Planets on Parade

If you look to the west after sunset these days, you can't help but notice Venus shining brightly in the early evening sky. Mercury is visible too right now. On Bonaire Mercury appears directly below Venus, about two thirds to three quarters of the way to the horizon. The later you look, the nearer Mercury will be to the horizon.

This picture shows how Mercury and Venus looked two hours ago, at 7:20 pm on Thursday evening.

If you are further North than Bonaire, Mercury will appear to Venus' lower right, instead of directly below Venus. This Sky and Telescope page has a great diagram showing you what you can expect to see if you live up in the frozen North. And for those of you located way down in the Southern Hemisphere, the separation between the planets should look like what the Sky and Telescope page shows, but Mercury will be to the lower left of Venus rather than to the lower right.

The planet Saturn is quite visible in the evening sky too. Once you know where to look, you can follow it for a number of months. Friday night, Feb. 2, is a golden opportunity to locate Saturn. The moon will be really close to Saturn this Friday night, and Saturn is the brightest thing in the area besides the Moon.

So anybody with clear skies should be able to spot three planets Friday night, no astronomy expertise necessary.

Weekend Warriors

This is the course profile of an upcoming group bike ride. See the last paragraph of this posting for the details.

The starting point is at Eden Park. The first bump on the graph at 2.25 miles is the start of Sabadeco.

The dip at 3.5 miles is at Oilslick Leap. The next peak, at 4.6 miles is at the top of 1000 steps. The dip at 5.9 miles is at Old Blue and the dip at 6.7 miles is at Karpata.

The peak at 7.8 miles is the top of the hill between Karpata and Rincon.

There is a dirt road from the top of this hill that dives down to the road between Dos Pos and Rincon, which is the dip in the curve at 8.5 miles. The hilltop (para mira) with a great scenic view of Rincon is the peak at 9 miles.

Rincon is the dip at 9.5 miles. The killer cement road that climbs from Rincon to the radio towers on the cliff overlooking that town is next. The top of that hill is the highest sport on the chart, at 10.4 miles.

We then will hang a right turn at the big silver water tank and dive downhill on a dirt road that takes us to the lower of the two dirt roads back to Sabadeco. The bottom of this sketchy hill is at 11.1 miles.

There is a small but steep hill at 11.4 miles, and then it is downhill all the way back to Eden Park. Yippie! Oh, and be careful, because the dirt road is crossed by a number of giant bike eating gullys and the whole route back to Eden Park is heading directly into the wind, ha-ha.

I must not be the only one who thinks that this time of the year is ideal for being out and about on Bonaire. There are interesting activities happening every weekend these days.

Last Saturday was the Annual Lora (parrot) count. During the wee hours of the morning, about 50 volunteers headed to 22 known nesting sites around the island to count the Loras as they woke up and greeted the new day. The wild Lora population seems to be stable at about 650 birds. By the time I arrived at Washington Park on my bike ride last Saturday morning, the count was finished, a great breakfast had been eaten and the volunteers were starting to return home. You can read more about the Lora count in this week's issue of The Bonaire Reporter, on the Bonaire Reporter website. (Its dated 02-02-07 if you are reading this at some later date) There is also an informative article about the Lora on page 10 of the Jan 19, 2007 issue. You'll have to subscribe to read the Reporter online, but I must say that I consider it $35 well spent, and I live here and have access to the free hard copy version of the Reporter.

This coming weekend, the dawn of Sunday, Feb. 4, will see swarms of people running, hiking and biking from Red Slave at the south end of Bonaire, all the way to Rincon, in an annual fund raiser for the Bonaire Special Olympics team. Church responsibilities, not to mention the 5am. start time, have prevented me from participating in this event so far. Well actually, last year, Bob Lassiter and I did drive to Rincon in "Big Red" after church to join the hardy hikers for a scrumptious lunch. The route for this event goes right past our house and it is fun to see the participants passing by as I eat breakfast, feed the dogs, and then bike to the IBCB (church) around 8 am. to set up the sound system.

Next Saturday, Feb. 10, will be an opportunity for cycling enthusiasts to get together for a great group ride, sponsored by Bonaire Wellness Connexions. Details can be found on the Bonaire Insider web site. As I mentioned in my blog, the December ride was a lot of fun. I just rode the planned route of the upcoming ride. It took me about an hour and 20 minutes to ride without stopping, but will probably be more of a two hour group adventure next Saturday, because there will be rest stops for munching fruit and re-hydrating along the way. At the top of this posting you will find a yellow chart showing elevation versus distance for the route of the Feb. 10 ride. My bike speedometer read 26.58 km at the finish, but he chart shows the distance in miles and the elevation in feet. It's not a long ride, but has a fair amount of climbing for a "flat" island.

Washington Park Panorama

Back at the end of December, I climbed a hill that on my topographical survey map is called "Matado di Pasku." It was about a two mile hike from the main park road to the top of the hill and back. Along the way, I saw the cool rocks and the calabash pods that I've already mentioned in previous posts.

I think that I might have had a better view from the slightly higher hill to the North, (called Seru Largu on the map) but since I'm in the process of climbing all the significant hills, this one needed climbing. I wasn't disappointed by the view because it was more hazy back in the summer, when I climbed Seru Largu (twice.)

Here is a panorama of what one can see from the top of Matado di Pasku. It covers the full 360 degrees. If you have a broadband connection check out this 1.4 meg version of this picture. You can see a lot of detail if your browser doesn't re-size it.

My Favorite Month

The second half of January is my favorite time for being out and about on Bonaire.

Here are some graphs from my recent bike rides in Washington Park. You can click on them to be able to see them in a larger form I think.


The top plot shows elevation vs. distance for my ride last Saturday. I took the roads marked as the "short route" in to Slagbaai and my own "medium route" that goes along a sandy stream bed on the way back to the park entrance.



The second plot is from a couple weeks ago and shows the elevation vs. distance along the marked "long route" into the park and the marked "short route" out. You can see that the long route into the park, which runs along the coast is much less hilly then the short route in, which goes by Brandaris.

This is my favorite time of the year here on Bonaire. The air is fresh, (some would even say cool) the sky is a bright blue in between the puffy clouds, and the vegetation is green and flowery from the frequent showers.





We see the most frequent green flashes at sunset during this time of the year too, and I recently mentioned the rainbows in another post.

Speaking of rainbows, I saw a nice one when I rode my bike from Hato to Washington Park and back last Saturday. It was sprinkling rain at our house, when I left, but I quickly rode out from under the raincloud and had dry roads the rest of the morning. There was a nice rainbow visible on my left as I climbed the dirt roads towards Rincon. The ride to, through, and back from Washington Park takes about three and a quarter to three and a half hours. It wasn't exactly cool in the park, but the air was fresh, instead of stifling, and I didn't have to worry about overheating on the hills. In other words, it was great.

I came across three different groups of pigs! in the Park, in addition to the usual creatures. One group of three big porkers was wallowing around in a big mud puddle, just like the stereotypes. The dirt roads in the park are mostly packed down really hard right now, like brown colored asphalt, and that makes for easy (but bumpy) pedaling. Many of the dirt roads on the island could be carefully ridden with a road bike right now. A lightweight but sturdy cyclocross bike would be ideal. I'd be seriously tempted, except that it would upset the carefully balanced bikes / dogs ratio that preserves marital harmony in the Swanson home.

Funny Questions

I was just browsing the very nice web site of Bonaire Dive and Adventure, located right across the traffic circle from our TWR offices and studios here on Bonaire. It was great to see pictures and bios of my long time biking buddies James Thode and Henk Sanders on there.

What really made my day was something on their FAQ page. They've listed some of the funniest questions they've been asked. Here are a couple of them. To see the rest, you'll have to go to their site. It's worth it.

Here are the top questions, courtesy of Bonaire Dive and Adventure:

Where is the bridge to Klein Bonaire?

Is there water all the way around this island?

If I go deep enough, can I see under the island?

Is it going to rain during the week I am scheduled to be on Bonaire?

Rainbows

We've been getting rain showers just before or after sunrise almost every morning lately. In fact a rain cloud may suddenly appear and dump on a small area of Bonaire at almost any time of the day. Then it is sunny and clear again.

I was all set to head out on a bike ride after work yesterday when I looked out the second story window in the office and saw it pouring rain right were I was going to ride. I pretty much don't ride in the rain any more. Partly because the nice Bonaire weather has spoiled me and also because the dirt roads get really mucky when they are wet.

There have been lots of rainbows too. The best rainbows are early in the morning and late in the afternoon, when the sun is low on the horizon. I caught this one just after sunrise on Monday. In the bottom picture, you can just barely see a second rainbow to the left of the main one.

Washington Park road charts

I rode around the main loop in Washington Park this morning. I took the long route in to Slagbaai and the short route back to the gate. I didn't take my camera and resisted the urge to climb any hills. So I ended up with a nice plot of the road on my GPS receiver.

I don't think I should show you the plot of my path on my topographical survey map, because it is probably copyrighted, but here are some charts showing plots of speed/distance, and altitude/distance.

Back to Bonaire

Nathalie Willem, who has living in Canada for a number of years, was back home to get married this past week. Friends and family also came streaming back to Bonaire from far and wide.

Here is a picture of Sandra with Joann Huntington and Allison Hill who have been having a great time checking out their old stomping grounds.

Just Kidding, I mean Lambing

Sometimes it is hard to tell the sheep from the goats here on Bonaire, but it was definitely a sheep that Sandra assisted the other morning.

Another sheep was butting in after the first lamb was born, so Sandra whisked it off while its twin made its appearance. At last report, mom and lambs were doing fine.

A big thank you goes to Leila for the photos.

Calabash Lane

A section of one of the trails I recently hiked on in Washington Park is littered with Calabash gourds. There are a couple trees on the hillsides and the gourds seem to gravitate down to the trail in the valley.

I did a little reading on the Calabash trees and found out that they are mainly pollinated by bats. The gourds are used to make maracas, and the pulp has been used to treat colds in humans and ticks in dogs. The seeds are used to make a sweet called "carabobo", which I don't think I've ever tried.

Before and After

Here are a couple shots showing what Bonaire firecrackers look like before being fired off, and what the street looks like after the show.

Believe it or not, Selibon usually has everything cleaned up in a jiffy.

Happy New Year

New Year on Bonaire means fireworks. The dogs don't like it but I do. I'm sure that I've more than made up for my fireworks deprived NJ childhood, so we don't blow up as much stuff as we used to....

But we still have a bag full of roman candles, flying spinner thingies, and mortar shells to shoot off tonight.

Many of the businesses on Bonaire shoot off huge chains of firecrackers at the end of their last business day of the year. Yesterday, NAPA and Tropical Flamingo fired off two crates full of eardrum pounding pyrotechnics.

Big Bang

The strings of firecrackers always have a big boom at the end. This one was particularly energetic.

Fireworks

We were hanging out at home Friday evening when Rich West called and said that Playa Trading was about to fire off their huge carpet of firecrackers. I'd already been planning to be at NAPA on Saturday at 2pm for their display, but we jumped at the chance to see some night time fireworks.

I didn't time how long it took for the entire "string" of firecrackers to burn, but based on past experience, it had to be around 20 minutes. This is something one has to experience to appreciate.

I've included a couple photos of the action.

Strange Rocks

I climbed a couple more hills in Washington Park last Saturday, in an area accessed by an old dirt road sort of northwest of Yuwa Pass.

There were quite a few interesting rock formations in this area. Here are some pictures of crumbling rocks, eroded rocks and the like.

Armando Romo

Most, if not all, of the Trans World Radio staff posted to Bonaire over the years, have eventually gone on to serve at other TWR sites worldwide, or with other ministries. Some of their kids are still here however.

David Romo is a school teacher here on the island. His father, Armando Romo was able to come to Bonaire for the holidays, and is visiting with David and the boys.

Mangazina de Rei

As you begin to drive from Rincon back to Kralendijk, there is a large white building on a rise on the left side of the road. It is the Mangazina de Rei, the second oldest stone building on Bonaire.

Originally used to store crops, it has been beautifully restored, and serves as the centerpiece of a sprawling outdoor museum. The Mangazina de Rei foundation recently celebrated its 10th anniversary with an open house at the museum.

The hummingbird picture I recently posted was from this open house. Here is a look inside the main building and an outside as well. I hope to post pictures of some of the other exhibits soon.

Rincon Panorama

One of the fun features of the Manganzina di Rei is the great scenic view looking west towards Rincon. There is a breezy and shady elevated deck that is a great place to just hang out and enjoy the scenery.

When I took the pictures, I was mostly interested in the distribution of the hills in the background behind the Rincon valley.

You can find a larger version of this picture here.

Ticuna Indians Update

Back on March 4, 2005, I did a blog posting about investigating the possibility of broadcasting to the Ticuna Indians in the western Amazon basin. After this testing, it was decided that it would be better to use radio stations in the region instead of the Bonaire transmitter. Solar powered radios are en route to the area, radio production training is going on, and a recording studio project is in the works.

There are about 50,000 Ticuna Indians living in some 200 villages along 600 miles of the Amazon river, right were the borders of Brazil, Peru, and Columbia meet. The challenges facing the indigenous people groups on South America evoke memories of situation in North America 150 years ago: gold fever, land grabs, massacres, disease and the like. The Ticuna are one of the most significant groups, and have managed to preserve much of their culture and traditions in spite of 400 years of contact with the not so benevolent outside world, yet the large Christian segment of the tribe is also able to enjoy a liberation from the tyranny of the spirit world.

On the Trans World Radio, Brazil web site, you can see one of the Ticuna leaders, who visited the TWR (RTM) offices in Sao Paulo. There are more pages of photos here. You will need to click on the little link that says "proximo" at the bottom of each page of pix to get to the next page of pix.

Bike Ride

I participated in a great group bike ride last Saturday, sponsored by the Bonaire Wellness Connection. We started and finished at the Eden Beach resort and rode on both paved and dirt roads. The countryside is a lush green color these days, the temperatures cool (for Bonaire) and the winds low, which makes for wonderful biking weather.

Most of the ride found me cruising along and enjoying the scenery and camaraderie, but part of the time was spent in a state of lactic acid saturated, oxygen deprived tunnel vision, while I was chasing DJ and Frank up the dirt road known to some of us as "barf hill." I ride the "barf loop" many afternoons after work, but rarely as fast as last Saturday. A couple of those innocent looking ladies are also strong and tenacious riders.

Frank, owner of the Freewieler bike shop, is in the orange jersey at front left. DJ, manager of Budget car rentals is at the back left in the white sleeveless jersey, temporarily without his helmet. I'm to the right of the middle in a wine colored jersey.

A big thank you goes to Miguel, director of Bonaire Wellness Connection, (to the right of me in the white jersey with the blue shoulders) for organizing the tour. and for allowing me to use this picture. You can reach Bonaire Wellness Connection at bonairewellness@flamingotv.net

New online Gospel Music feed

One of the things I do when I have the time, is research and acquire new music for our TWR Bonaire on-air library. One great source of Christian music information and reviews is the Christianity Today web site. I particularly like their reviews of independent artists that one won't normally hear on the radio or see in the stores.

They've just started streaming Christian music from their site as well. Right now, they have a special program, airing a number of times a day, that features selections from their panel of music critics top rated albums of 2006.

There is a realPlayer feed and a Windows Media feed. I'm listening to the Windows Media feed right now, and it sounds great on my computer's M-Audio sound card, playing through the dynaco power amp, and KLH model 17 speakers I've got here in my office. We're talking about a 40 year spread of audio technology in this system!

TWR in Holland

Trans World Radio has an international staff serving in some 130 countries. I was just looking at TWR Netherlands' nice web site, and thought I'd let you know about it.

There is information on the 50 year history of TWR, news articles, as well as info. about the projects and programs that TWR Netherlands sponsors worldwide. It appears that one can obtain CDs of old radio messages by Corrie ten Boom, some of which I heard on the air here on the Bonaire station, back in the day. There are also Corrie ten Boom e-cards that you can send to your friends.

There is an abbreviated English language section, but most of the site is in the Dutch language, of course.

Hummingbird

Last Sunday, while I was waiting for Sandra to get her delicious authentic Bonairian food at the Mangazina di Rei, I spotted a hummingbird zipping around. It didn't stay in one place for very long, but I was able to get one clear shot. These two pictures are the same, just cropped differently.

I looked in some of my books, but wasn't able to come up with the name of this flowering plant that was so hummingbird friendly. Maybe one of you know and can post a comment.

Washington Park Hills

Here is a wide view of many of the hills in the northern part of Washington Park. There are hills in the background that are hidden by foreground hills. That is one of the things that keeps me climbing the various hills, you can't see that far from any given hill, 'cause others get in the way.

A slightly larger version of this image can be found here.

Green Grass

We're at that time of the year, here on Bonaire, when the temperatures are a few degrees cooler and we have early morning rain showers.

The landscape is getting quite green. I just mowed the weeds in the back yard for the first time of the season. The dogs, who like to munch on the taller weeds, are wondering what happened to them all. For those who are keeping track, the "puppy" is on the right.

The dogs do take their guard duties seriously. In the second photo, the pup is making sure that no one steals our bathroom.

Spelonk

I'm going through some of the aerial pictures I have on the computer from a while ago. Here is a wide angle look at the Spelonk area. The racing yachts pass pretty close to the shore here as they sail around Bonaire on the Monday of Regatta week each year. It might be a pretty good stargazing spot too.

A larger version of this image can be found here.

Lagoon - Washikimba

The top picture shows the area from Washikimba, towards the bottom of the picture, to Lagoon, towards the top of the picture. Spelonk would be off the top right corner of the picture.

We go to Washikimba when it is windy to watch the waves crashing against the coast. I still have some Estes model rockets from when I was a kid. We've launched them on that big plain at Washikimba when the winds have been completely still.

The bottom picture is the lighthouse at Spelonk. It is a 100% crop of the original frame. Sort of an after the fact "digital zoom" I guess.

Playa

Here is an aerial view from above Kralendijk, looking to the north.

Don't forget that you can click on any of these pictures to see them bigger.

If you want to see the original 3000 x 2000 pixel image, go here. You'll have to set your browser to not automatically resize images. Then you can scroll around and see a fair amount of detail in the image.

Farewell Dinner for the Lusses

The International Bible Church of Bonaire had a pot-luck lunch on Sunday in honor of Udo and Berni Lusse, who are retiring to California, after more than 40 years on Bonaire with TWR.

The food was great, truly international in flavor, I think everyone had a good time, even though saying goodbye to good friends is hard.

Planetary Parade

Saturday night (Dec. 09) will find the moon near the planet Saturn. Once you use the moon to locate Saturn, you should be able to find it again and impress your friends. Saturn will be below the moon as you look to the East around 11pm on Saturday night.

On Sunday morning (Dec. 10) just before sunrise, there will be a very very close grouping of Mercury, Mars, and Jupiter, right down by the eastern horizon. The dogs tend to wake me up just before 6am, so I've been looking for these planets each morning for more than a week. But we are having our typical December early morning rain showers these days, so the eastern horizon has been too cloudy. I'm hoping for clear skies on Sunday, but not getting my hopes up too much.

Sky and Telescope has a great site that outlines what you can see in the night sky in any given week. I refer to it from time to time so that I don't miss anything special.

South Belnem

Here is a shot of the southern end of Bel Nem. We've been flying in the morning and the pictures looking west come out a lot clearer than pictures facing east like this one. Who knows, maybe some time we'll be able to do an afternoon flight and get lots of shots of the heavily populated west coast of the island.

TWR TX site

Here we are looking at the TWR transmitter site by the salt ponds. From left to right, there are the four antenna towers, the transmitter building, and the WEB power plant.

In the foreground, especially towards the lower left of the picture, you can just detect the double reef structure with the sandy area between the the two drop offs.

At the top left of the picture, you can see the airport runway.

Sorobon from the Air

Here are a couple aerial views of the Sorobon area. These show more of the land area. The picture in the following post shows more of the reef structure.

Sorobon Reef

Here is a composite of two pictures of the reef at Sorobon, as seen from the air. This is a great snorkel when there isn't much wind.

One would park at the top left corner of the picture by the buildings and wade or snorkel across the shallow bay to the reef.

Here is a link to a full size version of this image.

Lusses Leaving

Udo and Berni Lusse will be wrapping up 40 years of service with Trans World Radio on Bonaire when they retire and move to California (near their sons) next week. They've been busy downsizing and packing their stuff for quite a while now, and will start loading a container today, if all goes according to plan.

TWR had a retirement dinner for them at Richards Restaurant last night, and the International Bible Church of Bonaire will be having a farewell potluck lunch this Sunday.

I've included a couple pictures from Richards Restaurant last night.