Monthly Archives: May 2009

Diving Cliff and Snorkeling Near the Venezuelan Embassy

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This morning we returned the car and ran some errands. One was the boat store, where we had the shock of a life time. They had one and only one Shurflo 5.7 pump in stock. We couldn’t believe it! The store doesn’t normally carry them, it was special ordered for someone who never picked it up. We bought it and are happy to have a proper spare again. A second errand was for Eric’s SCUBA equipment. The hose that attaches the gauges to the tank is leaking, so he bought a new hose. And, Christi got a much needed haircut.

Once errands were done, we went back to the boat. Eric changed his hose, which turned out to be a harder task than he had anticipated. Then we loaded all our dive gear in the dinghy and headed up the coast to a dive spot called Cliff, near where the fancy neighborhood starts. We tied to the mooring and worked on getting in. Hard dingies are not really good for diving as they tip easily. Getting into your gear on board and jumping off with your tank strapped on you isn’t a good plan. So, Christi got in the water, then Eric handed her the tank and BCD. She put everything on, then Eric handed her his rig. Then Eric got in and put everything on. We were ready to roll and hadn’t even flipped the dinghy. High 5!

Being as we hadn’t gone up the coast very far, the dive site was similar to the one behind our boat. There are a lot more soft corals here, both more species and more of each species. The only ones we can identify are the giant sea rods, which are a good 5 6 feet tall, and the sea plums, but there are many more varieties. We also saw a few basket starfish, which look like a plant, not like a fish. A basket star is the creature that latched onto Christi’s hand and wouldn’t let go in Guadeloupe, reminiscent of a space alien latching on to a host human in a science fiction movie.

However, this site has less fish and less variety of fish. The most exciting fish that we spotted is a midnight parrotfish. It is gigantic, as in comparable in size to a Napoleon. It looked all black with iridescent blue markings on its face, but when we looked in the fish book, we realized it was dark blue, not black. We have never seen anything like it before. It was really exciting. This must be the spot for abnormally large fish, because we also saw an unusually large trumpet fish. We saw a couple different species of file fish that had very odd designs on them. One of them was also quite large. And, finally, we saw a fish in the distance that Eric thinks was a very large fish and Christi thinks is a small shark.

Getting out was the exact opposite of getting in. Eric took his rig off. At the same moment he pulled himself up on the port side of the boat, Christi yanked with all her might on the starboard side to keep the dinghy from flipping. He got in with no problem. We put in both sets of rigs, then Christi hopped on, with Eric carefully counterbalancing her weight. Another high 5!

After diving, we unloaded our rigs aboard Kosmos, then went snorkeling in front of the Venezuelan embassy, which is just a couple boats over from us. We were told there is a lot to see there. When we pulled up in the dinghy, six pelicans immediately landed in the water right next to us. They watched us intently. We watched them back intently, amused that they were so interested in us. Apparently, the fishermen will clean fish here and throw them the scraps, so they were waiting expectantly. We eventually got tired of the staring contest and got in the water.

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The area is rocky, there is little coral growth, and there weren’t many fish. But, there was a good variety of fish to look at, and we got some decent photos. We heard a turtle is frequently sighted here, but we never saw it. The first is a juvenile longfin damselfish. It will turn brown when it matures.

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This picture is neat because you can see how easy it is to confuse fish species. The fish in the background is a blue tang. We’re not sure what the fish in the foreground is, but with similar color and shape, it is easy to mistake it for a blue tang.

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Here is a sergeant fish. The silver variety is the Continue reading →

Dana Point Nordhavn Dock Party Tuesday, May 26

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Once again we interrupt blog time with a real time announcement. We will be in Dana Point on Tuesday, May 26 to celebrate our circumnavigation with the staff of Nordhavn. They will be having a dock party at 4pm. If you can make it, send us an e-mail. Address and directions: 24703 Dana Drive, Dana Point, CA 92629, directions.

Alas it will not be an open house to see Kosmos, but it will be a chance to see us and a bunch of the Nordhavn folks that made our trip possible. We hope to see you there!

The Mangazina di Rei

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Continued from yesterday”¦ After we finished at the museum, we headed to Rincon to go to the Mangazina di Rei cultural center. It is housed in the second oldest stone building on the island, built in 1824, which was originally built as a food and farm tool storage center. The center tries to actively preserve the cultures and traditions of 100 years ago. We expected it to be a museum where you wander around at your own pace, but it was actually a guided tour. We joined a tour group about halfway through the tour. The group had just gone out into the gardens.

In the gardens, they grow the plants that were used for every day living, from food to export crops to materials for tools. They pointed out a tamarind tree, then gave us some tamarind juice to taste. It tastes kind of like beans and sugar and is different. They pointed out a calabash tree. Calabash are inedible, hard, and round, and are good for making assorted tools and cookware, such as bowls, ladles, and so forth. The musical instrument maracas (the shakers popular in Latin American music) are made from calabash, too.

They showed us candle cactus, which are used to make the living cactus fences. For some reason, they can only be cut on a full moon in the dry season or they rot. The guide showed us the tools they used to cut, move, and replant the cactus along the fence. The cactus cuttings form new roots and become a living fence.

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The guide also pointed out the kadushi cactus that they make a traditional soup from, and also explained how they cut and skin the cactus to get at the pulp inside. The cactus is absolutely enormous, but only young shoots are eaten.

They showed us the plants that sorghum flour is made from, which was the staple of the traditional diet. Sorghum is Continue reading →

Washington-Slagbaai Park

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This morning we awoke to partly cloudy skies, but no rain. We had to bail a ton of water out of the dinghy and there were big pools of water in the street, which we took as a bad sign for the long road to be open. We hopped in the jeep and headed back up to the Washington-Slagbaai park.

This time we took the coastal road up. When we had gone to the camera store on the edge of town the other day, for some reason we thought there wasn’t much development beyond that point. We turned out to be wrong. Just around a bend in the road, out of the line of sight from where we were standing that day, is where the Continue reading →

Exploring Southern Bonaire and Windsurfing Lessons

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Continued from yesterday”¦ Near where the wetlands turned into Luc Bay, the salt pans started. Almost all of the south side of the island is owned by the salt company, and there are miles upon miles of salt drying “pans”, which are large, shallow troughs of water dug into the ground. As we drove south, we found ourselves on a narrow strip of land. To our left was the ocean and to our right were the pans.

There were quite a few flamingos grazing in the salt pans, all out in the distance, of course. The flamingos feed on brine shrimp, crustaceans, plankton and algae, which are all easily accessible in the shallow pools. We know that deeper in the salt flats is a flamingo sanctuary, one of the four main breeding sites for the entire Caribbean flamingo population. There is no road to get there, it is strictly off limits to the public, and it is too far from the road for people to see them. It sounds like the flamingos here regularly fly back and forth from Venezuela.

On the windward side of the ocean there were huge waves pounding the shore. We passed a lighthouse at the southernmost point of the island. As we came around the bottom of the island towards the leeward side, we saw the infamous slave huts. They are situated just at the edge of where the surf dies down, close to the lighthouse. Beyond the huts, on the ocean, there were some kite boarders skimming along the water, just like the day we arrived on Kosmos. It is really quite scenic.

The huts are almost shocking. They were built in the 1850’s, and were apparently an upgrade from the mud huts that were used prior. Several people were crowded into these shelters. As you can see, they are tiny — barely long, wide and tall enough for someone short to stand up/lay down in. Putting two people in one of those would be “cozy”, particularly if one of them was tall, and apparently many people were crowded into each of them.

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The salt mining work was hard — slaves used wheelbarrows, shovels and picks to mine the salt in the burning sun. Ships picking up the salt would anchor off the coast. The slaves would load basketfuls of salt into dinghies and deliver the salt to the ships.

As the road continued north, the salt pans changed in color from clear to purple. It is kind of surreal to see purple pools of salt, but cool looking none-the-less. We passed numerous trucks pulled over on the side of the road, clearly divers who are doing shore entries. We passed mountains of (white) salt piled up near an interesting looking, roller coasteresqe contraption that moves salt to a dock where ships can tie up. It amazes us that the mountains haven’t melted away in all the rain.

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The mountains and contraption must mark the Continue reading →