Tonight I’m blogging from a small pier between the public pier and the Divi Flamingo. It is a typical balmy night, and the sea is very calm. We have a three-quarter moon out, which allows me to see down to the bottom, ten feet below me, like I’m looking into glass. As I was driving home tonight along the seaside road, the driving was very slow, which I never seem to mind. I noticed quite a few Bonairians sitting and chatting along the seashore.
This morning, the south end of the island experienced a power outage. My power went off around 6:30. I decided to leave the refrigerator closed and eat out for breakfast, so I quickly fed the dogs, and went up to my favourite lunch spot near the studio.
The transmitter site also lost power, which meant about two hours of programming was not able to be broadcast. Please pray that TWR-Bonaire will have reliable power so that the broadcasts can continue uninterrupted.
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This morning I met with Brandon, and we went over the final layout of the website. The good news is that the goal is in sight, and pending the furloughing director’s approval, we will be going live on Friday, August 31st. I felt I was able to communicate well with Brandon, and we came to an agreement about the priorities.
Partway through our meeting, Jay Silverstein dropped by on a surprise visit. He wanted to go diving tonight, which, of course, I agreed to. I’ll give him the full tour of the studio at a later date, as I had to return to my meeting with Brandon.
The majority of today involved sorting photos.
During the noon hour, I was able to convince Ivan to have his lunch with me in my office, and help me identify the people in the photos. He was able to identify 80 or 90% of everyone he saw, which was just amazing. So far, I am up to the year 2006 in the photo sorting. The goal is to finish before my sister arrives on Saturday.
After further discussion with Brandon, he expressed his concern that any additional projects beyond the website setup and the photo sorting would jeopardize my time with my sister. He feels that the value of some other miscellaneous projects does not outweigh the importance of my relationship with my sister. So the goal now is to try to wrap up my work by this Friday, and take most of the next two weeks off to get reacquainted with my sister.
Do pray that her visit will go well, as we have very little contact with each other back home due to the long-distance drive it takes to reach her in Kingston.
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Dive: Weber’s Joy
Right at five o’clock, I got changed and headed across the street to Jay’s house where I found him loading his pickup truck with his dive gear. Within a couple of minutes, we were on the road north to dive Weber’s Joy. This is just before the road becomes a one-way.
Weber’s Reef is also one of the sensor sites that Jay services, so I asked him if he wouldn’t mind pointing it out to me. We didn’t go particularly deep, only about 25 metres. Jay managed to snag two lion fish, one of which was a juvenile.
I did notice a significant amount of red algae on the bottom. I am also finding that either I am becoming more familiar with the reef, or there wasn’t anything new here. I’m not taking as many photos as I used to.
The current was fairly strong, and as we were swimming towards the sensor which was with the current, we ended up going right past it. When we did turn around and go into the shallows, Jay wasn’t sure exactly how far he had to go, so after about ten minutes, we decided to surface. Sure enough, we had gone quite a distance past. By this time, Jay was running low on air, so he decided to swim backwards on the surface.
Since there are never any surface markers, these sensor buoys can be particularly difficult to find. In this case, there was a large tree right on the edge of a small cliff on the water’s edge that marks the spot. From here you go out about 100 metres and look for an old pillar from a previous dock mooring that is resting on the bottom at a slight angle to the shore. Making note of the way it’s lying, you follow that direction out about another 100 metres, until you are out in approximately 40 metres of water, and the bottom has disappeared. Then you see the three Coke bottles materialize about five metres down. Jay said they were attached to the mooring column that had broken off years ago some 30 metres down. All the sensors are attached to artificial objects rather than the reef itself, in order to minimize damage. I could not see what it was attached to, so I decided to submerge, and went down to about 18 metres where I could finally see the top of the pillar that it was attached to. Jay has to replace all these sensors on Thursday, as for some mysterious reason, they have all malfunctioned.
We then headed back to shore, and, as usual, clambered awkwardly out of the water. I always find the exit onto these coral-strewn shores somewhat difficult, but it sure beats the price of a boat.
On the way home, I picked up a new tank at Wannadive, and got back around 7:30, fed the dogs, and ran a load of laundry.
Tonight I dropped by one of the busiest restaurants on the waterfront called At Sea. I decided to try the yellowtail snapper again, and it was very good. However, it seems a little too upscale for me, if that makes any sense.
Tonight the stars are out, although there is some cloud cover, and, as usual, I see the yellow lights of a tanker on the horizon. While I’ve been blogging, there have been at least three airplanes land and take off at the airport.
And so ends another pleasant day on Bonaire.