going down although it will take a long time and the batteries were very low in the morning from the compressor running all night. Still, it's nice to see it working again and hopefully it will continue. I spoke with Tom, on Mima now in Curacao, via SSB this morning and told him what was happening - he said the compressor may be OK since the later R12 units had compatible oil with the new gas - I just hope it makes it to PLC. I'm going to replace it anyway. The wind had died overnight and it got very hot again and when we got up, the little breeze was south southwest again, not a good direction. However, there were no storm clouds and the breeze was light so the water shouldn't get too stirred up. Diane went in to get some ice to help the box cool down and I put some things away, ran the engine and did some other miscellaneous chores. I also checked the starboard water tank for the leak which I think I found. The bilge pump had been going on every 2-3 days for just a little bit and I wasn't sure where the water was coming from. I didn't even know if it was fresh water - I thought it might be from the engine overflow on the exhaust elbow or maybe from water slopping in the bilge from the shower in the cockpit. However, it seems that the starboard water tank is definitely leaking - I saw water on the cabin sole again and when I looked through the small access panel at the hose going to the tank, I saw the bottom of the locker was wet. Hopefully, it's just an old hose that started to leak or the hose clamp has cracked, which would be simple. Even if the tank fitting to the hose had cracked, that might be fixable with epoxy - the tank itself is stainless steel so it shouldn't be corroded, especially from fresh water, and we're very careful not to use too much chlorine in the water when we fill up. Anyway, if the tank is cracked someplace, it will be a horrible job to remove it. The tank was obviously placed in the boat first and the settee built around it. To remove the tank whole would require that the settee be almost destroyed. Why boat builders do that is beyond me unless they figure that they will never have to deal with the problem and it's just easier to do build it that way initially. Well, if it's just the hose, clamp or the fitting, I will still have to drill a large hole in the locker next to it to access the tank. Luckily, the part of the locker I would need to drill is not seen. The tank was still about one-half full so I switched to using it and would check everything again when it was empty. After we had lunch we went for a dive at Something Special again. We were both a little tired since we got up last night when it got hot and had a hard time getting back to sleep. Also, with the southwest wind, the water would be stirred up a little anyway, so we decided not to go too far. The dive was nice though and there were lots of fish. I went down to about 95 feet briefly and saw a Tarpon, the Garden Eels and some Sand Tilefish. Then Diane and I went along the reef and saw some Spotted Morays and a Chain Moray. The visibility was only about 40-50 feet but we enjoyed it anyway. The most interesting thing though, was I saw a Sand Diver with the tail of a fish he had obviously just caught still in its mouth. Back at the boat, we had take-out barbeque for dinner - Diane walked over to the place and I picked her up at the dock. There was another small wind reversal the next morning. It rained hard for a while and blew about 20 knots from the west for about 15-20 minutes but then everything calmed down. Unfortunately, the wave action really disturbs the water clarity so I don't think we'll dive today. We stayed on the boat most of the day and the wind eventually started to come from the south and gradually backed to the southeast. The sky cleared and we felt that everything was fine. Diane went to pick up the food that Geri had kept for us and we loaded the refrigerator again and enjoyed cold drinks once more. Around 5pm, we had expected Karen and John from Nirvana for drinks but they were on another boat and got caught up in something so they didn't come over. Diane was about to make dinner when we heard that Curacao was reporting that some big westerly swells were coming in this direction. The marina had made an announcement and then Chile, on Natural Selection, made another announcement when the Marine Park boat came up to him and said he should call the harbormaster to find out about the swell. It was supposedly up to 6 feet, which would have been really bad - even worse than the swell that came through after the bad wind reversal last year, when we rolled up to 40 degrees on each side. When we heard the first announcement, we weren't sure about going into the marina but once we heard the second, we decided to go. As it turned out, almost every boat on a mooring went in. We got a side-to slip right next to Makai and although there was a little excitement getting in, there were no problems. We got settled by about 6 while it was still light out but there were boats coming in until about 7:30. We borrowed a key and took showers in the marina's facilities, went back to the boat and made a drink. There were some people on Makai and they called over to invite us onboard so we went over. It was a nice little get together. I left about 8:30 to hook up the electricity and Diane came back a little after that to get dinner out of the oven, which she had started already; at least the wireless Internet worked much better now, being closer to the antenna. We were due to go back to immigration on Monday to get an extension on our stay in Bonaire. Before going into town though, I called the maker of our wind generator, using the Internet phone service, and spoke to him, finally, about the problems with the unit not doing well at wind speeds over 17-18 knots. He said he would send out new thermostats and I also ordered a new bearing since I would need to take the unit down anyway. I figured I might as well do some preventative maintenance as well. He promised to send it via Fedex and said the parts would be here in a few days. Immigration had given us one month originally and we wanted to stay a little longer so we gathered our papers and went to town. We saw another cruiser who was also going in as well, and he had a car, so he drove us in as well. We went into the office and filled out some paperwork. The official then said we needed to get photocopies of our passports, the original clearance and a copy of a financial statement and bring it back. We had known about the financial statement and had our passports but they refused to make copies for us (with a copier sitting right there) - some customer service! We went to the tourist information office and they were nice enough to make the copies. We walked back to the immigration office and handed in our papers. We were again kept waiting until the official came out and said to us we could come back in one week. We decided to have lunch in town and ate at a nice restaurant called the Lost Penguin - good food at a reasonable (for Bonaire) cost. We then walked back to the boat. Back at the boat, Diane went over to get the keys for the dock gates and the bathrooms and we just relaxed and read the rest of the day. The wind reversal yesterday morning had certainly stirred up the water and this was confirmed as we talked to some divers as we came back from town. Tuesday we finally got another dive in. We went out to Klein Bonaire at a site we hadn't been to before called Leonora's Reef. The breeze was light from the east and since we felt that the visibility near the big island would still be impaired, we went over to Klein. It was pretty good and the coral was very pretty. There were a lot of fish although not in the numbers we normally see at other sites. However, I did see my first Peppermint Basslet at about 70 feet, looking under a plate coral with my flashlight. I first noticed it flit back into hiding so I waited with my flashlight and finally got a good look after a few minutes. I had seen a similar species, a Candy Basslet, at a nearby site last year. I also saw a Sharptailed Eel out in the open hunting and several other interesting fish. Diane had taken a pound off her weight and was having some minor problems so she didn't get to see the basslet. We finished the dive, went back to the shop and then went back to the boat in the marina. We had tried turning off the dock electricity during the day when there was a breeze and sun to see if we could keep the batteries charged without using the expensive electricity from the marina. It seemed to work OK but we did use the dock's power at night since the wind tended to die and obviously the solar panels didn't work. Wednesday morning was very overcast and it rained a little so we just stayed on the boat. I did some more research on refrigeration since I wanted to replace the old system relatively soon. It was still working but the compressor ran quite a bit (not constantly) and we were using more power than before. We walked into town and down to the Carib Inn looking for dive boots for me again. We stopped at the Divi shop and saw the woman who was so nice to us on their dive boat. She told us more precisely where the seahorse was at Petrie's Pillar so we might go there again and look for it. We looked at several pairs of boots but none were really what I wanted or they didn't fit very well. I suppose I'll just have to wait until we get back to the States. We walked back to the marina, stopping on the way at the NAPA store to buy some oil. I figured I would change the oil while we were in the marina - it had been a little over 100 hours since I changed it last. That evening, Diane walked over to the ice cream store and brought back some vanilla - very nice. It rained pretty hard overnight again, forcing us to get up and close all the hatches, of course, making the boat hot. The small fans help but the humidity is so high that we sweat anyhow. Of course, we've been using the makeshift insect screens over all the hatches so not much breeze gets in anyway. In the morning though, the sun finally came out and we went diving. We went back to Petries Pillar to look for the seahorse that the Divi Resort divemaster told us about yesterday. We looked for it at the beginning of the dive and although we found the right spot, couldn't find it. We continued on and enjoyed the dive but looked for it again on the way back. We found the described location again and Diane had given up but I continued to look and finally spotted it. It was a black one lying on the bottom on some coral rocks and was easy to see once you actually found it. I called Diane back and we both took a good look. We got back to the boat around 1, had lunch, and then while Diane went to run some errands, I changed the engine oil and filter. That took until about 4 and then we went to take showers and walked into town to go to the weekly rum punch party that WannaDive gives. It had been a busy day. It rained last night again - we were getting pretty tired of having to get up at 2 or 3 in the morning to close the hatches, but if we closed them when we went to sleep, the boat got hot very quickly. Oh well, cruising isn't all "peaches and cream" (or rum and Coke). We got up a little late but caught the morning SSB net. The sky was starting to clear but we waited a little while before going diving. I went to get gasoline at the station outside of town since we were down to what was left in the dinghy's tank. I took the dinghy to the green dock and walked. The marina sells gas but it's considerably more expensive than buying it at the local station. It wasn't far but 20 liters of gasoline gets heavy. I got back to the boat and we left about 10:30, picked up our tanks and then went to a site to the south, called Corporal Meiss. We had never been there before and although it was nice, the visibility wasn't very good, only about 40-50 feet. A friend on another boat, who lives here, said that when the tide is going out, the water from the Plaza Resort marina, near the airport, flows out along the coast and makes the visibility bad. I had checked the tides and it was going out but I thought this site would be far enough away - I guess it wasn't. Well, it wasn't too bad and we enjoyed the dive; I saw another Peppermint Basslet and I went deeper for a few minutes than I usually do and saw a large Green Moray, about 5 feet, at about 95 feet. I called Diane to see it and then we both went up to our usual 70 feet until we turned around to go back toward the mooring. We got back to the boat, ate lunch and then just relaxed the rest of the day. Diane went shopping Saturday morning again and I worked on the PC and put some things away. When she came back, we had lunch and called Amerita, out on a mooring, asking if they had seen a fish called a Zebra Sole. Diane had spoken with Linda from Natural Selection and she had pictures of the fish that Amerita had shown to her. I wanted to see it as well so we called and their son, Nathaniel, said he would be glad to show it to us. Nathaniel was 12 and was very happy to show his find - and he had just seen it again. It was about 1pm and we planned to go dive after we saw the sole so we brought our dive gear and went over to Amerita. When we got there, Joel, Nathaniel's father, said he would be glad to show us the sole and the batfish. I hadn't heard about the batfish so we were pretty excited. We all got in the water and looked around but couldn't find the Zebra Sole. So, we went to look for the batfish and we found it close to shore in about 6 feet of water - amazing. That was really great. We watched the batfish for a while (he didn't move at all) and then went to look for the sole again but still no luck. Before we went snorkeling, the strap to Diane's fin broke so Joel kindly loaned her his fins. He offered to give us some inner tube so that I could try to make a replacement but I figured we could probably get a replacement at the dive shop, but we did borrow his fins for the dive, and said we would return them in a couple of hours. We dove at Front Porch again since we still wanted to see the small sailboat wreck there. We were told that there were Flameback Angelfish there but we only saw the Cherubfish (very similar) and some Sunshinefish, which had a very similar color pattern. We looked around the wreck and then explored the area which is mostly coral rubble. It wasn't very pretty but there are always lots of interesting fish. We finished up and went to the dive shop, where we did get a replacement strap. After rinsing off everything, we went back to Amerita and dropped off Joel's fins, thanking their daughter since Joel wasn't there. We then went back to the boat. At the boat, we relaxed for a few minutes and went to the small plunge pool and then to the showers. We wanted to be back to the boat before 6 since that's when the mosquitoes are the worst - we make sure we're below with the screens in before then. |