Saturday, September 8, 2007
Day 7 - A THREE dive day -- WOW
The day started with a two tank boat dive to Klein Bonaire; they were originally planning on dives to a couple of sites on the north end of the Island that you normally can't shore dive, but I guess plans changed. We were diving with Yellow Submarine for this boat dive, and were told that we had a full boat of 10 people. Imagine our surprise when they filled one of their smaller boats with 12 people. The dives were good, we did Captian Don's and Carl's Hill. After lunch and some rest, I convinced Trudy, with some help from Mike and Jeannette to do a third dive of the day, just to look for the Sea Horses at the Yellow Submarine house reef. We had spent a couple of dives last year looking for the Sea Horse, but were not successful. Well, thanks to Mike he was able to locate the Sea Horse and I got a few photos of him.
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Day 6 – Hospital Visit
The day started slowly, as Trudy’s tooth ache was bothering he again. She got this tooth ache on the Friday before we left for vacation. We cancelled the two dives we had planned this morning, and went to look for a dentist on the Island. Today is a State Holiday, and everything is closed until Monday, so we came back to our unit to make a call to our dentist in Canada. They indicated that it was most likely an abscessed tooth and it was infected. They recommended that she get some antibiotics and take some pain killers. So off to the Hospital we went. The Hospital was not busy and we were seen relatively quickly; the doctor prescribed the required antibiotics and told us where we would find the only open pharmacy on the island. It was open for one hour, from 11 to 12, and we arrived at 11:30. After we got the drugs we had some lunch and then headed back to our unit to watch some of the US Open tennis. The afternoon also involved a nap for both of us; Trudy has not been sleeping well so she needed it, and I don’t have a excuse, but hey, I am on vacation.
Day 5 – Double dive day
The diving has started for real now. We dove the Barri dive site, which we remembered from last year as a good location. This time we dove with Mike and Jeannette and the dive took us deeper than we normally go, but it was no real problem. We ended our dive earlier than they did, and afterwards we headed back to our unit for some lunch and a rest. In the early afternoon we drove to the south end of the island to dive another site, but the surf, and entry looked to challenging, so we headed back to a site, still on the south end, but closer to town called The Lake. This was my first dive that I felt comfortable on the dive, not fighting the new equipment. It was a nice dive for me. 
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Day 4 – second day of rain
The day started out nice, and I was working on the blog in the early morning by the pool. Trudy joined me and mentioned that the sky looked black; I decided to pack things up and head back the room. For the rest of the morning, and in the early afternoon if poured rain, which is very unusual for Bonaire. The shot below shows the view out our unit.
In the afternoon things cleared up and we were able to get in our second dive at a site called Karpata. We have done this site before, and enjoyed it. One thing that we noticed was that there was a fairly strong current running north. We were not used to this on Bonaire. I only managed to get one good shot underwater.
September 3 - First Dive
We loaded up all of our new gear into the truck and headed down to Wannadive for our buoyancy check-out dive. Trudy forgot our voucher for the pre-paid air package we had, so she was explaining to the guy behind the counter about this. He then indicated that they were not honouring the Golden Reef Inn vouchers. At this point I got into the discussion, and asked him if he could check with his boss as this problem was resolved the day before. The “boss” was on the boat with the morning dive group was the excuse I was given. I said, doesn’t he have a cell phone on the boat; eventually he called the boat, but the “boss” was on the dive. He suggested that we do our check-out dive first and we would straighten out the payment after. At this point he asked if we had an appointment, which we were told we didn’t need, and he said we would need to wait 30 minutes until he was taking another class down. We then proceeded to get our weights for the dive and begin our 30 minute wait. Eventually in the heat and waiting I decided that we would simply go over to Yellow Submarine and do our diving for the week with them. We took our equipment and loaded it back into the truck, at which point Trudy remembered that we had forgot to return the weights. I took the weights back to the dive shop, and as I was leaving I noticed that the dive boat was just coming back. I went over to talk to the “boss”, Bob. I explained the situation to him and that I would be posting my experience on my web site. He again said that Golden Reef Inn was behind in payments. I said that my problem had been resolved the day before, and that I was not happy to again have to go through the grief of arguing with his staff, and that he and Golden Reef Inn should get their act together. After some discussion, he said that we should do our check-out dive, and that yes I was correct, we didn’t need to wait for the instructor, we could go immediately.
One thing I have left out of this experience is that yesterday we were at the shop getting the briefing on tank pick-up and drop-off, and I noticed that they didn’t have any of the smaller 63lb tanks, which are easier to handle. Yesterday was a no-dive day, so I was concerned that they didn’t have many of this size tank. Bob assured me that there would be plenty of the smaller tanks for the rest of the week.
Once we started to get geared up for our first dive, the staff we very helpful, getting the analyser, getting the tanks, and helping with the suit-up process. Bob eventually reported back that yes, in fact I was correct, the Golden Reef Inn had paid for the air, and all was good.
I believe that both parties in this dispute are partially at fault, and me the customer is getting caught in the middle. I hope the rest of the week is trouble free for us.
We walked to the far end of the beach for our entry (translation: we were hot, and the sweat was pouring off us by the time we got in). We both headed out and tested our buoyancy, which was successful. We both then started to descend in the shallows, 10ft of water, and both had problems staying down. I got out and walked back to the dive shop to get us some more weights. We then added weights and we were both able to get the correct buoyancy when at depth.
The visibility was terrible; Felix had kicked up a lot of silt. Things only improved as we got out over the reef, but this reef was in bad shape. I got a few photos which I have posted below.
The photo below is of a boat that got pushed up on to the beach by Hurricane Felix; Wannadive was talking about making it another wreck off their shore, but I don’t think the authorities will let them.
After the dive we headed into town for some lunch, followed by a nap for a couple hours in the afternoon.
In the evening we hooked up with another couple at the resort, Mike and Jeannette, who were from Ottawa. Mike noticed that Trudy was drinking coffee from a Tim Horton’s travel mug and asked if she was from Canada. They live in Orleans and have both been diving for the about the same period of time as Trudy and I. In fact Mike also was a certified diver 30 years ago, and he stopped diving, similar to me. They are a little more serious about their diving and have over 200 dives, whereas Trudy and I have about 50. We enjoyed a meal at a French restaurant called Bistro de Paris.
One thing I have left out of this experience is that yesterday we were at the shop getting the briefing on tank pick-up and drop-off, and I noticed that they didn’t have any of the smaller 63lb tanks, which are easier to handle. Yesterday was a no-dive day, so I was concerned that they didn’t have many of this size tank. Bob assured me that there would be plenty of the smaller tanks for the rest of the week.
Once we started to get geared up for our first dive, the staff we very helpful, getting the analyser, getting the tanks, and helping with the suit-up process. Bob eventually reported back that yes, in fact I was correct, the Golden Reef Inn had paid for the air, and all was good.
I believe that both parties in this dispute are partially at fault, and me the customer is getting caught in the middle. I hope the rest of the week is trouble free for us.
We walked to the far end of the beach for our entry (translation: we were hot, and the sweat was pouring off us by the time we got in). We both headed out and tested our buoyancy, which was successful. We both then started to descend in the shallows, 10ft of water, and both had problems staying down. I got out and walked back to the dive shop to get us some more weights. We then added weights and we were both able to get the correct buoyancy when at depth.
The visibility was terrible; Felix had kicked up a lot of silt. Things only improved as we got out over the reef, but this reef was in bad shape. I got a few photos which I have posted below.
The photo below is of a boat that got pushed up on to the beach by Hurricane Felix; Wannadive was talking about making it another wreck off their shore, but I don’t think the authorities will let them.After the dive we headed into town for some lunch, followed by a nap for a couple hours in the afternoon.
In the evening we hooked up with another couple at the resort, Mike and Jeannette, who were from Ottawa. Mike noticed that Trudy was drinking coffee from a Tim Horton’s travel mug and asked if she was from Canada. They live in Orleans and have both been diving for the about the same period of time as Trudy and I. In fact Mike also was a certified diver 30 years ago, and he stopped diving, similar to me. They are a little more serious about their diving and have over 200 dives, whereas Trudy and I have about 50. We enjoyed a meal at a French restaurant called Bistro de Paris.
September 2 - No Diving :(
Thankfully, hurricane Felix turned a little north and was just a big rain storm for us, so we were not evacuated, and the power didn’t go off. The only impact to us was that diving had been cancelled for our first day due to the surf. We went down to the office to get an update, and connect to the Internet to find out what was happening with the storm. We went down to Eden Beach and the waves were between 3 and 4 feet, so we were not unhappy that there was no diving. We have some new equipment to check out and wanted calm waters to do this. The dive Wannadive shop gave us a hard time about payment, saying that the Golden Reef Inn was $30,000 in unpaid dive vouchers. We talked to Liz at Golden Reef Inn and she immediately straightened out the problem. Turns out that Wannadive had been charging things to the Golden Reef Inn that they shouldn’t have been. All things turned out OK. We did a short drive around town to see how things fared from the previous evening’s storm; the biggest impact was that the streets leading to the water we closed and the street that ran along the water front was also closed.
In afternoon we spent some time in the pool to cool off, it feels much warmer at this time of the year because of the humidity. I was looking at the current weather reads from Eden Beach and it said it was 100% humidity, which normally means it’s raining, but it wasn’t. I went for a late afternoon nap and woke up about two hours later, and there was no sign of Trudy in the unit. I correctly assumed that she was talking to someone. I returned to the pool to find her talking with Liz the owner of the Inn, and Renota, the former owner of the “Lost Penguin” restaurant; our favourite breakfast restaurant no longer on the island; they sold, and the new place is not as good. For dinner we did my favourite “take-away” again, but this time we ate it by the pool, and I enjoy a couple of Polars (beer) with my meal. After dinner I got my computer and Trudy spent some time on Skype with her daughter, OK, she talked for about 45 minutes.
Again...Sorry no photos
In afternoon we spent some time in the pool to cool off, it feels much warmer at this time of the year because of the humidity. I was looking at the current weather reads from Eden Beach and it said it was 100% humidity, which normally means it’s raining, but it wasn’t. I went for a late afternoon nap and woke up about two hours later, and there was no sign of Trudy in the unit. I correctly assumed that she was talking to someone. I returned to the pool to find her talking with Liz the owner of the Inn, and Renota, the former owner of the “Lost Penguin” restaurant; our favourite breakfast restaurant no longer on the island; they sold, and the new place is not as good. For dinner we did my favourite “take-away” again, but this time we ate it by the pool, and I enjoy a couple of Polars (beer) with my meal. After dinner I got my computer and Trudy spent some time on Skype with her daughter, OK, she talked for about 45 minutes.
Again...Sorry no photos
September 1 - Travel day
The travel day started very early, 4am cab; and we both only got about 2 hours of sleep. I know I was thinking about work, so I will be charging overtimeJ. The flight to Newark was on time and smooth and we were able to connect easily to the Newark-Curacao flight. On the Curacao flight I watched the first movie, Oceans 13. Good thing that I didn’t pay to rent that one, two thumbs down. I had already seen the second movie, so took out my laptop and turned it on. The Acer boot screen came up, followed by a blank black screen. The next thing displayed was “Disk error, CTLR-ALT-DEL to restart”. I tried a few times and finally gave up. I assumed that my hard disk had failed and I was not a happy camper. (more on this later!)
We arrived in Curacao about an hour and a half before our next flight and went off looking for the check-in counter for our next flight. We only had our tickets from Ottawa to Curacao, and we needed to pick up the tickets for our final leg from a carrier called Divi-Divi. We looked at all of the check-in counters and were unable to locate our carrier. We went and had some lunch and about an hour before the flight we went back and found that our check-in counter was now open. I have decided that I don’t like the electronic signs; if they had an old technology sign we would have seen that they had a counter, instead of looking around the airport to see if they had a separate ticket office. The individual behind the counter was a young gentleman who was wearing a harness that gives you back support, and looked more like a baggage handler than a ticket agent. The check-in process was slow but no problems; there were about 7 passengers on the flight. At the gate they made the boarding announcement in another language, so we didn’t jump up to board. Eventually we figured it out, but we were at the back of the line.
I have flown Bearskin airlines many times, and small planes are not a problem for me. We approached the plane and it was pretty small, the boarding was done from both sides of the plane; the plane was so small they had no room for carry-on luggage, other than a woman’s hand bag. Trudy and I both hand-checked our luggage; by the time this was done all of the seats were taken except for one. One of the guys on the tarmac motioned to Trudy to get into the plane at the front where the pilot seat was; looking at this she discovered that she would be sitting in the co-pilot’s seat. I immediately volunteered to take the front seat. The pilot got in and started the engines; wow it was loud! It was an amazing view of Bonaire as we approached and landed.
We arrived on Bonaire and discovered that the same guy we have rented our trucks from in the past was also there to give us our truck. We drove to the Cultimara supermarket for some supplies and then headed over to the Golden Reef Inn. On the door was a notice about Hurricane Felix and that we might need to be evacuated because we were located within 500 meters of the ocean. We were told the power on the island would be turned off between 11:30 and 12:00 for the rest of the night.
We unpacked, sort of; I left most of my stuff in the suitcases, so I could move them to higher ground easily if required. I took out the laptop, and removed the PCMCIA card reader that I had put into the slot, and powered up the computer. This time it booted up fine. Phew!
We had some dinner at my favourite “take-away’ restaurant, Bobby Jans, WOW. We then decided to go to bed early so if we got evacuated later we would have had some rest.
Sorry...no pictures.
We arrived in Curacao about an hour and a half before our next flight and went off looking for the check-in counter for our next flight. We only had our tickets from Ottawa to Curacao, and we needed to pick up the tickets for our final leg from a carrier called Divi-Divi. We looked at all of the check-in counters and were unable to locate our carrier. We went and had some lunch and about an hour before the flight we went back and found that our check-in counter was now open. I have decided that I don’t like the electronic signs; if they had an old technology sign we would have seen that they had a counter, instead of looking around the airport to see if they had a separate ticket office. The individual behind the counter was a young gentleman who was wearing a harness that gives you back support, and looked more like a baggage handler than a ticket agent. The check-in process was slow but no problems; there were about 7 passengers on the flight. At the gate they made the boarding announcement in another language, so we didn’t jump up to board. Eventually we figured it out, but we were at the back of the line.
I have flown Bearskin airlines many times, and small planes are not a problem for me. We approached the plane and it was pretty small, the boarding was done from both sides of the plane; the plane was so small they had no room for carry-on luggage, other than a woman’s hand bag. Trudy and I both hand-checked our luggage; by the time this was done all of the seats were taken except for one. One of the guys on the tarmac motioned to Trudy to get into the plane at the front where the pilot seat was; looking at this she discovered that she would be sitting in the co-pilot’s seat. I immediately volunteered to take the front seat. The pilot got in and started the engines; wow it was loud! It was an amazing view of Bonaire as we approached and landed.
We arrived on Bonaire and discovered that the same guy we have rented our trucks from in the past was also there to give us our truck. We drove to the Cultimara supermarket for some supplies and then headed over to the Golden Reef Inn. On the door was a notice about Hurricane Felix and that we might need to be evacuated because we were located within 500 meters of the ocean. We were told the power on the island would be turned off between 11:30 and 12:00 for the rest of the night.
We unpacked, sort of; I left most of my stuff in the suitcases, so I could move them to higher ground easily if required. I took out the laptop, and removed the PCMCIA card reader that I had put into the slot, and powered up the computer. This time it booted up fine. Phew!
We had some dinner at my favourite “take-away’ restaurant, Bobby Jans, WOW. We then decided to go to bed early so if we got evacuated later we would have had some rest.
Sorry...no pictures.
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