Rain is a beautiful thing

It's amazing what a little fresh water can do for an ecosystem. What is supposed to be arid suddenly appears lush and almost trop
ical. Life abounds.

Each day since my arrival we've had a gentle morning rain and have been cooled off in the afternoon by showers. I'm not talking rain like back home (that seems to last for days) but quick refreshing rains that seem to last for a half hour at most.

When we first started coming to Bonaire the landscape was very different than it appears now. Sure the topography is the same, but now EVERY

THING is covered in green and is growing. Roads feel a bit narrower as plants start to compete for space. The hillsides are a bit reminiscent of Ireland (if Ireland were to have cactus that is), as what was once brown and rocky is a solid blanket of plant life. Inland, where there was sand and coral, there are succulents and even... grass. The most fascinating element of all this, there is no dirt or soil just clay and rock. Making the life that currently exists fragile and all the more beautiful.

And from all this water comes more animal life. Sure, maybe it's the time of year that we've decided to travel here or maybe it's that some of the stresses of reproduction and survival have been reduced (i.e., access to water and food) that has helped the various animal populations to flourish. I've never seen so many wild donkeys and goats on this island, and beyond that I've never had the privilege to be so close to so many of their babies. Have you ever seen the way baby goats are cared for in their pack? Or how loving and dependent upon each other, pairs of donkeys can be. I've had a front row seat, each day.

And don't get me started on the rainbows... :)

Photo Day

Well, as you may have noticed, I've been a little remiss in posting.  After my great first day of diving my ears acted up, so no more diving for now.  It's a real bummer, but better to protect them for the future.  This is 2 for 5 on having ear problems while down here, not great.

Dad is also recovering from a pretty bad cold so we have been taking it pretty easy.  We have however been driving around and taking some neat pictures however, so I figured I would post some today.  What follows are all from last night and today.  They start down near the slave huts on the south west side of the island last night, and then continue to various parts of the island, mostly the east side, today.  Enjoy.

Sunset on the southeast part of Bonaire.  It wasn't a
great one, but the sky and the water are just so huge. . .

That same sunset, just zooming way in on the colorful bit . . .

We were waiting a while for the sunset.  While we waited, I took this and the next two pictures.

This is where we were sitting for about an hour waiting for sunset.
Those little white huts were the weekday quarters of the slaves
who worked the salt flats on island.  They are bout 6' high
in the center, and about 6' wide by 8' long.  The slaves "got" to go
home after a half day of work on Saturday, but had to be back
Monday morning for work.  It was a 7 hour walk each way.

Bonaire gets a good portion of its power from these 12 windmills.
These are up on the northeast side of the island.

It is amazing, for an arid island, just how lush everything is right now.
Flowers are blooming, baby goats and iguana's abound.
While its not exactly spring, it is evident that the rainy season is here!

First time seeing these here - honey bees!  

Crested Caracara.  Cool raptor:  Its a member of the falcon family,
but builds stick nests and spends a great deal of time on the
ground -making it, according the the Peregrine Fund, the
most "terrestrial" falcon.

Very cool way that these cactus were growing.  There was
one other group nearby doing the same, but I've never
seen others like this.

And I'll close with view through the bushes on our road.  Doesn't really give the normal impression of Bonaire though - looks lush and vibrant here, not Bonaire's normal state.

Just Some Pictures for Now

Diving was awesome today.  No camera on the first dive (it was malfunctioning) but it worked on the next two.  First dive though had the frog fish.  That was really cool!

Can you see the shrimp in this picture?  He's really hard to see on account of his being translucent and all.

A little arrowhead crab.  He lives with the Anenome

This guy was like 3 feet

And this one was only about a foot.  

Yup, we saw a turtle.  anyone want to ID him for me?

It's Christmas Time in Bonaire!

Last this Blog saw Liz and I, we were in London.  Now, at the end of 2011 it finds me and my father in Bonaire.  We arrived this morning on a redeye out of Houston.  It wasn't miserable, but there isn't much fun about a 23 hour trip, door to door.

The good new is we have arrived on the lovely Island of Bonaire.  Atypically, it's a bit overcast and not as windy as normal.  It has rained twice in our first 8 hours here.  But that is also kind of a blessing really, freeing us from a feeling of guilt for the 4 hour nap we took post arriving.  Then we headed out to the new "Supermarket" on the island that everyone has been raving about.  This market really helps sum up the island for me.  It's the size of a large corner grocery back home.  If you have an IGA in your town, think that.  But for Bonaire, its the newest, best stocked, coolest thing on the island.  It was described to us with glee by someone who said, "now when we have guests, we don't have to make excuses and just eat what the market has in stock, if we want chicken and pasta, we can get chicken and pasta.  If we want beef, we know they will always have beef."  That's what I love about island life, its the small things that make you happy.

Dad and I ate at Bobby Jan's for lunch.  It's good BBQ, and only open on the weekends, so we had to get our fix now.  We then tried the local package store to get some good scotch, but alas, it was closed.  On to Lover's Ice Cream, home of some of the finest ice cream in the world for a take home quart.  While there we noticed that the electronic store next door happened to have free wi-fi, always a plus and good to know.  The house has internet, but not wireless, so with iPhones and an iPod, that's a handy thing to know.

I'll leave you for now with three more pictures.  Pardon the bluriness of the first two, they were taken at some distance with about 35X and my hand isn't the steadiest after 4 hours sleep over the last 36 hours.  While the location of the house if very quite from man made noises, it sounds like hundreds of these parrots surround us.  They are not unpleasant sounding, but they are darn loud!

The Brown-Throated, or Caribbean Parakeet

A Troupial

The view off our balcony to the south.  For those who have been here, those little white dots in the center of the top piece of land are the salt piles for the salt flats.  That's Klein Bonaire to the right.  This view is just as bold and huge to the  right of the picture, I just can't do a full panorama right now.  The view is a full 220 degrees, including the entire south of Bonaire, all of Klien Bonaire, and all the way up to the national park in the north.  On a clear day supposedly we can see Curacao.