Bonaire — September 16 through September 23, 2000

Executive Summary — Divi Flamingo has great divemasters, a good dive operation, but lousy rooms in the old part of the hotel. We had a wonderful time diving, saw lots of cool stuff, had some good dinners, and thoroughly enjoyed Bonaire as usual. Tips: bring lots of bug spray (mosquitoes are really bad this time of year), pack enough exposure protection (water was around 82 degrees F), and make sure you stay in a hotel with enough air conditioning capacity for your room, and make sure they have water that stays on. Lutty and Rofino were wonderful divemasters, and beware newbie divers who don’t know where their feet are. You should also remember that the airport in Bonaire is not air conditioned, but you should still check in for Air Jamaica very very early.

DIVI Flamingo

Where do we begin? Well, I guess that would be at the beginning. We stayed the night at the Sheraton at BWI so that we could catch the early flight from BWI to Montego Bay, Jamaica, where we changed planes and went on to Bonaire. Yes, we were flying Air Jamaica. No, it was not by choice. Yes, we got to Bonaire. But it gets better than that J

Arriving at the airport for our 8:25 flight, we got a pleasant surprise. Seems that my pal Trevor Fenn, king of the fuel at Signature Flight Support had a word with someone who had a word with someone else so that we were upgraded to First Class on the first leg of the flight. That was very nice. Even nicer was that the plane left ON TIME! This is 1 out of about 20 flights I’ve taken with Air Jamaica that actually left the ground on time. I was floored. Absolutely dumfounded in fact. First class, and off the ground on time. Wheee. The food was still miserable, however J .

Ok, so the flight itself was mostly uneventful cept for the many Gs we pulled for some reason leaving BWI and getting twisted around all over the sky before we got an on course heading. I went to see the cockpit and found the pilots rather unfriendly, but the airplane looked ok, and that was the important part J . I was glad that the auto pilot was engaged. We landed at MoBay where our first leg of the interesting part (in the Chinese sense) began. We asked where to go since we were in transit. We were directed to an immigration line where we were told to fill out a form that the flight attendants told us we wouldn’t need. Well, we didn’t really, but the immigration officer demanded it. So we got kicked out of line and had to go fill out the forms and get back in line and wait. Meantime, our flight to Bonaire was boarding. We left immigration and couldn’t find the gates. Come to find out, we could have just turned left instead of right in the beginning, bypassed immigration, and had no problem. Oh well.

On board the aircraft, we got an exit row (yay) and only two seats across (yay again). Then we were told that the flight was going to be departing late. Seems that there is only ONE flight per week from Air Jamaica to Bonaire, and they decided it would be a good idea to make sure all the bags from our previous aircraft were fetched and put on OUR aircraft before it went off to Kingston. This was obviously a GOOD thing, since we wouldn’t have seen our bags until we had to go home.

We and our bags all arrived at Flamingo International Airport in Bonaire without incident. All six of the Brass Anchor weirdoes were present and accounted for. Mr. And Mrs. Love Monkey, Wessiepooh, Mikkipooh, Harry (who I was on strict orders to keep an eye on) and Don (like the duck, since I’m Mikki like the mouse…). We caught a cab to the hotel and found…..basically a hard hat area. The place is still undergoing renovations. We got put in a suite that was kind of….well…old. It had air conditioning that didn’t quite cool the room enough for sleeping, one of those quaint pull the plunger up toilets, a bathroom that was so small you could use the toilet while showering, and electrical wiring that was cobbled together with tape in some places, etc. Now, granted, we’ve been told that this part of the hotel is going to be renovated soon, but right now, it’s not real wonderful. Especially for someone like me who absolutely needs enough AC to sleep at night. Oh well.

After we got relatively settled, we went off to the dive shop to get oriented. It was about at this point when I realized that I stupidly didn’t get my battery in my Suunto Cobra computer changed before I left. I thought that it would be easy to find a replacement battery since Bonaire is such a mecca of diving and all that. Wrong. Our dive shop didn’t have one. They sent me off to Carib Inn. The staff at the Carib Inn dive shop were very nice, but didn’t have a battery either. I was told I’d have to try in town tomorrow. Unfortunately, tomorrow would be Sunday and nobody would be open. This was particularly difficult since the Cobra is air integrated, and it was my only means of telling how much air I had in my tanks. I compromised and bought an SPG so I could at least tell my air status. I had a backup computer (Suunto Spyder) so I figured I could operate until I found a battery without too much difficulty.

After we were oriented, it was off to our first shore dive. It was quite nice. The reefs are definitely coming back in a big way. I couldn’t believe the number of anemones, xmas tree worms, shrimps, huge arrow crabs, eels, hard and soft corals that we saw. We had heard rumors that the hurricane had done more damage, and were pleasantly surprised that things looked so healthy and happy. After a very pleasant dive (and the maiden voyages of my new Seaquest Libra BCD and Sea and Sea F100 housing) the mighty band of six went wandering off towards town to find food. We passed up the interesting looking French, Indian and Thai restaurant (yes, all in one), the Café, and a few other places, opting instead for the Italian Restaurant near the Town Pier. It was a pretty good choice with nice people, great wine, and good food. Then it was back home to collapse.

Day Two — The Seahorse and the Wild Battery Chase

Day two dawned early. Any time you have a boat dive at 8:30, it’s early J . Our boat was a small one without enough shade, but it did have a camera table and a camera rinse tank, so if I could find a way to stay out of the sun, I’d be fine. First dive was off to Captain Don’s Reef. Apparently, Captain Don was the first person to bring scuba tanks to the island of Bonaire. Now 75 years old or so, Captain Don is still looked upon as the creator of Bonaire’s dive industry. Captain Don’s was quite an interesting place. Beautiful sponges, corals, fishes, anemones, really nice dive. Our two divemasters, Lutty and Rofino were also nice. We found it rather amusing, however, that Rofino insisted on wearing a full two piece 7 mm wet suit. It was 83 degrees in the water. Very strange man with thin blood J . However, he DID find us a beautiful female seahorse. I was so excited, I shot 18 frames of film at her. Some of them actually even came out J . The only problem we had was that I got kicked in the head being run over by the female half of a Brazilian couple on our boat. I assumed she was new and would learn. This is foreshadowing, by the way J .

When we got back, we had a nice lunch at the hotel, then I started the search for the elusive CR2450 lithium battery. First recommendation was Captain Don’s Habitat. By interesting coincidence, they said they indeed HAD the battery. This was wonderful. Since they were also the place recommended to develop E6 slides, it seemed like a great idea to go out there. Wes, John and I took taxi #25 to Captain Don’s where we found that neither the photo shop manager was there, nor did anyone have any idea whatsoever what I was talking about. They told us to go find Max, the manager of the dive operation. Max pulled out a battery that was not the right one. This was rather annoying, given that we had come all the way out there because they said they had the battery, but what can you do when it’s already done and you’re already there? I handed over the 5 rolls of film we had shot so far for processing, and on the way out, Max suggested we try Buddy’s next door or maybe even Sand Dollar, although he doubted Sand Dollar had any. (For those who read the first Bonaire story from 1998, we stayed at Sand Dollar and liked it very much).

We started walking. It was hot. The sun was strong. I felt my shoulders beginning to sunburn. Luckily, Buddy’s wasn’t too far. It also looked quite nice, with newly painted buildings and an established looking clientele, as well as a dive shop. Unfortunately, the dive shop had no flat lithium batteries at all. Oh well. Back into the sun we trudged, finally making it to Sand Dollar. What we saw was very sad. The pier was gone. The beautiful Green Parrot restaurant was replaced with "Danger" signs and a pile of rubble with a fence in front of it. The large and nice dive shop and photo center were both destroyed and replaced with a shack and a bunch of open shipping containers (the big metal ones used on trains and trucks and stuff). Worse still, the place was almost deserted. There were hardly any cars in the parking lot. Nobody was shore diving (we were told it was no longer allowed). Busses take guests to the marina where they get on the dive boats, likely hauling their gear back and forth with them. There were no numbers for people signed up for dive boats, no people wandering around, the place looked like a ghost town.

However, they did have one thing. My battery. The nice man in the photo shop changed the battery for me, and poof my Cobra was running like new again. This was a highlight, and almost worth the sunburn on my shoulders. I bought an extra battery in case this ever happened again, and we got taxi #25 back to DIVI.

We had about an hour from the time we got dropped off until the time we had to catch a taxi back to Captain Don’s to pick up our 5 rolls of film, so we relaxed a bit and serviced the camera gear. Amazing what a room can look like with two photographers with a full load of stuff EACH. There were parts strewn everywhere, film in the fridge where the eggs usually are, stuff and more stuff everywhere the eye can see. It’s a good thing we tip the cleaning help, because otherwise, they’d never let us stay anywhere. In no time it was back to Captain Don’s and our long awaited film. I really wanted to see how things came out with the new housing.

We were told our film would be done by 5. We arrived at 4:50. The sign on the photo shop said "in the darkroom, come back later." At least this meant that the photo person hadn’t snuck away on us. We hung around outside for a bit, got a coke at the bar, said hi to Stanley, the Greenwing Macaw they had (who really seemed to like me), shot pictures of the iguana crossing the driveway, and yapped at the people from the dive shop that we saw. Eventually, we got let into the photo shop and yapped at the boss man. He told us that the film was developed, but hadn’t dried yet, so we had to wait. Wes recognized him, and asked him if he used to work at Sand Dollar. He had. His name is Wilco, and he had a Nikon N-90 with a Sea and Sea housing, just like I had before the F100. We got to yapping further, and he invited us to go diving with him on Wednesday night at the Habitat. That would be lots of fun, so we agreed.

After the film finally came out of the drier, we caught taxi #25 (who was very used to us by now) and got back in time to grab a snack and rest just a little before it got dark and we went out to do a night dive. At night there were many pretty things out there that don’t come out during the daytime. However, there was one little problem on my part. I didn’t have enough weight. I had looked around in case I needed more since I was wearing a 3-5-3 wetsuit which was more than my 2-3 I normally wear. There was none to be found. I thought things would be fine anyway, and headed off. Unfortunately, hindsight is 20/20. I started having trouble almost immediately, and found myself using WAY too much energy and WAY too much air. Yet another valuable lesson learned, as I found myself finishing the dive and hyperventilating. I won’t do THAT again either.

Another problem also arose. My brand new Libra BCD decided it would separate both ends from its inflator hose. Wes jammed it back in, and I hoped it would hold. However, it had come apart underwater, causing great difficulty. Water poured into it, relieving some of the weighting problem, but then there was no real way of getting it out, OR for inflating the vest. Sometimes you just can’t win.

Day Three - Billions and Billions of Nudibranchs

Morning dive was 1000 steps. They call it that because if you do it as a shore dive, you have to climb 99 steps to get down to the water, and with gear climbing back after the dive, it feels like 1000. Clever that J . Anyway, 1000 steps definitely is a wide angle place. However, since we had no idea that’s where we were going, we had both chosen macro set ups. Oh well. At least in Bonaire there’s ALWAYS macro something or other to shoot. So we did. I chased a few spotted morays around, saw a goldentail eel, a mature spotted drum, a juvenile sort of in-between stages spotted drum, and other various and sundry fun creatures. Second morning dive was Small Wall. That one was most interesting in that there were literally hundreds of lettuce leaf nudibranchs. They were just about everywhere. We found some other cool macro things as well, and up in the shallows where it looked like nothing lived, I found an empty clam shell. That usually puts me on the lookout for octopus. Unlike most times, this time I actually FOUND the octopus. He was hanging out in a hole, minding his own business when along comes this insane woman with dual strobes to get him in the eyes. That was quite interesting. What was also interesting was that I found out that my head must have some sort of bulls eye or target painted on it somewhere. My friendly Brazilian pal decided to make contact again, up close and personal. Seems nobody had taught her about buoyancy control, and she decided that being nearly vertical in the water and descending feet first without looking was a good idea. When her fins contacted something, instead of stopping to see what it was, she would kick like crazy. I would have thought it was done on purpose if she had been in control with the rest of her diving. This was getting way old way fast.

Upon our return to shore, Wes had only shot _ his roll of film, and he really wanted to finish the other half, so we geared up again and bounced into the water at the Divi reef. He wanted small 1 to 1 stuff, so I went in without a camera and planned to point them out for him. It certainly is quite strange for me to be diving without a camera. I usually only do that when I’m helping with a class or something. I also jumped in with only a dive skin. I was wearing my cool purple "Dive Goddess" skin. It received many compliments. I’m going to have to send them an email to let them know that they shouldn’t have discontinued that color J . The decision to go diving at that point was quite easy, given that the hotel water supply was somehow interrupted, and I could either hang around slimy from sea water, or make use of the sea water already on me for something much more fun. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize how slippery the steps were, and slipped and fell on my side with full gear. Luckily, the only thing broken was my fin buckle. Fortunately, we’d brought spares. For once in our lives, we’d had some foresight J .

Anyway, despite the strangeness of this particular dive, we found tons of little tiny things. Many blennies, spotted cleaning shrimp, a teeny tiny juvenile spotted drum, a gorgeous juvenile French Angel, another octopus, yet another type of lizard fish, a teeny tiny white crab, and lots of other stuff. I wished I had my camera bigtime. I promise not to mope too terribly much. Later, when I told Serge the Dive Manager here about my fall, he immediately had the steps cleaned. Now that’s service!

During the afternoon, we decided to drop off our film at Captain Don’s for Wilco to process. Wilco wasn’t in, but when we walked in the door of the photo shop, there was Walt. Walt was one of the divemasters from Sunset Beach Divers where we dove two years ago (remember last episode of Bonaire? J ). Anyway, he and Mary are doing well. He teaches technical diving, she works at home sometimes and also works at another dive shop next door to Captain Don’s. He got to meet Wes, and it was fun to remember old times and friends. We also made the decision then that we were spending far too much on taxis, so we rented HMS Rental Truck II, a Toyota truck like white thing. Its first use was to drive us from Captain Don’s into town for lunch, and then to the grocery store where we picked up some Dutch snacks and more infamous diet pepsi. Luckily, when we got back, the hot water was back on. Yay J .

For dinner, we picked "Le Wok," a Thai, Indian and French restaurant that was ok. Wasn’t great, but wasn’t awful either. We drank a few Amstels, told a few stories, had fun, and went to bed relatively early. Unfortunately, it didn’t help very much, since the paper thin hotel walls carried every single noise directly through, including street noises, a barking yapping dog, etc.

Day Four — The Frogfish!

Way too early in the morning we were awake and heading out to the dive boats. Rufino and Lutty, our crew, promised they would find us some fun stuff. They did not lie J . First morning dive was to Tune’s Rock. It is also known as "Rockpile." We were in search of a seahorse who had somehow heard of our group and headed for the hills. Never did find him. The next dive was to "Someplace Special" where Rufino found an orange frogfish on a huge orange sponge. It was the first frogfish I had ever seen, so I was most excited over it. Unfortunately, other people were also excited over it, and I got kicked in the head, shoulders, and neck multiple times by guess who? Yep, the same person. I would move away, and she would appear on top of me kicking, without ever checking where her fins were supposed to be. If it happens again tomorrow, I’m going to grab one of them. Maybe she’ll get the message. What made me even more annoyed was that my inflator hose came apart again. This time, it vented all my air out of the BCD which made life quite difficult. Again it was jammed back into place until I had time to take it to someone to fix it.

Apparently, someone else on our trip found a tiny black frogfish that was seen by a number of people. We missed it however, because we were playing with an octopus and hanging out in the shallows.

Once again, we decided to do an afternoon dive. After we dropped off our film at Habitat, we confirmed the directions given by Wilco to the wreck with the alleged frogfish. Wes was not in the lead this time, so we actually found the wreck J The frogfish had heard we were coming, so he hid. That’s about when I found out that the F100 had gone into some sort of funky "Custom" programming mode and was not about to work correctly regardless of what I did. While trying to get it out of this funky mode, I accidentally rewound the film back into the canister. Well, that was it for photos for THAT dive. I spent the time instead trying to find little creatures for Wes. The reef out here had plenty of them, so it was quite easy.

After the afternoon dive, since we heard we were going to the Hilma Hooker in the morning, we decided to try to get hold of some nitrox, since it was going to be a 95 foot dive. Divi didn’t have nitrox, so Serge recommended the Plaza resort up the street. We took our showers, and off we went in the HMS rental truck only to find out that the person who fills the nitrox bottles was off. So, it was off to Buddy Dive where the nitrox tanks were procured for tomorrow morning’s festivities. As it was, it was a damn good thing we DID take our showers when we did. Divi once again had water problems and there was no water of any sort for a few hours of the day.

When we got our pictures back for the afternoon, we definitively found out that Wes’ synch cord is having serious problems. He decided to shoot single strobe for the night dive. Meantime, I un funky’d the F100 and got ready for the night dive. Seems that one of the knobs on the top of the F100 housing can get stuck down, causing the display to act weird and attempts to put the camera into custom programming mode. It seems to be the flash change button. Ah, the more sophisticated things become, the more things there are to mess up J .

After an ok dinner at the hotel restaurant while watching the sun set, it was time to get ready for the night dive. We saw all sorts of things, like a huge octopus, others saw a large turtle, more crabs than you can get crabby at, hermit crabs, other crabs, shrimp, anemones, starfish, morays, eels, angel fish, and a whole cast of human type characters as well. It was a great night dive. Unfortunately, my flash decided to stop working for no apparent reason. After again putting new batteries into it, it started up again. Something seems to be wrong with the way it eats batteries. I’ll have to keep an eye on it. Now, if only I can get some sleep tonight J .

Day Five — Wednesday

Well, I didn’t get terribly much sleep due to the paper thin walls once again. Also, when we got up to get ready to catch the morning boat ride, we found that once again there was no water in our section of the hotel. Good thing it died before I was in the shower with a head full of shampoo lather. Oh well. Anyway, we were off to the Hilma Hooker this morning, with both of us loaded for wide angle stuff.

The Hilma Hooker lies in about 95 feet of water, and has always been a wonderful place to find sponges, corals, and lots of macro critters. If you read last Bonaire episode from 2 years ago and looked at the sponge photos, you will see a gorgeous, vibrant place. Unfortunately, the hurricane last year seems to have done quite a bit of damage to life on the Hooker. That, plus divers who have lousy buoyancy control and kick the hell out of things have made lots of reefs begin to show signs of damage. We have prime examples of that on board our little boat. The Brazilian couple have been physically pushing people out of the way so they could get to see things, or shoot pictures with their little MX-10s, even if we are obviously lined up for photos. These are the folks that kicked me every day up until today. Apparently, they have done this to many different people. Today on the Hooker, while ascending from our safety stop, one of them cut Wes off on the way to the ladder, and tried to climb up it while Harry was already on it, with one fin off. They also both continually rinsed their gear in the "Cameras Only" buckets. Perhaps tomorrow they will be better. Hopefully one of the divemasters will have a word with them. Luckily for them, they didn’t kick me today. I had had just about enough.

Anyway, on the Hooker there was a strange man swimming around with a camera, taking pictures of everyone around. I had no idea who this person was, until I looked real closely, then figured out it was Wilco. Captain Don’s Habitat had pulled up next to us on the mooring (apparently there are three mooring spots on the Hilma Hooker) but I didn’t put two and two together until I finally recognized the eyes behind the mask. Wilco was lots of fun running around the ship.

Second dive was Windsock (obviously near the airport J ). We still had our wide angle gear on, so it was difficult to get photos of any of the small critters, but I did manage to get a few things. Apparently, there was an Eagle Ray rooting around in the sand for food just prior to our jumping in the water to see it. Aww shucks. Maybe next time.

Once we got back, I had a chance to ask Serge the dive manager whether he could do something about my BCD. He pulled out some new tie wraps and reattached the inflator hose more securely this time. I hoped that would be the end of my inflator hose saga. Since we had to return nitrox tanks, and I had to drop off film for development, after our morning dives and a light lunch, it was off in the HMS Rental Truck II for Captain Don’s. We made final arrangements with Wilco for the night dive, I mounted many many slides, we made multiple trips back and forth, we picked up our film, grabbed snacks, and then it was time to go back to Captain Don’s for the night dive.

The reef outside Habitat is most interesting. Tonight it was even more interesting than normal. I had never seen one of those red brittle starfish creatures that always slither around like circles with little snakes for arms scuttling along the bottom. Well, tonight there were thousands upon thousands of them, all piled on top of one another, all spawning. The females would stand up on their legs and lay little red eggs. The males would then come and smoke over them, dropping sperm. It was rather amazing. We saw many small eels, a few crabs, shrimp and blennies, and the hugest green moray I’d ever seen. I’d estimate this guy was about 9 feet long. Way impressive.

Since neither of us finished our rolls of film, we decided on another night dive when we got back to Divi. We found that the name of the reef out here is "Calibas Reef". Apparently, Calibas means "pumpkin." Out on "pumpkin" reef there was the usual assortment of corals, crabs, shrimp, fish, eels and octopus. No pumpkins, however J . By the time we got back to bed we were exhausted.

Day Six — Thursday — Yet More Frogfish

Our first morning dive was "The Forest" outside of Klein Bonaire. It was quite an interesting place. We found a hiding octopus, and a number of tiny macro critters. It was basically a wide angle site, but we found plenty of small things to keep us occupied. After The Forest, it was off to Something Special again. This time we saw three frogfish. One large orange one, a smaller orange one and we finally got to see the black one. The black one was very difficult to get on film since it blended in so well with the background. This made it very difficult to get any kind of contrast on him to make him stand out on the slide. But that didn’t stop us from trying J . Rufino mentioned that while he was showing people the black frogfish, someone in blue Mares fins kicked him in the head a few times. Gee, I wonder who THAT could have been…

Soon as we got back to shore, Wes wanted to go diving again off of Calibas reef. So, soon as we got back we rolled right back in the water again. We went off to the wrecked row boat to look for the frogfish that were supposed to be there but found nada except the usual suspects. I bet that poor octopus who hangs out inside one of the cannons at the bottom of the dock is way annoyed with us flashing strobes at him by now.

This was a red letter day at the Divi Flamingo. We had water both in the morning, AND in the afternoon. It was important to take advantage of this while we could. After a nap and collecting the day’s film, it was time for me to take some time to sort through slides. This generally takes me quite a long time since I shoot one roll per dive. Of course, not all of them are good ones, so it takes a lot of sorting to get what I want to scan and put on the web page. Wes took off for his "blennie run" where he would take pictures of blennies. Unfortunately, he wasn’t too successful since it was late afternoon and the blennies were wanting some sleep. Just about as soon as he got back, we rolled into the water again for the night dive, still hoping to see the spawning coral that John PROMISED us we would see. It seems like the coral had other ideas, however. They weren’t interested.

Fortunately, there was still water this evening. After the dive, it was off to the shower once again to get rid of all of that salt and yucky feeling the ocean leaves on you after you get out. Unfortunately, tomorrow will be the last day of diving for this trip. I hate the "packing up the gear and sitting around for the last day while other people are diving" part of trips. Oh well. I could complain, but who’d listen? J

Day Seven — Friday — Last Dives

Friday morning dawned like every other morning in Bonaire — gorgeous but way too early J . Our little dive boat was ready early, as usual, and off we went to another adventure off Klein Bonaire. Our first dive site was some strange name I can’t recall, but we saw a huge (and I mean HUGE) Green Moray that Lutty found. As I was setting up for the picture, I got kicked in the head neck and shoulders again. From the blue Mares fin in my face, I could tell who it was. This time I grabbed the fin and THREW her out of the way. I doubt she knew what hit her, as she found herself at least 10 feet away from where she started. I shot the pictures, then left. Later on, Lutty asked me what happened, and I told him of how I’d been kicked just about every day this week. Some days, you just can’t take any more.

Second dive was to another site off Klein Bonaire whose name I don’t recall. Sometimes I feel like Ronald Reagan J . Anyway, not terribly much here except some nice vase sponges, and a few other little things. Nothing terribly special, but then all of Bonaire is quite special anyway. Someone made a point of staying away from me (hooray) so I didn’t even get kicked second dive. Unfortunately, however, my inflator hose detached once again. I planned on bringing it back to Terry at Brass Anchor who can fix anything.

After our dives, we dropped our film off to be processed, did a bit of shopping, and got back to the hotel in time to haul out our gear and rinse it in hopes that it will dry before we have to finish packing for tomorrow’s flight. We had just about enough time to finish that when we had to go pick up our processed slides. Before we knew it, it was time to meet everyone for our "goodbye Bonaire" dinner at the Old Inn, where we had a gazillion course Indonesian feast with a strange name that likely translates into "let’s watch the Americans eat too much and fall on the floor holding their stomachs." The food was really great, the Amstel flowed, and so did the conversation. A good time was had by all.

The Trip Home — Saturday, September 23, 2000

We didn’t have to get up early for the morning boat, so we didn’t. When we finally did crawl out of bed, the sight that awaited us made us feel like crawling back in and hiding under the pillows. It was the dreaded "time to pack." Luckily, we had plenty of time before our scheduled 3:05 departure from glorious Flamingo International Airport (with no air conditioning). After forever, we finally got all the stuff assembled, packed away, and went off to pay our bill. Imagine our surprise when we found that DIVI, that wonderful hotel without enough AC OR water, wanted to throw us out of the room by noon. How sweet. Not only that, but they got our bill wrong and Wes had to argue with them. Rather than fight to stay longer, we packed up the HMS Rental Truck II, packed up the pair of love monkeys, stopped by Lisa Gas (also the home of Lisa Tires, Lisa Auto Repair, Lisa Car Wash, and likely even Lisa Dive Shop) and headed to the airport.

In a way, it was a very good thing we actually left that early. The line for Air Jamaica stretched out the door and onto the sidewalk of the airport. Had we been later, it would have been a disaster. As it was, when we got to the front of the line, both ticket agents abruptly got up and left. We checked our breath, our arm pits, etc., but couldn’t figure out what the problem was. Apparently, their little machine that spits out the cute bar coded luggage tags was non functional and the agent we had took the next 20 minutes to find the ones you actually write on. Then he had to figure out how to write. This took quite some time. I likely didn’t help much, being perched atop one of the camera cases (love those Pelican cases…they’re strong enough for my butt J ) staring down at him. Well, we finally got through the line, got to sit in the non air conditioned waiting area, then found that the x ray machines were inoperative at security, and they went through all our stuff by hand. Of course, one can imagine the length of THAT line too. Then it was off to the departure lounge (also without AC) where we sat until departure. In this case, departure was only about 25 minutes late. Given that we had only 30 minutes to connect to our flight from Montego Bay to BWI, that was cutting it rather close. The Captain promised us he would try to make up time in flight.

For a person who doesn’t get sick flying aerobatics, the flight from Bonaire to MoBay made me queasy. Seems that Air Jamaica pilots learn to fly at the Andover Tractor Trailer and Flight School or something. Abrupt control movements were the order of the day, pulling g’s on departure turns, plummeting descents that would make Dulles Approach shudder, 30+ degree banks all made for a rather interesting flight. True to their words, however, the pilots got the plane down with about 12 minutes to board the Baltimore flight. We made it. I’m typing this from row 26 of an Airbus A310 with a screeching child in row 24. We were supposed to be on row 25, but some women whose hair had apparently been braided too tightly were in the wrong seats. We were put in 26, and the people in 26 were put in 25. Don’t ask. It’s too complicated. Meantime, the usurpers were put in the center, right behind the screeching child. Justice?

We did eventually get home, just a little late and a little worse for the wear. I don't know who taught these Jamaicans how to fly in 800 overcast vis 1.5 miles, but they sure have trouble controlling the landing. Hit the nosewheel and landed right wing down. However, landed we did, and another graduate of the Kings Dominion School of Aviation lived to fly another day.

As the sun sets on another successful dive trip, the only question to be answered is; where next? And don’t say Caribbean North.