Bonaire Windsurf Movie Update

Back in Feb. I mentioned a new documentary in the works that will tell the story of the rise of the Bonaire windsurfing kids to international fame.

A film crew was here on the island back in May and now a new trailer about this great story has been released. I'm going to try to imbed it here.

Children of the Wind - New Trailer from Seek Films on Vimeo.

Ivan Statia Anniversary

Ivan Statia recently completed his 35th year with Trans World Radio on Bonaire. Here is what director Joe Barker wrote at the time. I echo his sentiments completely.

Recently, TWR long time employee Ivan Statia recently celebrated 35 years of service to God through TWR. On the occasion of Ivan’s 35th year, the staff hosted a reception complete with pastechis and cake. Ivan is a great worker who is faithful to his commitment to God and excellent work ethic. It is an honor to serve alongside my friend and brother in Christ.

In the picture, from left to right, you can see Juni, Joe Barker, Ivan, Lionell, and Benny.

New Jersey Nature Scenes

We are spending a few weeks in the States, staying with our son and daughter in law, and getting some medical work done. Our son, Richard, has recently begun fishing in some of the many lakes here in northern New Jersey. He caught the 21" long one, pictured below, after work today. His new fish scale was sitting at the house, having arrived in the mail today. So we'll never know how much this big boy weighed, since Richard returned it to its watery home after snapping this photo with his phone.

Below is a tranquil lake scene in Pompton Plains, where Richard and Nancy have been living since last fall.

Richard grew up fishing on Bonaire, and is really enjoying fishing again, after about a 10 year gap for schooling, marriage, buying a house, and getting established in a somewhat sane day to day routine.

Marj and Duff Brown

Longtime friends of Trans World Radio, Duff and Marj Brown are moving from New Jersey to live with son, Scott, in Nashville. On June 20, their home church for more than 5o years, the 1st Reformed Church of Pompton Plains, had a reception for Marj and Duff, as well as a commissioning as they enter the next phase of their lives. Below we see Dr. Duff, Marj, and Sandra at the reception. The Browns were regular visitors to Bonaire, beginning in the middle 1960's. In addition to enjoying the unspoiled beauty of the island, they volunteered both their medical and handyman skills in many different ways over the years.

Landis Valley Museum

Sandra and I are in the States getting some medical checkups. We visited my parents last week, and took side outings to Landis Valley Farms, and Wilbur Chocolate. Wilbur has been doing chocolate for more than 125 years and is a fun visit. Interestingly enough, Wilbur Chocolate was purchased in 1992 by Cargill, who also operate the salt production facilities on Bonaire.

Landis Valley Farms was running instructional workshops last week. Lessons were being given in open hearth cooking, blacksmithing, Amish wedding box construction, tinsmithing, woven rope rug making, and antique hit and miss engine repair.

The tin shop crew was making lanterns like the one in the middle of this picture.

Bicycle Heaven

No, it is not Bonaire, or Moab Utah, or the Pacific Northwest.

Check out this video clip of typical morning rush hour traffic in Utrecht. a Dutch city of about 300,000 people.


Rush Hour in the Netherlands

New Improved Race Loop

Bonaire Wellness Connexions is hosting mountain bike races here on Bonaire, on May 29 (for kids) and May 30 (f0r adults.) The race course is on the east side of Bonaire between Amboina and Punto Blanku. It is pretty much the same one that was used about a year ago.Most of the riding is on pretty smooth dirt roads, but there are a couple sections of challenging single track terrain.

The pictures here are of the new parts of the course. You can't stray from the path at all or you'll roll over nasty thorn branches, or worse, brush against a nasty cactus.

This part of the course has sandstone like rocky ledges interspersed with deep loose sections of goat droppings.

Andrea powers up a climb. It is medium steep but the surface is pretty loose, so you have to pay attention.

Moon and Venus

The Moon and Venus were shining brightly in the West shortly after sunset Sunday night.

Just Plain Fun

One of the things that is still fun to do on Bonaire is to hang out on the beach at the end of the airport runway and watch planes come zooming in over your head. When you do it at night, it is just like that scene from Wayne's World. I was on my way to the TWR transmitter site today and saw a MD11 on its final approach, so I pulled off the road and fired off some shots using my trusty 24mm, wide angle lens. Guess I need a wider lens, ha-ha.

Here is the same plane a second or two later as it crossed the threshold of the runway.

Activity Building to Become a School

TWR recently sold the Activity Building to a foundation that is renovating it and managing it for the Pelican School grammar school that has been meeting in the TWR Offices and Studios for a number of years. This will be a huge improvement for the school.Although we have loads of fond memories of lots of fun times at the Act. Bldg. the facility became overkill for our current staff of two families and three local workers. We're glad it will continue to be used for something that will be of great benefit to the Bonaire community.
As you can see below if you click on the picture, they've improved the flow through ventilation of the building, ha-ha.

All the little Sunday school rooms on both sides of the building are being expanded into full size classrooms. There is a new septic system, and loads of other modifications and renovations on the way. They are working like crazy with the goal of having at least some classes in the building this August when the new school year begins.

The former workshop area at the back of the outdoor sports courts has also been converted into school rooms.

Southern Cross

The Southern Cross is perfectly placed in the South during the early evening hours. We usually can't see it because of the haze and clouds we are having this year, but last night was pretty clear.

We went out to Red Slave to see what we could see and it was pretty nice for an hour or so. Sandra did some observing with 10x50 binoculars and I took a bunch of 10 second exposures with the camera on a stationary tripod.

I later combined the the best 36 images on the computer and tweaked the result in Photoshop. The software did a pretty good job at ignoring the clouds that passed by, but the bank of haze along the horizon is pretty plain to see in the photo. Really REALLY clear nights, right down to the horizon are rare here, but treasured when they do occur.

The Southern Cross looks like a kite or diamond shape and is located towards the top of the picture and centered from left to right. Alpha and Beta Centarus are at the left side of the picture and are more or less pointing at the Southern Cross. The Eta Carina nebula and some nice star clusters are towards the right side of the picture.

Bonaire Sunset Scene with Venus

A bunch of us were clearing a mountain biking trail halfway between Kralendijk and Rincon as evening fell. The skies were pretty clear and Venus was shining like a beacon. I steadied the camera on the roof of the car and shot a few pictures. This is my favorite.

Rincon Bicycle Parade

April 30 is Rincon Day, here on Bonaire. For the last seven years, the following day, May 1, is the "Parada di Baiskel di Antaño." Each year the organizers honor one of the senior citizens of Rincon who still rides their bicycle on a regular basis. This year's event honored Mr. Benedicto Benito Bernabela, who is 79 years old. And yes, he did ride with us. There were over 150 riders and hundreds more spectators along the winding route, and at the closing ceremonies. There were prizes for kids and for adults in various categories, such as folkloric dress and bicycle decorations.

There were also categories for unusual and creative bikes, like this one.

Check out the size of that speaker stack. My trusty Suzuki Samurai purred like a Lexus as I drove back to Hato, but it was actually temporary hearing loss. :)

Here is a wide angle shot of the start/finish area at the Sentro de Bario as people started to assemble for the ride.

I have also posted a short video from the event on YouTube. Check out the brief glimpse of an amazing moving bicycle sculpture about 16 seconds into the video clip.

Baby Buriku

There is a donkey family that spends its days (and nights) wandering along our street and chowing down on the weeds growing there. The baby donkey is cute, but all the neighborhood dogs bark like crazy when the donkeys are around, so hopefully they will soon decide that "the grass is greener" somewhere else, preferably far from barking dogs and speeding cars.

New Project Hannah Web Site

Project Hannah is a ministry of TWR, offering compassion, encouragement and hope to suffering women worldwide through prayer, awareness, and radio programming.

They have just totally overhauled their Web site. It is quite attractive, as well as being an eye opener to the desperate plight of women around the world.

The three pillars that support Project Hannah’s ministry of compassion, encouragement and hope to suffering women worldwide are prayer, awareness and radio programming.

Storage Shed Fire

As we drove from Hato to the TWR offices on Tuesday afternoon, we saw lots of black smoke on the horizon. It was coming from the workshops / storage sheds just south of the TWR offices. Had us worried for a few minutes. The fire brigade got it under control pretty quickly, but there was residual smoke and steam the rest of the afternoon.

This is an approx. 3000 by 700 pixel image, so depending on what blogger does to it when I upload it, and on whether or not your browser automatically re-sizes images, you might be able to see it full screen and scroll back and forth to get the full panoramic view.

Eventful Bike Ride

We had a great mtn. bike ride Saturday and I shot some new video clips that I've posted to YouTube. Bonaire is really lush and green looking after a week of rainy weather.

Besides all the scenic beauty, Saturday's ride featured a broken rear spoke, a crash when my front tire got stuck in a rut, and a back tire that was going flat, but hung in there just long enough for me to get home.

We're all bummed out that I didn't have my helmet cam running when I crashed. It would have been dramatic for sure. The road rash is healing nicely, for which I'm thankful.

A bunch of guys are working at clearing a trail that goes up over the ridge in the middle of the island. Back in the 60's one could drive a car on this road. In the late 70's, I did it in my dune buggy. Now you can barely get through on a bike, but it is a lot of fun. I've cleared this trail a couple times over the years, so it is really encouraging to see a number of other people getting into the trail maintenance mode. Yippie, the more the merrier.

TWR on Facebook

At last count there are 13 TWR related Facebook pages. The main TWR page is closing in on 2000 fans.
The top city in the world with TWR Facebook fans is Raleigh, NC; followed by Pretoria, Johannesburg, and Fayetteville.
In March a fan wrote, "I was an MK (missionary kid) on the Amazon, Brasil in the 70's and 80's. TWR was our "staple" on our wee radio in the jungle!! Praise the Lord for the work you do!!" That makes me feel good, since I was surely in the studios or out at the transmitter site when she and her family were listening.

Kibrahacha Tree Bike Ride

The "men in black" showed up for the Tuesday afternoon Bonaire Wellness Conexxions group ride. We rode through some of the Kibrahacha rich regions of Bonaire.

Some people were having trouble with the embedded YouTube video clip, so I've uploaded the video directly to blogger. But I think it looks better on YouTube, so you can follow this link to YouTube or watch the blogger version below.

Kibrahacha Update

On Sunday I was wondering why so few Kibrahacha trees were blooming. By Monday afternoon, there were load and loads of trees in bloom. They can go from nothing to full blast in one day. The picture above seems to me to capture the contrast between the bright yellow flowers and the normal olive green Bonaire hues.

If you look at my blog archives around this time every year, you'll see Kibrahacha pictures. The challenge each year is to come up with something different. I have the same problem with October sailing regatta pictures. Here's one result of this year's efforts.