Bonaire — March 7 through March 14, 2001
My photos
Wes' photos
Silly Photos
Executive Summary — It was a tale of triumph and tragedy. It was heaven and hell. It was more and less than any of us expected. It was
the March trip to Bonaire, a tale of DIVING FREEDOM!
Day One - Wednesday, March 7, 2001
We left late the night before so that we could stay at the Sheraton at the BWI airport. This would be a "good" thing since trying to drive to Baltimore for an 8:30 am flight would be quite difficult to say the least. It was a "bad" thing in that we had left without my making certain that our checklist was completed. Although I had a full box of camera housing and assorted gear, I was missing an important "extra." The camera that goes in it. With absolutely no time available at 6:45 AM to deal with it, I called poor Reece, woke him out of a sound sleep, and asked him to go to my house, grab the camera bag and make a mad dash to the airport. Once we got to the actual gate, there was our pal Trevor Fenn, keeper of weight and balance everywhere, who attempted to greet us. Before he could say "hello," however, I pounced him, explained the problem, and had someone ready to collect the camera and attempt to get it on the airplane. Alas, despite the superhuman efforts all around, the camera did not get on the aircraft. Trevor air freighted it to Bonaire, in hopes it would arrive that Saturday so that I would at least have it for a few days of the trip. We were hopeful.
The trip itself was rather uneventful. Two nice flights, one lengthy connection (they were waiting for a flight from New York that was late) and we got to meet Dana, our sixth member of the happy group at Montego Bay airport. All of this was good. The flight to Bonaire wasn't bad either. We got two taxis to load us and all our gear and take it to Captain Don's. Once there, we were shown our rooms. Everyone in the group got a deluxe junior suite except us. We were in a villa. Our villa was 1/2 the size of their junior suites. They got TV and telephones. We did not. All of us got nice balconies, and pretty nice views. We all had small refrigerators, which was also a good thing.
That night we couldn't get any diving done, so it was early to bed, after making multiple phone calls to the US to make sure that the camera was going to get here.
Day Two - Thursday, March 8, 2001
This was the morning of our "orientation." All guests on the island are required to have an orientation before they dive. Essentially it's a "do not touch anything, do not wear gloves, dive safe" type thing, as well as an introduction to how the particular dive facility works. Ours prided itself on "DIVING FREEDOM" (a phrase that became embedded in our brains for the rest of the trip). In other words, do whatever you want as long as you are safe about it. Sounded good to us. Then it was off to the photo shop to see if anything could be done about my diving with a camera of some sort. Luckily, Ernst and Wilco had a camera housing that they rented. A Nikon N60, but hell, it was MUCH better than nothing. MUCH MUCH better. I was quite pleased. Of course, we couldn't use cameras until we were finished with our training dives for Kurt, Donna and Gaige. They were at the resort for the first open water ocean dives, and also their checkouts since they had already finished with the pool and academic sessions for PADI open water diver. This was our first class that was truly ours from start to finish. We were all quite excited and looking forward to this.
Dive one was our mandatory orientation dive. The looks on their faces were amazing once we descended and went out to the reef. It was a really nice reef, too. Quite wonderful. We skipped the afternoon boat dive and instead did Dive two for open water, with the first set of skills. Everyone did great!
Later that night, when we were all ready to head into town for dinner, I made a big mistake. Most of the cats at Captain Don's were born there. Most were friendly, happy, healthy cats. There was one that looked a little scruffy. He was a grey tiger cat, obviously male. He meowed at us and looked like he wanted to be scratched. I let him smell me, and he rubbed against me like a normal cat. I petted his head and he rolled over to expose his stomach. I continued petting his head, and all of a sudden he lunged, grabbing my inner forearm in his teeth. He bit hard and bit deep. Quite a bit of blood, a thorough washing, and some very freyed nerves later, we decided to eat at the hotel. Dana, our team doctor (yay team :-)) told me to run water over it for 10-15 minutes, take antibiotics, and take good care of it. I did this, even thought the pain of running water over it was quite nasty. We were all concerned about possible infection since cat bites can be very toxic. It looked like it was going to be an interesting trip in many ways
Day Three - Friday, March 9, 2001
Kurt, Donna and Gaige had their open water dives three and four at La Machaca, the reef in front of Habitat. They did great, and were certified insane, I mean Open Water Divers. Both dives went quickly enough that we did our first shore dive. Ernst had set up the N60 housing for me, so we took it on our shore dive. I chose Front Porch since it was the first place in Bonaire I had ever gone diving. In retrospect, that was a big mistake. They had renamed the place "Eden's Rubble." There was a reason for that. All of the beautiful coral had been destroyed by the tidal wave and surge after Hurricane Lenny. But even here, where it looked so barren and awful, there were signs that things would come back eventually. There were bits of coral growing, tiny bits of sponges, and lots of macro critters hiding amongst the coral skeletons. Even though the entry was difficult, Kurt, Donna and Gaige did great. Dana buddied with Gaige and said she liked the dive too. They explored a wreck while we scanned the rubble for creatures.
Meantime, my arm was hurting and starting to bruise. Luckily, there was no obvious signs of infection. I kept flushing it out and keeping it as clean as possible, and kept taking the antibiotics
That night, we went out to Capricio's (I can't be sure of the spelling) for dinner. It was very good Italian, with a wonderful wine chosen by Kurt. I had the seafood spaghetti which was wonderful. Wes had the spaghetti with meat sauce. It was an excellent meal and a wonderful time was had by all.
Day Four - Saturday, March 10, 2001
Today was the day my camera was supposed to arrive. The hotel called air cargo to make sure what time I was to go to the airport. They said to come anytime before 9 pm. Seemed a bit strange for a Saturday on a small island, but who was I to complain? We decided to do a few boat dives that day and see how things were going. Bob Wills had given us one of those anti motion sickness watches that electrically stimulates some nerve in your wrist. He wanted to know whether they really worked so he could carry them in his store. Donna was our first guinea pig. Unlike normal Bonairian waters, there was a lot of wind today, and quite a fair current. Donna put on the watch before we boarded the boat and magically had no nausea problems whatsoever! This was indeed exciting.
Also exciting were our dives. Our first site, (Carl's Hill?!?) had not one, but two sea horses. A beautiful orange one that I found, and a black one that Wes found. Roger the divemaster was impressed. After lunch we went on dive two to Andrea II. It was a quite nice site with pretty corals, sponges, and cute critters. After the dives, Kurt and Donna took us to the airport to check on the camera. The air freight person, who said she'd be there until 9pm, was nowhere to be found. The people from ALM made many phone calls. Two hours later, she arrived, child in tow, to tell us that no camera had been on board the aircraft and there was no air freight at all. I told her that there most certainly was, and where was it? Unfortunately, we didn't get very far, and they insisted that no camera had been on board the aircraft. The freight person promised to call as soon as she heard something.
I was depressed. I was pissed. I was annoyed. Fortunately, there was still the N60 that I could use, for which I was most appreciative. I called poor Trev that night, who was about as pissed as I was. He said there would be a "special" flight the next day to Bonaire by Air Jamaica and he would try to get the camera on that flight. Seems that even though Air Jamaica only flies to Bonaire on Wednesdays and Saturdays, they had stranded the Baltimore passengers on Montego Bay the night before due to getting into Montego Bay late. He said he'd try to get it on that plane.
Day Five - Sunday, March 11, 2001
Sunday the wind was blowing even harder than the day before. You could see whitecaps on the waves, and it was clear that there was serious current out there. Dana and Donna both get seasick, so they were definitely off the boats. I get seasick also, but usually go on boats anyway. This time, I decided not to get on a boat either. After consulting the divemasters, they said that the most calm part of the island might be around the airport, and we should think about diving Windsock. So, we loaded up the truck and Dana's car and off we went. Windsock was a more challenging entry than I would have liked, but it was doable. This was also our first nitrox class dives, and the first deep dive of the Adventure Diver course that Donna, Kurt and Gaige were taking. Dana had already had enough adventures (being an instructor and all :-)) so she didn't need any more at this point. She was, however, desirous of a nitrox rating. So off we went into the depths.
Windsock was a very nice dive with many beautiful sponges, nice soft and hard corals, and creatures. Gaige and Dana saw two turtles which they were really excited about. The exit was as strange as the entry, and all of our gear got covered with sand. Instead of taking a second shore dive at that point, we decided to go back to Habitat and eat lunch. Then five of us (sans Dana) went off the Habitat reef for some more fun with octopi, eels and other nifty creatures. When we got back, we found that the air cargo person had called, and we were supposed to call back at 9 PM. Well, that sounded fine enough, so we had dinner, went on a night dive, then called. No answer. That was hardly surprising given it was Sunday night, but they HAD said to call at 9pm. This camera thing was really getting to be a drag.
Day Six - Monday, March 12, 2001
Today we lounged around in the morning for awhile, looked at our photos, and decided how to plan out the day. First thing was going to the lobby to find out what happened to my camera. Seems that Air Jamaica decided to ship it to Bonaire on Wednesday like they were supposed to. Then they stupidly didn't bother to take it off of the aircraft, so they sent it back to Montego Bay. Of course, there was no way they could get it to me before we left (being as their next flight was Wednesday, the day we leave) so I told them to ship it back to Baltimore and I would deal with it then. Angry was not the right word to use to describe how I felt. Luckily, I could still rent the N60 housing.
First we decided to sign up for a boat dive on the pontoon boat. It certainly rocked around quite a bit, but we went off to a dive site called Sampler. Wilco went with us and took pictures of different people doing different things. It was utterly amazing at one point when a school of thousands of silver fish about five inches long swam in formation. Wes had the perfect lens for that, and took some incredible photos. I took quite a few of other macro critters. It was a very nice dive. Only problem was that I had serious intermittency problems with the flash on the housing.
That afternoon, we went to a realtor to look at possible investment properties in Bonaire. Then it was a quick trip to the Plaza dive shop where we picked up a few things, then back to get our photos. Imagine my surprise at the way some of them turned out. I was way happy. Wilco said he'd looked at the intermittency problem, and decided there was nothing wrong with the camera. Later on, we met Giovanni who took us to the Town Pier. You need a local guide and special permission to dive on the Town Pier. Giovanni was a guide with permission, so this made it perfect. The sponges, corals, and creatures were amazing there at night. We saw three frogfish, eels, crabs, and all kinds of wonderful things. Unfortunately, I had intermittency problems again with the strobe, and turning it off and then back on would sometimes work to clear it. Clearly, there's something wrong there.
When I rinsed the camera off, I found that there was another problem, this one apparently of my making.. The rubber ring around the lens port had somehow come off! I had no idea where it was. Ernst is going to be SO angry. It wasn't exactly my fault, but I felt really awful. I try to take excellent care of rental gear.. Tomorrow will tell whether I am to be killed or not. Upon our return, a nice dinner and some relaxation later, it was off to bed.
Day Seven - Tuesday, March 13, 2001
Tuesday morning dawned bright and early. Too early from all accounts. I went to see Ernst first thing and told him about the rubber ring on the flat port. We figured out that the best way to fix it was to just take the rubber ring off my port and swap it. I can get a replacement much faster than they can. So that's what we did. Ernst didn't kill me, I had a camera, and off we went.
We were very excited that we would be taking a boat dive to Bonadventure. Unfortunately, once we got there, we found another boat there. We were prevented from going to the place I had been hoping to go see for the whole trip. This was obviously a major disappointment. Anyway, we had an ok dive at South Bay, and an ok dive at Cliff once we got back. The highlight for me was a scorpion fish at a cleaning station, covered with banded coral shrimp. That was really cool to see. By then I was way tired and wanted to rest. It had been a long week of diving. Wes, on the other hand, was still raring to go, and was going to do a night dive with our former students.
The best laid plans of mice and men kicked in. We had a wonderful dinner at Richard's (I had the Shrimp Primavera, Wes had the Durrado), some wonderful bottles of wine, chosen by Kurt, and by the time we got back to the resort, nobody felt like night diving anymore. Instead, we packed up our gear, leaving the wet stuff to dry on our balcony, and got home, ready to pack our other things in the morning.
Day Eight - Wednesday, March 14, 2001
One week is never enough. In fact, it takes almost a week to get through the line at Air Jamaica. We found out that ALM handles all of Air Jamaica's administrative stuff. Kind of different to have one's competition handling your seating assignments, ground crews, and yes, AIR FREIGHT! In fact, if we had stayed longer, my camera would have been there. Even though we told them to send the thing back to Baltimore, they were about to send it back to Bonaire anyway. Ironically, it was apparently on our aircraft from Montego Bay back to Baltimore. Unfortunately, I couldn't get it since it would have to go through customs with the freight. We, of course, went through customs with our luggage. After some fond farewells and memories of a great trip, we were on our way home.
Later that night, when we were all ready to head into town for dinner, I made a big mistake. Most of the cats at Captain Don's were born there. Most were friendly, happy, healthy cats. There was one that looked a little scruffy. He was a grey tiger cat, obviously male. He meowed at us and looked like he wanted to be scratched. I let him smell me, and he rubbed against me like a normal cat. I petted his head and he rolled over to expose his stomach. I continued petting his head, and all of a sudden he lunged, grabbing my inner forearm in his teeth. He bit hard and bit deep. Quite a bit of blood, a thorough washing, and some very freyed nerves later, we decided to eat at the hotel. Dana, our team doctor (yay team :-)) told me to run water over it for 10-15 minutes, take antibiotics, and take good care of it. I did this, even thought the pain of running water over it was quite nasty. We were all concerned about possible infection since cat bites can be very toxic. It looked like it was going to be an interesting trip in many ways
Today was the day my camera was supposed to arrive. The hotel called air cargo to make sure what time I was to go to the airport. They said to come anytime before 9 pm. Seemed a bit strange for a Saturday on a small island, but who was I to complain? We decided to do a few boat dives that day and see how things were going. Bob Wills had given us one of those anti motion sickness watches that electrically stimulates some nerve in your wrist. He wanted to know whether they really worked so he could carry them in his store. Donna was our first guinea pig. Unlike normal Bonairian waters, there was a lot of wind today, and quite a fair current. Donna put on the watch before we boarded the boat and magically had no nausea problems whatsoever! This was indeed exciting.
I was depressed. I was pissed. I was annoyed. Fortunately, there was still the N60 that I could use, for which I was most appreciative. I called poor Trev that night, who was about as pissed as I was. He said there would be a "special" flight the next day to Bonaire by Air Jamaica and he would try to get the camera on that flight. Seems that even though Air Jamaica only flies to Bonaire on Wednesdays and Saturdays, they had stranded the Baltimore passengers on Montego Bay the night before due to getting into Montego Bay late. He said he'd try to get it on that plane.
Sunday the wind was blowing even harder than the day before. You could see whitecaps on the waves, and it was clear that there was serious current out there. Dana and Donna both get seasick, so they were definitely off the boats. I get seasick also, but usually go on boats anyway. This time, I decided not to get on a boat either. After consulting the divemasters, they said that the most calm part of the island might be around the airport, and we should think about diving Windsock. So, we loaded up the truck and Dana's car and off we went. Windsock was a more challenging entry than I would have liked, but it was doable. This was also our first nitrox class dives, and the first deep dive of the Adventure Diver course that Donna, Kurt and Gaige were taking. Dana had already had enough adventures (being an instructor and all :-)) so she didn't need any more at this point. She was, however, desirous of a nitrox rating. So off we went into the depths.
Today we lounged around in the morning for awhile, looked at our photos, and decided how to plan out the day. First thing was going to the lobby to find out what happened to my camera. Seems that Air Jamaica decided to ship it to Bonaire on Wednesday like they were supposed to. Then they stupidly didn't bother to take it off of the aircraft, so they sent it back to Montego Bay. Of course, there was no way they could get it to me before we left (being as their next flight was Wednesday, the day we leave) so I told them to ship it back to Baltimore and I would deal with it then. Angry was not the right word to use to describe how I felt. Luckily, I could still rent the N60 housing.
When I rinsed the camera off, I found that there was another problem, this one apparently of my making.. The rubber ring around the lens port had somehow come off! I had no idea where it was. Ernst is going to be SO angry. It wasn't exactly my fault, but I felt really awful. I try to take excellent care of rental gear.. Tomorrow will tell whether I am to be killed or not. Upon our return, a nice dinner and some relaxation later, it was off to bed.
The best laid plans of mice and men kicked in. We had a wonderful dinner at Richard's (I had the Shrimp Primavera, Wes had the Durrado), some wonderful bottles of wine, chosen by Kurt, and by the time we got back to the resort, nobody felt like night diving anymore. Instead, we packed up our gear, leaving the wet stuff to dry on our balcony, and got home, ready to pack our other things in the morning.