Sunset from Kralendijk
View from the roof
Front of the house
Common area
My bedroom
Thursday, January 26, 2012
So it's day 4 in Bonaire and I already never want to leave. This week has been jammed full of orientations to the facilities, the classes, the dive shop, and the island. So far we've done 5 dives for refreshing skills and working on underwater navigation and buoyancy. We are diving with Yellow Sub, the Kralendijk branch of "Dive Friends," which is right around the corner from our house on the waterfront downtown. We did three dives yesterday, one today and will do one tomorrow. On saturday we're going on a boat dive to Klein Bonaire. Each dive for the next few weeks are geared toward a specific goal: mapping out a site, identifying corals, working on rescue skills, etc.
Today was the first day it hasn't rained since I got here. Apparently the rainy season is just ending, so it's been very humid and the visibility has not been that great (for Bonaire). We spend a lot of time with the interns (who live on the second floor of the house and help out with classes) and also with our professors. It's a very diverse group of people from all over the world and everyone is extremely nice and insightful. Oh, and the director of the program is from Huntington, PA... weird. Last night we attended a lecture by Ramon de Leon, manager of the Bonaire National Marine Park, on the health and status of coral reefs in Bonaire. Although Bonaire is consistently rated as the most pristine reef in the Caribbean, there was a drastic decline in health and abundance of the reef in 2011. He projected that if things go on as they have been, only 5% of the reef in Bonaire will be around by 2053 :(. The speech was very informative, depressing, and a little bit hopeful, because there are new management plans in the works. I will get to learn about this a lot more through all of my classes.
Other than that, our days are really busy and I've been exhausted at night. A local man named Gibi cooks us lunch and dinner and brings it to our house. The food is great, but due to the limited resources on the island there seems to be a lot of chicken and rice. Nothing to complain about though!
Today was the first day it hasn't rained since I got here. Apparently the rainy season is just ending, so it's been very humid and the visibility has not been that great (for Bonaire). We spend a lot of time with the interns (who live on the second floor of the house and help out with classes) and also with our professors. It's a very diverse group of people from all over the world and everyone is extremely nice and insightful. Oh, and the director of the program is from Huntington, PA... weird. Last night we attended a lecture by Ramon de Leon, manager of the Bonaire National Marine Park, on the health and status of coral reefs in Bonaire. Although Bonaire is consistently rated as the most pristine reef in the Caribbean, there was a drastic decline in health and abundance of the reef in 2011. He projected that if things go on as they have been, only 5% of the reef in Bonaire will be around by 2053 :(. The speech was very informative, depressing, and a little bit hopeful, because there are new management plans in the works. I will get to learn about this a lot more through all of my classes.
Other than that, our days are really busy and I've been exhausted at night. A local man named Gibi cooks us lunch and dinner and brings it to our house. The food is great, but due to the limited resources on the island there seems to be a lot of chicken and rice. Nothing to complain about though!
Sunday, January 22, 2012
So day 1 of my adventure was a rough start, but hopefully
the worst has passed. After driving, or rather sliding, to the Pittsburgh
airport down 376 at a maximum speed of 30 mph at 4:00 am I thought the rest of
my journey would be smooth sailing…. But that was just the start. My flight in
Pittsburgh boarded on time, however de-icing the plane proved to be the first
of many obstacles standing between Bonaire and me. After spending half an hour
at one de-icing station, we were informed that the machine was broken and the
plane had to move to a different station, which also took half an hour. Almost
to Atlanta, we were informed that the Hartsfield-Jackson Airport had closed
down due to Tornado warnings in the area. Not to worry, we were told; it should
only be a 15-minute wait. After circling the area over and over again, the
plane finally landed…in Knoxville. Once re-fueled we were again en-route to
Atlanta—a 35-minute flight turned into an hour and a half of turbulence.
Because of the closings, the airport was bombarded with incoming flights,
meaning my plane, along with many others, was stuck in the air, aimlessly
drawing circles in the sky. At this point, the “fifteen-minute” notices the
pilot kept promising over the intercom gave us at least one thing to laugh
about in the cabin. I had a window seat and, when we weren’t in the middle of
lightening and thunderstorms, the view was incredible. The cumulus clouds
looked like a range of snowy mountains, and other delayed planes drifted along
side us, waiting to finally touch ground. In Atlanta I was re-routed on a flight to Aruba Sunday morning, and thanks to mom and dad, I got on a flight from Aruba to Bonaire that night (tonight).
As soon as we landed in Bonaire (me, another girl from my trip also named Juli, and Devon from WT) we went straight to the director's waterfront house for a bbq and beer. I have three roommates and I am in a top bunk.
I packed way too much.
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