Day 16

I have a confession to make: for a smart person, sometimes I make some pretty dumb decisions.

Take today, for instance.  I'm just getting over the flu, so I decided to speed up my recovery by "sweating it out," as they say.  I hopped on my bicycle and pedaled south, hoping to see the slave huts and then turn around.  It was supposed to be about seven miles there, seven back.  That's a lot for me, but I had all day and it sounded doable.  Unfortunately, I made the poor decision to keep going after I hit the slave huts.  And I kept going until I got to the southern tip of the island.

Here's the thing about biking, though: when you go a certain distance on a bike, you have to do it again to get home.  You have to do it twice.  I may have forgotten this fact today, and I ended up cycling about 24 miles.  My butt hurts!!!

I didn't really plan on going all the way to the bottom of the island.  Whoops.

At least the bike ride was pretty!  I got to see lots of nice beaches, colorful salt pans, and beautiful vistas.  No flamingos, but maybe next time!

Pretty pink!

Bonaire has two main industries: tourism and salt.  The entire southern third of the island is made of salt pans, which are basically big drying fields for salt.  Seawater is pumped in, the water evaporates, and the sea salt is left behind.  The salt industry has been operating here for hundreds of years, starting with slave labor producing salt for the Dutch mainland.  Today, the salt flats are operated by a company called Cargill.

The salt pans are beautiful shades of pink, blue, and sometimes green.  These colors aren't the salt itself, but the color of the salt-loving bacteria that thrive in the super-salty water.

Once the salt is dried up, it's collected into enormous cone-shaped piles.

Salt piles.

The white stuff on the edges of the salt pans isn't salt.  It's foam!  Kinda gross foam, but probably not any more gross than the foam at a frat house foam party.

This stuff jiggles like jello when the wind blows.

Mmm, foam.

Once in a while, a ship will come and dock at the Salt Pier to pick up the salt.  The Salt Pier is a great diving spot, because large shoals of fish like to loiter around the pier supports.  I dove the site a few years ago, and I'd love to do it again soon!

This is the Salt Pier!

It's actually kind of pretty.

If you've ever wondered how shore-diving works, here it is: you park your pick-up (or ute, if that's what you like to call it) near the water so you don't have to carry your gear far.  Then you just walk right in!

A few pelicans were diving into the water for fish.  They aren't really afraid of people.

The salt pans are pretty, but I wouldn't go swimming in them.  Probably illegal, and also not good for your skin.

There's a moat between the road and the salt pans.  Not sure for what.

This one is light blue.

I have a bicycle.  It's a Dutch bicycle, which I'm told means that it's good-quality.  It's also made for a Dutch man.  The average height of a Dutch man is 6.0 feet, and my feet are about six inches off the ground when I'm on it.  My lovely housemate had someone weld the bar down lower, like on a women's bike, to make it easier for me to get on and off.  I am glad to have this bicycle, but I also hate it with every fiber of my being.  It also might be trying to kill me.

I fight with this bicycle every day.  Mostly, I lose.
This is a rare photo of it standing by itself.

That box on the back?  It falls off every time I hit a bump.  No fragile stuff goes in there.  I always lose a few eggs on the ride home from the grocery store.

The most common pose of my bicycle.  I'm not sure if the kickstand is defective or what, but this thing REFUSES to stand up on its own.

But back to pretty things near the Salt Pier.

Beach, of sorts.  There wasn't much in the tide pools, to my disappointment.

The road is actually pretty nice and smooth, for the most part.

More tide pools.

There are four large, colored pyramids on the island's west coast.  They are blue, white, red, and orange, and they once served as markers for the incoming salt traders.  The colors were indicative of the quality of the salt they could get at that 'port.'  Today there's only one place to pick up salt (the pier) but the pyramids still stand.  The first pyramid, the blue one, is at the current location of the Salt Pier.

The next one, white, is further down.

Very picturesque.

The white one is my favorite.

Farther south on the island, you can find mangroves just off the road.  I love mangroves!

Pretty, and great for the environment!

I went looking around in the mangroves, hoping to find some nice baby fish or crabs.  I found this guy, but sadly, he was already dead.

Pretty good size!

Down at the southern tip of the island, the red and orange pyramids are very close to each other.

The red one and this building are fenced off for some reason.

There are some ruins of some old buildings, and no signs to tell you what they were used for.  Bummer.

I like signs.

Then, just past that building, is the orange pyramid and the slave huts.  (There are white slave huts farther north, but there are more slave huts at this location.)  The dive site here is called Red Slave, and I once saw an enormous loggerhead turtle here.

The slave huts are reconstructions.

A painting on a sign, depicting men and women carrying salt to the boats.

Orange pyramid.

Slave huts!

At least the slave huts had a nice view, right?

This is basically as far south as you can go before turning up toward the east coast.  I didn't want to go on the east coast, so I turned around.  Pretty soon, I saw a wild donkey!  They're pretty common, and their poop is literally everywhere.  Literally.  You would cry if you knew how much donkey poop people step in without knowing here.

His eye looks like a ^_^ face, right?

A picturesque scene.

In case you were worried about the poor defenseless donkeys--although I can't imagine any reason to be--you can rest assured that they are looked after.  There is a donkey sanctuary just south of the main town of Kralendijk, and all the donkeys are tagged and checked on once in a while.  They're fine.

On my way back home, I stopped to check out the kite surfing spot.  It was super windy today, and there were quite a few kiteboarders taking advantage of the weather.

See all the kites?  I count six in this photo, but there were over a dozen people in the water.

The only place to buy food at the kite boarding spot.  They have reasonable prices, though I can't vouch for the food.  They also sell a lionfish burger, which I might have to try.

They've got windsocks to tell the kite surfers which way the wind is blowing.  Lots of extra kites on the beach.

And last but not least, here's a few of the panoramas I took today.  I look forward to the day when I can afford a camera that will stitch them together for me.

Salt pans.

A tide pool near the Salt Pier.

Tide pool near the road.

Salt pans.

More salt pans.

More salt pans!

More tide pools.

More pink salt pans.

More salt pans!

 And that about sums up my day.  Did I mention that my butt really hurts?  It hurts a lot.

My dive camera is on the fritz, and I'm not very happy with the photos it takes, but hopefully I'll get some nice-ish photos to put up soon!  Wish me luck!

Cheers,
Ashton

Day 12

The bad news is, I've come down with the flu!  Fortunately it's just a mild one, mostly causing me to feel tired, sore, achy, slightly nauseated, and a little confused.  It comes in waves, so I'll feel fine for about twenty minutes and then the next twenty minutes  I'll feel like I've just taken a few Vicodin on an empty stomach.  I've also chemically burned all the fingers on my left hand by cutting up jalapenos without gloves.  Boooo.

The good news is that I've crossed something off my bucket list that's been on there for three years: prepare, cook, and eat my very own Bonairean lionfish!

Those spines are venomous!  Fortunately you can cut them off with scissors.

Now to be fair, I didn't catch this lionfish myself.  Only long-term residents of the island are allowed to take the lionfish hunting class and get a speargun for fishing them.  Lionfish are an invasive species; they have no natural predators, can eat everything, and multiply like crazy.  To help curb the lionfish problem, they can be hunted by divers with spring-loaded spearguns called ELFs, which is an acronym for 'eradicate lion fish.'  Lionfish are the only animals you can go spearfishing for.

Now, on Monday I finally caved to the cold and bought a 5mm wetsuit, and I was very excited to try it out.  I went on a dive last night intending to be a lionfish spotter, but the new wetsuit was too tight around my neck and was making me dizzy, so I had to end the dive after a few minutes.  Fortunately we were a team of three, so my two buddies, one of whom is a legal lionfish hunter, kept going, and came back with the beautiful specimen pictured above.

My buddies exiting the water.  The guy in front has a PVC container for holding the lionfish.  You don't want to stick yourself with their venomous spines!  They can still stick you when they're dead.

Being a kind and generous soul, (and also because I asked very nicely,) he bequeathed the lionfish unto me.  I was so excited that for my entire bike ride home, I sang a little song about my pretty new lionfish and how tasty he was going to be.

It's a big one!

Once home, I realized that we didn't have any knives sharp enough to filet my fish.  My dive knife was perhaps not the perfect choice, but it got the job done.

Isn't my dive knife pretty?  I love that thing.

Lionfish are an easy fish to filet--if you've got the proper knife.  You make a cut behind the gills, along the backbone, and along the belly, then peel back the skin and cut along the bones.  Hopefully next time I'll remember to scrape off the scales first.  I admit that I definitely need more practice!

First cuts made, and skin peeled back to the tail.

Can't believe I forgot about the scales.  What a mess.

Two good-sized filets!

As far as fish go, lionfish are a very non-fishy fish.  Once I threw away the carcass, there was no smell of fish left in the house.  They look fatty and good for sushi (and I've heard that the sushi restaurants here serve it a lot) but I didn't have the stuff to make sushi.  I did, however, remember seeing cilantro, limes, roma tomatoes, onions, and jalapenos in the three grocery stores on the island--all the makings of pico de gallo.  I went out and got my ingredients, but came down suddenly with flu symptoms when I got home.  So sadly, my lionfish filets went into the fridge.

Today was better but I'm still obviously sick, so I got sent home from work.  After a five-hour nap, I finally felt well enough to hold a knife.

Because I'm just one person and I had two good-sized filets, I decided to try two different ideas--because who needs recipes, right?  The first idea was a combination of ceviche and pico de gallo.

Ceviche de gallo!  Pico de lionfish!

Wow!  It's incredibly delicious!  I honestly didn't expect it to be so good.  Plus it's very simple and easy to make.  I give myself a 10 out of 10 on this one.

If I didn't have the flu, I'd have eaten it all already.

My other 'idea' was to just take every spice on the shelf and throw it on.  I rubbed a mixture of garlic salt, oregano, black pepper, and paprika on the filet, then pan-fried it in butter.

Oh my goooooodness it's so good!

Tender, moist, juicy, flavorful, melt-in-your-mouth--this thing was perfect.  And it took less than five minutes to season and fry it.  The only fly in the ointment was that it had a few little bones in it, but it certainly made the house smell amazing.

Mmmmm.  This recipe gets a 10 out of 10 too!

Lionfish is really healthy too; it's got lots of omega 3 fatty acids and protein.  Yum!  I can't wait to try lionfish sushi!

Here's hoping I get better and can help hunt for more lionfish soon!  :)

Cheers,
Ashton

Day 08

I started my divemaster internship on Tuesday, and boy have I been busy!  Let me show you where I work.

The dive shop I'm doing my DM internship with is called Dive Friends Bonaire.  The business has five locations on Bonaire, the busiest and most popular location being Yellow Submarine.  Back a few years ago, when I did the CIEE study abroad program here, Yellow Sub was our next-door neighbor.

A photo of how Yellow Sub used to look, before the patio was installed.  I found this on the internet, as I apparently didn't take any photos a few years ago!

These days, Yellow Sub is looking a bit different.  The scrubby bits on the side of the shop have been replaced with a patio, the entire place has been repainted, and the inside of the shop renovated.  All in all, it's looking pretty good!  (The only downside is that it's less colorful.  Booo.)

Now you can see the fancy new covered patio.  I liked it better with all the pretty colors though.  :(

But I'm not working at Yellow Sub.  Most days I'm working at the Dive Inn shop, which is about a kilometer south of the main shop.

I have recently acquired a cheap bicycle with the help of my lovely housemate, but it's a Dutch men's bike.  It's gigantic.  The seat is above my belly button, and my feet are a solid foot off the ground when I'm on the bike.  Whenever a cruise ship is in port, they close the nice sidewalk to bicycles and I have to go on the street with all the cars.

Unfortunately, Dive Inn is past the cruise ship docks, and we have cruise ships in about three days a week.  I am not a good biker, and it's very difficult for me to stop the bike, so it's a bit scary for me to be on the road with the cars.  Also, the Dutch have a bunch of crazy rules for bicycles that I don't know about, which explains--too late--why people sometimes stare angrily at me on my bicycle.  (At first I thought it was just because I looked stupid, a tiny girl on an enormous men's bike.  It's probably also that.)

This is the dock right in front of Dive Inn.  Pretty nice, yeah?

The view from the dock.  The roped-in area is the confined shallow water area for Open Water Diver classes.

Anyway, back to work.  My duties as a divemaster intern are basically the following:
- fill tanks with air
- move tanks
- get gear for customers
- supervise snorklers on all cruise ship days
- work cash registers and sell things
- assist with classes

Filling and moving tanks sucks, but it needs to be done.  Same with getting gear for customers, except that the darn gear racks are so high at Dive Inn that I can't reach half the equipment, and the super-tall menfolk have to get it down.  Supervising snorklers is actually a pretty nice job; mostly I carry small things and watch the men carry heavy things, help build a large tent, make sure cruise ship's snorklers don't drown themselves, and then pack things up.  Cruise ship days are easy days.

Assisting with classes is the fun bit, and the part that's actually relevant to my (potential) future diving career.  So far I've helped with a Discover Scuba Diving class (a 3-hour-ish course that involves learning a few skills then going on a very basic, shallow guided tour) and an Open Water Diver certification course (the very first level of independent diving).  Divemasters (and interns) are helpful for these courses because new divers are usually pretty awful at diving--which is expected and normal--and need lots of looking after.  The instructor needs to watch everyone constantly if he's alone, but with a divemaster (or intern) he can focus on one student while the DM watches the others.

Basically, a DM intern is an unpaid babysitter for instructors.  Having a DM around makes their job a lot easier.  For the Open Water class, I help demonstrate skills too.  In the Discover Scuba class, I mostly follow them around yanking them up or down, depending on which wrong direction they're floating in.  It's work, but it's not bad work.  It's also nice to see how happy people are when they master a difficult skill or see a cool animal.

The dock of Yellow Submarine, where we practice rescue skills and teach classes.

It's not all work, though!  We actually have to learn some things and competently demonstrate some skills.  Yesterday I did a deep dive at Yellow Sub in the morning.  We went straight down to 130 feet, then did a few simple tests to see if we were "narc'ed," which means 'mentally or physically influenced by the increased nitrogen partial pressure.'  (This is fancy-speak for basically breathing laughing gas, the same stuff you get at the dentist.  It's usually quite pleasant!)  The tests included doing simple math problems, coordination exercises, and an extra-hard counting-coordination combination exercise.  (Try saying that five times fast.)

After the tests, we also did a color test (since colors look different at depth due to different wavelengths of light and so on) and cracked an egg, which is fun because the pressure keeps the whole egg together.  We saw lots of nice things on the way up, including a lettuce slug (woohoo, a nudibranch!) and some arrow crabs.  After the dive we practiced rescue skills, and I got a charley horse, but I'm trying not to let that ruin an otherwise lovely morning.

Today, however, was a special event: the quarterly clean-up dive!  Four times a year, Dive Friends offers free air tanks to anyone who wants to help clean up an area of reef.  Afterwards, there's a free barbecue for the volunteers.  This quarterly clean-up dive was around Karel's, the lovely bar/cafe on a dock.

You've seen Karel's before.  I'm pretty sure it's pronounced "Carl's" but you can never tell with Dutch names.

Instead of going to Dive Inn like I normally do, today I came straight to Yellow Sub and started preparing for the clean-up dive.  Over 100 volunteer divers showed up!

Asko gives a dive briefing (a dive plan) to the attentive crowd of volunteers.
(Photo from Dive Friends Bonaire Facebook page.)

A group photo of some of today's volunteers.  Many people leave early to get a good parking space at the site, so they aren't in the photo.
(Photo from Dive Friends Bonaire Facebook page.)

We give the divers mesh bags to collect the trash in.  They are only supposed to collect new trash.  After a few years, garbage can become part of the environment; coral may grow on it, or animals might make a home inside it.  Sometimes people get excited and want to bring up tires or cans that have been down there for years, and don't realize that they're destroying an animal's home.  Fortunately I didn't see any of that this year!

Look at all those divers!
(Photo from Dive Friends Bonaire Facebook page.)

This isn't a great photo of me, and the water looks nasty.  Who put this on facebook?!
(Photo from Dive Friends Bonaire Facebook page.)

The dive shop workers stand in the water to take the trash from the divers.  The trash is surprisingly heavy!  Mostly they're grabbing beer bottles full of water and sand, which is why the bags are so heavy.  Good thing there's lots of strapping young men to do the heavy lifting!

Strapping young men.

Some people chose not to dive, and stayed on the beach collecting glass shards.

The trash was collected, trucked back to the dive shop, and meticulously counted by volunteers with stronger stomachs than me.

A small pile of mesh garbage bags.
(Photo from Dive Friends Bonaire Facebook page.)

Brave volunteers with thick gloves, sorting and counting trash.

You can see lots of aluminum cans, plastic bottles, fishing line, and beer bottles.

Ewwww.

All told, nearly 3000 pieces of trash were collected.  There were over 500 beer bottles and 800 cans!  Other things found included a $20 bill, two pairs of pants, shoes, a screwdriver, a large vase, and two Christmas ornaments.

This is the dumpster full of trash.

Humans are icky.  :(

After the clean-up dive, it was time to set up for the barbecue!  A few years ago I did a clean-up dive and the barbecue was at Yellow Sub's tiny parking lot, but apparently they've been holding it at the new Hamlet Oasis location, which is north of Yellow Sub.

Hamlet is really nice and peaceful, and has two cute kitties!

Not a bad view of Klein Bonaire!  All the plates are for the barbecue.

A cute, cozy little shop!  They've also got two cute resident cats.

This cat has a heart on it!!!

This cat has the biggest eyes I have ever seen.

We spent a few hours preparing for the barbecue, and I'm happy to say that (despite my involvement) it went off without a hitch.  There was plenty of great food and cheap alcohol, and everybody had a good time.  I especially enjoyed the clean-up part, mostly because the bulk of the clean-up will be done tomorrow, which is my day off.  Mostly I got beers for everyone washing dishes, which I considered a pretty important job.

The next two days, Sunday and Monday, are my days off, and I'm going to try to get in some recreational diving.  Because I'm working for the shop, I get to go on the dives for free on my off days.  (Woohoo!)  The problem is that my gear is at Dive Inn, and the boat leaves from Yellow Sub.  I can't walk 50 pounds of dive gear for a kilometer, so I will need to work out a plan to move my dive gear accordingly in the future.

Hopefully I'll have some diving photos to share soon!  Wish me luck!  :)

Cheers,
Ashton