Rincon Day

April 30, in the Kingdom of the Netherlands, is a national holiday. It is the anniversary of the Queen's Coronation day. On Bonaire, it is also known as Rincon Day.
Rincon turns into a massive street fair, with lots of booths selling all sorts of stuff and a few performance stages too. There is non stop music and great food all day. We enjoy wandering the streets and chatting with friends.
I kept the pix small but if you have a broadband Internet connection, you can click on them to see them bigger.

Kebrahacha Mico Burst

We had a teeny tiny bit of rain the other day, barely enough to notice. But a few Kibrahacha trees located at the South East corner of the Sabadeco area noticed, and promptly burst into bloom.

The flowering trees cover an area of probably a half a mile by a half a mile, and some of them, like the one pictured here, only partially blossomed.

The rest of the Kibrahachas on Bonaire are saving themselves for a real rain storm. I hope it will be a big one, so all the trees pop at once like they did last year.

Hotel Bonaire Beach

Last night, Sandra and I enjoyed a great evening with some new friends who own one of the apartments in the new Den Laman building. We had a great view of Klein Bonaire, the Bonaire waterfront, and later after it got dark, Orion and the other winter constellations as they set in the west.

Here is an overview of the beach area that is across the street from the TWR studios. I worked the night shift the first few years I lived on Bonaire and spent many an afternoon swimming, snorkeling, and diving off the floating docks at this beach.

Betty Ratzlaff hits the big 80

I wrote about Betty Ratzlaff a month or two ago. She taught many of us Papiamentu back in the day, and created a English Papiamentu / Papiamentu English dictionary that is widely used here.

This is bird month here on Bonaire, with a number of special lectures and activities. Well, a little birdie just told me that Wednesday, April 25 is Betty's 80th birthday.

So if any of you who know her, or have enjoyed her dictionary want to send her a greeting, her email is bbhenriquezATshawDOTca Hopefully you can translate that into her real email address. Just don't want some spam bot to pick up on it. :)

Venus and other Bright Lights

We've been watching Venus for some months now. It has moved quite a bit to the North as we look to the West after sunset and is more obvious to people living up north of us. Here is an article with interesting info. about viewing Venus these days.

There are occasionally some other bright lights in the night sky. A week ago tonight, Sandra and I saw two of them on the same night. The International Space Station (ISS) passed overhead around 7:15 pm and then around 8:30, one of the Iridium satellites did a bright flare of reflected sunlight.

Venus shines at a magnitude of about -4 these days. The Iridium flare we saw last week was at -6. We saw one a few weeks ago at -8. These stellar magnitudes are logarithmic, so -8 is really intense, compared to Venus at -4.

Satellites are a thorn in the side of astro-photographers, but we're casual enough stargazers that we still find them fun to watch. I get customised emails every day from calsky dot com that tell me what is going to be happening each night, as seen from our back yard here on Bonaire. I also go to heavens-above dot com regularly to see what sort of interesting things are happening in the night sky above Bonaire.

The processing power of today's PCs, together with the Internet makes it possible to observe things I never would have even known about back in the old days. I'm still intending to try imaging the ISS with a telescope and webcam some day. If I ever pull it off, you'll be the first to know, ha ha.

Another Year, Another Tower

This intrepid crew recently finished painting this year's antenna tower. We have four towers and the plan is to paint one a year, for ever and ever....
We had a fun food fest at the transmitter site to celebrate a job well done. Here Benny is presenting each of the guys TWR contracted for the job with a Papiamentu Bible. One probably thinks a little more about life and death issues when one is working almost 500 feet above the ground.

Queen Mary 2 visits Bonaire

I happened to have my camera along when I went to the Ontvanger's office last week, and lo and behold, there was the QM2 looming over the building.
The ship has bow thrusters and was able to mover away from the dock quite nicely all by itself.
Cruise ship season is drawing to a close here on Bonaire. I think the last one comes here on May 2.

Windsurfing and Power Tools

With some notable exceptions, it seems to have been pretty windy this year. I'm going to try getting back out on the water in the next month or two. I haven't done much of any windsurfing for about 6 years or so, but it's a great complimentary exercise to cycling and I did have fun the last time I went out. (about 1.5 years ago)

So, as step one of my return to windsurfing, I'm reviving my windsurf trailer. The frame had a lot of rust and the dogs ate the lights. So I'm going to fix all that. Above, is a shot of the old faithful trailer up on the lift, with the rust all removed, and primer and paint starting to appear.

Below, is a photo of an air powered needle scaler. It made short work of the flaking rust on the trailer frame. I could get into tight places with this baby, and it didn't destroy the soft surfaces adjacent to the rust. I also used a really nasty knotted wire brush wheel on a electric angle grinder to get down to bare metal any where I could. It was dirty, nasty work, but these cool tools made a huge difference.

Bike Tour Pix

Bonaire Wellness Connexions, located at Eden Beach Resort, sponsored their third Mountain Bike tour last Saturday. There were different routes for riders of varying abilities, but the routes crisscrossed at a few places so we could compare notes on the ride and stock up on fruit and energy drinks.
Thank you Miguel for these action photos from the ride. I kept the thumbnails small for quicker downloading, but you can click on them to see them bigger if you want to do so.
This month's ride included some of the not so well known "donkey trails" to the north of Sabadeco. They are lots of fun to ride, but they take their toll on one's tires and tubes, because of all the thorns scattered on the ground on these trails. Frank, owner of the Freewieler bike shop graciously performed trail side repairs of a bunch of flat tires.

The wet spots on my tire, in the below photo are all places where Slime brand tire sealant has plugged up a puncture. The green spatters all over my bike frame are from Slime that escaped before the tube was plugged.
The next tour is scheduled for May 13 and there will be a fun Race in June.

29th Annual Kite Contest

After a really quiet week, the winds kicked back in just in time for the annual kite designing and flying competition. It is a big deal here, and there were a LOT of people out there having a great time. I kept these pictures small for faster downloading, since there are five of them, but you can still click on them if you want to see them bigger.
This is one of the larger kites. I didn't actually stick around to see them fly this one, but I can tell you that they had the end of the "kite string" tied off to the frame of a car, in order to be sure that this beast couldn't fly off with any of its handlers.
There were loads of prizes in various design and construction categories and for various age groups. Here is a creative box kite. Light weight is not an issue because of the power of the Bonaire winds. Stability and control can sometimes be elusive however.
One key design element common to all the kites the tail. Really really long, often multiple, tails are necessary to stabilize a kite in the strong Bonairian winds. This kite, about to be reeled in after a test, flew great. Check out the gloves on the hands of one of the kite wranglers. Many of contestants sported hand protection.
Bonaire natives will probably recognise Archie, as well as some of the other Judges, pictured here discussing the merits of one of the entries.

Bonaire by Bike

It seems like there are more and more people out riding bikes for fun. I usually see quite a few on my Saturday morning rides, except for when I'm riding in Washington Park. I hope there will be a good turnout, this coming Saturday afternoon, for the group ride sponsored by Bonaire Wellness Connexion.

There wasn't much wind last week. It was great weather for tower painting, and the crew will probably finish up this years antenna tower tomorrow, ahead of schedule. I got in a couple road bike rides, which are always more fun when the wind is low. Saturday I did the whole island, at least as much of it as is paved.

It is a little over 46 miles around the island, and it took me a little under three hours. Ten years ago, I routinely did it in about 2:25 or a little less. I'm not how quickly I could do it now, if I really tried. Maybe some time if the wind really dies away, I'll go for it.... if I can psych myself up for that much pain. One of the above photos shows my route superimposed on the Google Earth map of Bonaire.

Riding around the island is a good way to keep up with things. For example, some group is building some sort of newfangled houses just east of Rincon. They have metal framing and either aluminum or vinyl siding. The structures are going up very quickly, but they better have some awesome insulation ready to go in those walls, or it's going to be really really hot inside those things.

I also noticed that the big power generating windmill by Sorobon is gone. I think it was there just two weeks ago. It looks like they are getting the foundation ready for the new wind generator, which will be a prototype for the planned wind farm north east of Rincon. One of the photos at the top of this posting is of the new tower full of wind measuring gear that is located in Morotin.

I also saw two cars that had run off the road and crashed. One car was backwards and in a ditch on the small hill just south of the wind sailing track on the way to Rincon. The other was upside down and in the salt flats just south of the Suzuki/Chevy dealer on the way to the airport. I'm not sure what was so special about last Friday night / Saturday morning to have two wrecks like that, but it wasn't very reassuring as I peddled along with cars whizzing by.

Jammin' - Jamming

People often ask us if anyone ever tries to "jam" the broadcasts of Trans World Radio. It can be done, of course. It doesn't take a very strong local transmitter to block the signals from a distant radio station.

Although TWR has and still does transmit programming to countries where either religion in general, or Christianity in particular, is not welcome, as far as I know, our broadcasts have not been and still are not jammed. We audition all our programs before they are aired and make sure that they stick to a positive presentation of the core elements of the Cristian belief system, as opposed to political, economic, or sectarian distinctives. This may help keep us off the jammers hit list.

Believe it or not, Albert Dosti, one of the leaders of the "department of jamming" in Albania, back when it was arguably the most hard line atheistic country in the world, heard the broadcasts of TWR, had a personal encounter with the risen Christ, and is now a leader of the TWR ministry in that country. Here is his story, as it was published in "info Serv", the news journal of Trans World Radio's European region:

In the 1980s, Albania - a small poverty-stricken country on the coast of the Adriatic Sea - was being run by a Communist dictator. "My job in the military was to intercept radio signals that came from other countries," Dosti recalls. It was also his duty to teach other soldiers how to recognize "enemy" radio signals.
"At the end of the 1980s, I heard some signals that were coming from a Monte Carlo station (in the Albanian language). These messages spoke about God," Dosti says. These messages were the first of their kind he'd ever heard - because the atheistic government of Albania had outlawed all religion. "Believing in God was forbidden," Dosti states.
Yet through Trans World Radio's Bible studies that were transmitted from Monte Carlo, Albert was able to listen and study God's Word for two years. Eventually, he responded to an invitation at the end of one of the programs; when he did so, a correspondence with TWR began.
This interaction led to Albert and his wife attending a Bible study camp after Albania's dictatorship fell. Soon after, the couple made a decision of faith to follow Jesus... and Albert's new life of leadership soon began.
Now, this former Communist army radio interceptor is receiving revelation from God's Word and transmitting it to the congregation of the Way of Peace Church, where he is pastor. He is also influencing for good those who attend Victory School, an educational program located in six places throughout Albania. The staff teaches children English and other job skills. In addition, Albert is now the chairman of the board of Gospel Waves, TWR's Partner ministry in Albania.

You can read more about the current state of Christianity in Albania in a report filed by Barbara Shantz, TWR-Europe ministry development director. My estimation of Barb skyrocketed when she bought her husband a nice Specialized road bike for his birthday one year! What's that got to do with anything, not much, unless you are a bikie. Then it needs no explanation. :)

And here is an inspirational story about bringing Christmas back to the country of Albania.

Morao Hill in Washington Park

Here is a picture of Morao hill, in Washington Park, as seen from the top of Seri'Camina, the next hill over to the North-Northeast.

Morao is the hill that I took the panoramic photo of Brandaris from. In this picture, you can see Brandaris in the background to the right side of Morao.The view from the top of Morao is actually very very nice, and it is waaaaayyyy easier to climb than Brandaris.

In fact, there is a cement road part way up the hill. You can see it at the bottom middle of the picture. We went up the cement road, and continued up the dirt road to the top left corner of the picture, and then headed right along the top of the ridge to the top of the hill. When we came down, we cut across the slope and caught the dirt road part way back to the cement one.

A slightly larger version of this picture can be found on the panoramio site.

Brandaris Panormic Photo Posted

Back in the early days of my blog, I seemed to be posting shots of Brandaris, the highest hill on Bonaire, every couple weeks or so. I've taken lots more pictures, but I've restrained myself...

However, I just broke down and posted a panoramic image of Brandaris as seen from the top of a hill called Morao.

The image I posted is 2915x700 pixels and about 630k in size, so I didn't include it here in order to spare dial-up users from having to download it.

If you view the image full size ( don't let your browser re-size it) and you know what to look for, you can just see Curacao lurking right at the top edge of the middle of the right flank of Brandaris.

SeruLargu to Sabadeco Bike Ride

I did a cool bike ride after work today. It may not be doable for too much longer, because of housing development going on East of Sabadeco.

The ride starts at the WEB power plant in Hato and goes straight up the hill on the dirt road to the water tanks in Republic. But you hang a right turn only part way up the hill and traverse on soon-to-be-paved dirt roads over to the normal road to Republic.

You head downhill on the Republic road part of the way back to North Salina, and then hang a hard left turn onto the road that goes up Seru Largu. According to my GPS, it looks like the Seru Largu road climbs about 310 feet in about a half mile. It's a killer hill on a road bike, but not too bad on a mountain bike.

About 20 feet before the top of the Seru Largu paved road, you hang a left onto a dirt road that continues to climb all the way up to the new radar tower at the tippy top of the hill.

Then you take a linked series of dirt roads over the top of the hill and down the other side all the way to the new construction East of Sabadeco. The first half is fairly decent double track, but it deteriorates to barely ride-able rock strewn trails.

The trail ends right between lot 62 and lot 63 in the area that is being developed for housing. There are small connecting paths between some of the other Sabadeco communities, so maybe, just maybe, this trail head will still be accessible even after all the houses are built.

Then you finish the ride on the normal paved roads from Sabadeco back to the WEB plant in Hato. It's only around six miles, and could even be done as a hike, but it is an adventure none the less.

New Links to Pictures

I just edited the "Links" section on the right hand side of this blog page. Our "twrbonaire dot com" web site isn't working right now, so I removed that link.

I added a link to my new Panoramio web photo album. I'm putting Bonaire scenery pictures there that should eventually get linked to the Bonaire map on Google Earth. I've added a few more pictures since the last time I wrote about this. The above picture of the hill to the south of Dos Pos is the most recent addition. There is a very nice hiking trail, clearly marked with pink rocks, that climbs partway up this hill, traverses around it to the back side, and then climbs up to the top. You can see the terraced trail, partway up the hill, quite clearly in this picture, if you click on it to see the bigger version.

I also added a link to my new Picassa Web Album. Blogger is in the process of copying all the photos from this blog to that album. Only the last few months' photos are there so far, but that should change soon. So if you ever want to look for a photo that you remember seeing here, but can't remember what month or what year! you first saw it, the quick way to find it might be in this Picassa album.

More Windsurfing Photos

I put some more pictures from Sunday's windsurfing event at Lac-Cai on my Club Photo page.

There is also a brief report as well as link to some action photos and people photos on the Bonaireinsider site.

Windsurfers in the Waves

Today the 20th annual Bonaire Wave Challenge was held outside the reef at Lac - Cai. The conditions were great and the sailors threw moves that you would have to see to believe. They got my windsurfing juices flowing again, that's for sure.

Photos Linked to Google Earth Maps

I have most of my Bonaire photos at Club Photo, and some large scale ones at "xs.to hosting".

But I'm putting new photos on the "Panoramio" photo hosting site. The cool thing about this site is that if you include location information with your photo, it will eventually connected to a click-able link on the Google Earth maps. So if you haven't yet downloaded the free Google Earth software for your computer, here is another reason to do it.

There are a bunch of very nice photos of Bonaire already linked to the Google Earth map of Bonaire. For example, you can click on the little round thingie by the airport and see a close up picture of the airport.

I've uploaded some aerial photos of Bonaire locations, some of which I haven't posted online before. I think they can be viewed right now, by clicking the Panoramio link, and hopefully, withing a month or so, by clicking on the little dots on the Google Earth map of Bonaire. There can be a considerable lag between the time one posts a photo to Panoramio, and when a link to it appears on Google Earth, and they don't promise that all photos will be linked.

I'll be adding more photos on the Panoramio site, so you might want to check it out from time to time. You can click on a thumbnail to see the picture bigger. There is also a link to a full size version of the picture. It looks likek panoramio will support huge files.

Eclipse Report

The Bonaire trade winds were howling on Saturday, so hooded sweatshirts were a wise choice of attire for our intrepid eclipse observers. I think the star to the lower left of the moon is Chi Leonis and the one to the upper right is 59 Leonis. I think that the moon's position relative to those stars should be somewhat different at other observing locations around the world. For example, according to my planetarium software, the moon would have appeared to be almost on top of 59 Leonis as seen from Little Falls, NJ.

The sky was cloudy along the eastern horizon last night, but once the moon got up in the sky a bit, we had a great view. The eclipsed moon was surprisingly blah when viewed through binoculars or the telescope, but it looked great with the naked eye!

We were at a dark site a little bit Southwest of Sorobon and had a great view of the winter Milky Way while the moon was in the earth's shadow. As the moon reappeared, the myriads of stars disappeared until only the brightest ones could be seen.

From what I have heard today, it appears that quite a few people on Bonaire observed the eclipse last night. My friend, Bill Heatley, sent me this link to an animation of the path of the moon through the earth's shadow. A number of recent eclipses are still on the site as well. The animations really help one visualize what was going on, and why the moon looked like it did during the eclipse.

Saturday March 3 Lunar Eclipse

When the moon rises in the East this Saturday, here on Bonaire, it will be almost totally eclipsed. I hope it is clear that night because this could be interesting to see.

Here are the specifics about the eclipse for those on Bonaire. I got these localized predictions from calsky.com. You can go there and plug in your location and get and get all sorts of personalized information about the sun, moon, planets, satellites, meteors etc.

18h37m35s Partial Lunar Eclipse at moonrise
18h43m46s Totality begins
19h20m52s Greatest eclipse: Total Eclipse Duration total phase=74.2 minutes
19h57m58s Totality ends
21h11m42s Partial lunar eclipse ends
(18h is the same as 6pm, 19h is 7 pm and 21h is 9pm)

If you live to the East of Bonaire, you can see more of this eclipse than we can. If you live to our west, you'll probably only be able to see the second half of it.

Indoor Cycling Part 2

Oh yeah, the way these blogs work means that part 2 of this story appears before part 1. So you'll just have to scroll down to see part 1.

What do Sandra Swanson, Richard Simmonds, Mattel, and Fisher-Price have in common? They are into indoor cycling. Check out the happy tyke peddling away on the new "Smart Cycle". It hooks to a TV and allows the kiddies to play educational video games as long as they keep those pedals turning 'round.

The device has been receiving favorable media attention since it's big debut in New York a couple weeks ago, and bloggers have been having a field day with it and Richard Simmonds, as well. Fisher-Price hopes it will become a "must have" item this Christmas. Hey, kids like video games, and bikes, and parents will welcome something that helps them burn off all that kid energy.



Now if they can just hook it up with an Internet connection so that the US Cycling Federation can identify future Lance Armstrongs... anyone remember the movie "The Last Starfighter?"

Training Time

Sandra is recovering from a sprained ankle and isn't ready for riding the bumpy roads and trails of Bonaire. So she's been riding on an indoor trainer with some cool computer software that I picked up online a number of years ago.

The computer shows video footage of some classic bike races in Europe and some really scenic off road rides in Moab, Utah. The computer is connected to the bike so the rider on the screen pedals faster or slower depending on how fast you ride on the trainer. There is also an onscreen display of your performance statistics. The computer also accepts input from a wireless heart rate monitor, so at the end of the ride you can chart your speed, and distance, and heart rate.

The software makes indoor riding a lot more interesting, and it's safer than riding out in the wild world as well. Of course, nothing is foolproof. Here is an interesting story from this past week's edition of the roadbikerider review newsletter.

One of the few positive things about training indoors is that you don't have to worry about crashing. Well, tell that to Bradley Wiggins, known as the "golden boy" of British cycling. He was doing an indoor workout on rollers (like a treadmill for bikes) and wound up with eight stitches in his forehead. According to cyclingnews.com, Wiggins, the Olympic pursuit champion, was wiping sweat from his face when the end of his towel dropped into the front wheel, jamming it and throwing him over the handlebar.

Wonderful Washington Wildlife

Saturday was my maiden voyage with a new GPS receiver. We were able to get a Garmin Fortrex 101 on a good pre-Christmas sale, and it just arrived here on Bonaire about a week ago. This GPS is small enough to wear on one's wrist and has variable resolution settings. I set it to take readings as often as possible and ended up with a more detailed track record of my trip than I was getting with the other unit I've been using.

The graph shows elevation versus distance using feet for the elevation and miles for the distance. I rode from my house in Hato on mostly dirt roads to Washington Park, in and out of the park on the "long route" and then back to my house. The first 8 miles and the last 8 miles of the graph are mirror images of each other, because I took the exact same route between home and Rincon. It looks like the GPS has some elevation issues at the outset, but got itself figured out by the time I rode home.

Oh yeah, the wildlife... his week I saw way more goats in the park than usual, herds and herds of them actually. I also saw a family of baby piglets hanging out with their mom by the side of the road. They were really small.

Last week I saw a herd of cattle in the park. Well, a Bonaire sized herd. The was one really really REALLY huge bull and 5 or so other cattle of some sort. The bull might not have looked so intimidating if I had been cruising along in a SUV or something , but looking up at him as I rode by on my bike was a mooving experience. The bull was definitely giving me the evil eye as I rode by and I was glad that I wasn't wearing my bright red cycling jersey that day!

Carrot Fiber Bikes?

I think that Titanium is the best material for bike frames here in the harsh Bonaire environment, but most of the cool bikes are made out of carbon fiber these days. If I ever get one made from Carrot fiber, I'll have to keep it away from the dogs for sure! They love carrots and have already shown a propensity to chow down on the dune buggy, for example.

Here is a web story about a Scottish company that has developed composites materials made from carrots.

More Stars (wide view of Auriga)

Here is a wide angle look at the three star clusters in Auriga that I blogged about the other day. There is a fourth cluster towards the top left of the screen that is actually by the "feet" of one of the Gemini twins. You may need to click on the picture to be able to see the details.

I've drawn a light grey outline that shows the basic shape if the constellation Auriga. The light orange box indicates the part of this picture that is shown in detail on my previous posting.

The Milky Way goes through this part of the sky and you can see some evidence of it in the picture. The Milky Way is not as bright in this part of the sky as it is in the summer constellations, but it is still quite noticeable when one is at a dark site.

Nifty Nova

It was nice and clear this morning when I went out to look for the naked eye nova in the constellation Scorpius. Scorpius is nice and high in the sky down here in the Tropics. Up in the cold North, binoculars would help, once you figure out exactly where to look.

I saw the nova but it was dim (easy in the binocs) and snapped a picture too. I cropped the picture to show only the area to the right and to the left of Epsilon Scorpius. It is a six second exposure with the camera on a tripod. You may need to click on it to see it well.

The picture is oriented about the same as central portion of the drawing on skytonight dot com. The two stars to the right of Epsilon and the three stars to the left are pretty easy to spot in my picture. Just remember that the picture is zoomed way in compared to the drawing.

I also labeled some of the stars on the picture. They match up with stars that are labeled on a detailed finder chart published by the AAVSO. The nova is labeled V1280. Remember that the picture is only showing a teeny tiny part of the chart.

Star Stuff

Here is a photo of three Messier objects (star clusters in this case) on the constellation Auriga. I can just barely detect them with my naked eye when it is extra clear and dark here. They are fairly easy to see in binoculars if you know where to look.

The bright (large diameter) star in the lower left is named El Nath. The bright star at the upper right is Theta Auriga. I can see these stars in the thumbnail image above. To see the clusters, you might need to click on the image to see the full 1024x768 version.

About half way along a line connecting these two bright start is a perpendicular line of three clusters or clumps of stars. The line slants a little from left to right as seen from top to bottom. M37 is towards the top of the screen, a little left of center. M36 is near the middle of the frame but a little to the right and below center. And M38 is to the lower right of M37.

By the way there is a Nova (exploding star) in the constellation Scorpius. Here is a map showing where to look. Scorpius is really high in the sky here before dawn, but the sky was hazy today, grrr... I'll keep looking. The nova seems to have peaked and is dimming, so I hope I can spot it soon. Novas bright enough to be seen with the naked eye are pretty rare I think.

Speaking of dimming, the planet Mercury, which was easily visible a week ago, has dived back towards the western horizon. I failed to spot it the last two evenings. Mercury will go around the sun and turn up in the dawn sky next month.

Ship Shapes

There were two cruise ships in port recently. I was hoping to get some pictures of them, but one had sailed by the time I got out of work. So I did a quick bike ride and then headed to "donkey beach" (the one by the airport runway) for the sunset and a look across the bay towards town.

It was interesting to watch the lights on the ship become visible as the twilight darkened.
Even from our position across the bay, we couldn't help but notice the giant video screen on the top deck of the ship. If you enlarge the picture below, you might be able to pick out a couple people, which will provide a sense of scale to the screen and speaker systems. Sandra's reaction was, "I wonder if they showed the Super Bowl on that thing?" That would have been cool, cruising the Caribbean by day and the Super Bowl by night, ha-ha.
We've seen a really really huge cruise ship stop here a couple of times this year. I think it is the new one that we saw a program about on the Discovery Channel. Maybe I can get a picture of it sometime. It towers over downtown Kralendijk even more than the regular cruise liners.

Well, I'm going to post this and hope that the new improved blogger software doesn't wreak havoc with the page formatting. If it does, sorry... The new Microsoft Word 2007 lets 0ne create pages and then post to Blogger. That may be an eventual solution.

Construction Update

A new building is going up by the traffic circle and across the street from our TWR offices and studios.

I first mentioned it last August and noted that one rumor had a McDonald's slated to open there.

Well there is no further word on Micky D's, but last Friday evening, while we were having our kids club activities at the church next door,we noticed lots of people hanging out at the construction site celebrating the completion of the highest point of the building.

The Bonaire Insider had a reporter on the scene and you can read a report and see some pictures here.

Here is a link to the project's own website in case you are interested in opening a shop, heh-heh.

More "hot air" about Wind Power

I recently mentioned that the old wind turbine by Sorobon is scheduled to be replaced by a new one, and the future plans for a wind generator park in the Morotin area north of Rincon.

I just saw this story online about a study that suggests placing 160,000 wind turbines off the east coast of the USA, from Cape Cod to Cape Hatteras. There is also some information about wind turbines in general.

Here's an interesting article about world wide wind mapping research. This study estimates that about 2.5 million wind turbines, capturing about 20% of the available wind world wide, could supply all Earth's electricity needs.

You might want to consult this map when planning your next windsurfing vacation. It looks like Bonaire has class 4 winds, (class 3 is sufficient for wind turbines) but the map goes up to class 7! Whoo-whoo, better pack those small sails.

Bonaire Biking

There are lots of motorcycles on Bonaire these days, but I'm referring to bicycle bikers here.

Thanks to organizer Miguel Angel Brito, and the great February weather here on Bonaire, we had a great group ride on Saturday. Besides this group shot, Miguel also took lots of pictures of us forging bravely up the many hills along the route.

Miguel is also initiating a series of weekly training rides leaving from his Bonaire Wellness Connexiones headquarters at Eden Beach resort every Saturday at 4pm.

The next Bonaire Wellness Connexions group ride/tour is scheduled for April 7. There is a "fun" race in the works for the month of May and a bigger one in the fall. whoo-whoo!

Bob Lassiter (fourth from the right in the picture) and I are planning to do our annual springtime group ride in Washington Park on March 3. We'll meet at the park entrance right when it opens at 8am. and ride to Slagbaai. Some of us will continue to ride back out to the park entrance, while others will load their bikes onto Bob's pickup, "Big Red" and drive out. The ride into the park is "take it easy and enjoy the scenery" in nature, while the ride back out is somewhat more intense. Let us know if you are interested.

At least some of us will be stopping in Rincon on the way home to refuel with some of the great barbecue at the Rincon Saturday street Market. And then to top off a great day of outdoors excitement on Bonaire, a total eclipse of the moon is scheduled for that evening right after sunset.

Bike Tour on Google Earth

It looks like a nice day for the Bonaire Wellness Connexions' bicycle tour. Here is the GPS track of the route plotted on a Google Earth satellite image of Bonaire. Some of the route is on the high resolution image of Bonaire and some is on the older low resolution image.

I'm still hoping that some day, we'll have a hi-rez view of the whole island. You can't tell from this picture, but one can really zoom in on the hi-rez sections and see details as small as cars for example.

Cycling Expressions Defined

Some of you enjoyed the funny questions posed by visitors to Bonaire. In that vein, and in anticipation of a great group bike ride here on Bonaire this Saturday, here are a few phrases that you might hear cyclists use, and what they really mean. They come from Scott Martin on the RoadBikeRider web site and weekly newsletter.

"It's not that hilly" - Be careful on the steep sections or you'll fall over -- backward.

"This energy bar tastes like real food" - This energy bar tastes like real dog food.

"This is a no-drop ride" - I'll need an article of your clothing. It's for the search-and-rescue dogs.

"It's not that far" - Yes, it is.

Ratzlaff Roundup

Wayne and Bonnie Ratlaff are visiting Bonaire again and stopped by the TWR studios the other day. Wayne is a nephew of Betty Ratzlaff Henriquez, who spent 30 years on Aruba with The Evangelical Alliance Mission and then 15 years here on Bonaire with TWR.

Betty taught Papiamentu classes for the TWR staff and put together a Papiamentu-English, English-Papiamentu dictionary that is now out of print, but still in demand.

Here is a photo of Betty and Benito. Looks like they've exchanged the white sandy beaches of the Caribbean for the white snow drifts of Canada.

Benito and Betty have just started a blog of their own, in the Papiamentu language. So far, you can find contact info., some biographical information, some devotional thoughts, and some interesting observations on the different flavors of Papiamentu on the ABC islands.

Betty says that she'll be including pictures as soon as they figure out how to do that. I can relate to that problem. I'm still trying to come up with a good work flow for including pictures now that I'm using the new "improved" version of the blogger software.

Venus and Mercury

Did any of you get to see Venus and Mercury yet? The two planets are still quite visible in the west, shortly after sunset, here on Bonaire.

Sandra and I were talking to our son, Richard, last Friday night, when the moon was sitting right next to Saturn. I mentioned it to him on the phone and wondered he would be able to see it if he ran outside there in Bloomfield, NJ. He replied, "Dad, it's c o o o l d out there!"

Speaking of cold, the thermometer was all the way down to 75 F on Sat. and Sun. morning. It was cloudy and rainy those days too.

Here is another view of Venus and Mercury from our back yard on Monday evening. I took the photo from about the same spot that I took the rainbow picture that appeared here recently, but I had the lens zoomed in more for the planets. But you can still see some of the same trees in the foreground.

I'm using this planet shot as my desktop wallpaper these days. Mercury is way down by the bottom of the frame.

Windmills on the Way

If you've ever been to Bonaire, you've probably noticed the big wind generator near Sorobon. We used to look at it to get an idea of the exact wind direction back when my son and I were windsurfing a lot.

Well, according to a news release I recently received, this wind generator is shortly going to be replaced by a new one. After some testing, a bunch more of these wind turbines will be installed to the northeast of Rincon.

When I was riding my bike through the area known as Morotin on my way to Washington Park on Jan. 27, I noticed a brand new tower with a bunch of instrumentation on it, so I think I have a good idea where the new windmill park will be.

There are two wind farms on Curacao and my guess is that it is an idea and technology who's time has come for Bonaire.

Here is the original article, for those of you who'd like to know the gory details.

bron EconcernEcoPower Bonaire BV, a consortium of Econcern, Enercon and MAN, has signed a contract with the Water and Energy Company of Bonaire (WEB Bonaire NV) to build a new wind turbine. This is the first step in a wind/diesel project that will supply the South Caribbean Island with 10 MW from wind and 13 MW from diesel. Bonaire requires approximately 12 MW at peak moments. The system will be able to provide the whole island with electricity by the end of 2008. It will drive energy prices down while at the same time reducing ^Bonaire's dependence on the fluctuating oil prices.Dirk Berkhout, member of the board of Econcern: "The cost of the wind/diesel combination is approximately 35-40 million dollars. We expect that some of this can be recovered via CO2 credits. The main objective of the first phase of the project is to gain experience with wind energy on Bonaire and to reduce short-term electricity costs. The finalised system design will rely on 40% of the total power requirement coming from wind. The remainder will be supplied with fuel oil, preferably biofuel. By 2010 it is conceivable that Bonaire will get all of its electrical energy from natural, renewable sources." EcoPower intends to install a new Enercon E33 wind turbine at Sorobon on the Southeast coast of Bonaire. An obsolete Nedwind turbine will be removed. The turbine has not been operational for the last 10 years. The Sorbon site is the ideal location for the new wind turbine, with its favourable climate conditions and the existing grid connection for one medium-sized device. The first wind turbine will start supplying electricity in the second quarter of 2007.The next phase - to be completed in the 3rd quarter of 2008 – will involve the construction of a 10 MW wind farm and a 13 MW diesel power plant. The wind farm (11 or 12 turbines) will be built on the Northeast coast of Bonaire, the windward side of the island. Each turbine has the capacity to produce 0.8 - 0.9 MW of energy. Under ideal circumstances, this wind farm alone could meet Bonaire's current electrical needs. The wind farm will be designed based on measurements registered by a Met mast that was installed in January. A new 13-MW diesel power plant will be built by MAN at the BOPEC site. The plant will be equipped to burn both conventional and biofuels.Econcern is the holding company of Ecofys, Evelop, Ecostream and Ecoventures. The mission of these European companies is to ensure `a sustainable energy supply for everyone'. Econcern delivers unique projects and innovative products and services for a sustainable energy supply. The Econcern group employs about 550 professionals in 15 countries.The new company Ecopower Bonaire BV will build, own and operate the facilities. It is also responsible for technical management during the first phase. MAN, the largest diesel engine manufacturer in the world, will manage the technical aspects involved in building the new power plant near BOPEC in the north-west corner of Bonaire. Enercon, the world's fourth largest manufacturer of wind turbines, will deliver the turbines.

Piles of Puzzles

Yes, Tasmania is not in its rightful location. but it wouldn't fit in the picture otherwise.

Speaking of Tasmania, I just watched the movie "Young Einstein" last night, with the actor, Yahoo Serious, as young Tasmanian bushman who splits the beer atom, invents the electric guitar, saves the world etc. I wouldn't necessarily recommend spending your hard earned money on this DVD, unless you have a really weird sense of humor, but if you subscribe to Netflix, you could give it a try.

Sandra usually gets into puzzle making mood around Christmas time, although the affliction has been known to strike at any time. She even has our one "dog with tail" trained to keep her tail low around the puzzle tables, so as not to sweep pieces onto the floor!

My parents have recently given Sandra some special shaped puzzles by SunsOut. The entire puzzle is cut out in a special shape and many of the pieces have unusual shapes as well. I'm not too much of a puzzle-aholic, but I do have to admit that these puzzles are fun.

Sandra is sharing her SunsOut puzzles with our friend, Donna, who puzzles about as much as I cycle, and Donna loves them too. She's already scheming as to how she can buy some online and have visiting friends bring them to Bonaire.

SunsOut shows 42 shaped puzzles on their web site in the special shapes section. But if you browse through some of the other categories of puzzles on the site, you'll find more. For example, the Australia puzzle pictured here is not in the special shapes section, but can be found, together with "O Canada," in the Countries category. There is a cool lighthouse shaped puzzle listed under "lighthouses."

Besides the "Down Under" puzzle pictured here, Sandra has "Wake Up Call" and "Spanish Dancers."

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.