A Week in Bonaire, or, How Charles Survived.

I am notorious for taking random trips to places like San Carlos, Mexico, Grand Cayman and Bonaire. These are the benefits of making good money and having absolutely no responsibilities. What can I say. It's all fun and games till the money runs out, believe me. I manage to pay for these trips with extra earned money from contract work or what are called "Adventure Bucks" earned from hosting events with my former singles club in Phoenix, a club that boasts of adventure and was founded in the year 2000. Recent changes have occurred within the club and yours truly, The ScubaJedi, was unceremoniously voted off the island by the current manager, who is a complete tool. Hereinafter referred to as The Tool. The Tool told me that he wanted longer term members out of the club, so he was terminating memberships of those long term loyal members as they were dragging the club down with their negativity regarding the club. Makes sense, huh? People rejoining the club and paying the high membership fees because they're not having any fun and they hate it. Turned out it was me and one other woman singled out and booted out compliments of The Tool. He's basically a liar and a bad person. Those are outstanding traits for the head of a social club, right? Oh well, maybe he'll come down with amoebic dysentery or something really appropriate like that . Moving right along....

Anyway we had a trip to Bonaire for, as you may have guessed, SCUBA. We were going in conjunction with a sister singles group, Tucson Fun and Adventures. There were 8 of us from the Phoenix going and several (lost count) from Tucson. Three of us from Phoenix were fairly experienced divers and three were beginners. Two of them were first time divers save their certification trips. One guy, Charles, who will be mentioned many times in this blog entry, got his scuba certification just for this trip. He signed up for it not knowing it was a scuba trip. When he found out it was primarily for divers, he said, "Well, I guess I'll go get some scuba lessons." I thought he was an exceptional sport about it, and he turned out to be a very good sport about a lot of things.

The plane arrived at 5am on Sunday morning. Too early to do anything except sit and whine about how muggy it was and slap various insects away from our bodies. I think most people lost about a quart of blood on this trip, and Charles even more than that. Eventually we checked in and anxiously awaited the breakfast cafe to open for some much anticipated coffee. The cafe at Buddy Dive is like everything else in Bonaire pretty much, open air with a nice view of the Leeward side of the island and Klein Bonaire. Betty, Sally, Lori and I decided to have some food and wait until we could get our keys to the room (apartment) we were to share with the two guys from our group, Charles and Kirk. It was a three bedroom condo, one small dungeon-like bedroom downstairs and two palatial grand en suite bedrooms upstairs. I foolishly envisioned the boys taking the downstairs room leaving us princesses to our girls privacy upstairs, ah, but that was not to be. Curse my metal body, I just wasn't fast enough. I left the cafe to go see if the room was ready and get a key. Just as I was making my way back to the office, Kirk and Charles were headed to the condo, keys in hand. They rushed in and claimed the master suite with the private bathroom and balcony for themselves. I was pissed. In retrospect, I should have camped at the desk, snagged the key first and bolted like Flash Gordon to the condo and laid claim to one of the good rooms. So I, being shy and conservative as many will tell you, did not want to be with the boys upstairs so I threw myself on the sword and took the dungeon. Whomever wanted to share with me could, and as fate would have it, it was Lori, who considered herself screwed (and not in that fun spanky way) to be stuck downstairs as well.

I tried not to let it damage my calm, but I was already fit to be tied in having to share with strange (and I mean strange) men in the first place. The Tucson organizer of the trip was fairly presumptuous in thinking we'd be cool about sharing co-ed, I thought. I can't speak for the others but I was not happy about it at all. But, I tried my hardest not to let it harsh my mellow. After all, I was in a world class diving destination. But, it did spoil my mood. I wanted it to be perfect with all the trouble I've been going through with work lately. But that's another blog.
We got settled in and then went to get signed in at the dive shop and obtain our diving permits. The entire island of Bonaire is a marine park and they require diving permits. It costs $25 and they give you a little plastic disc to attach to your diving gear so they know they got your $25. There really aren't any scuba police down there in the depths watching and writing tickets.
We had to attend an orientation regarding the care and awareness of the marine park, then we got a tour of the facilities and were sent on our way to do whatever we wanted, which in our case, was diving.

We checked our weights and went for a dive, and I ended up going to 114 feet to the bottom of the trench off the reef. It's easy enough to do as wall type diving lends itself to just going deeper and deeper. I gaged 114ft and decided that was deep enough for the moment and headed back up. It's pretty easy diving in Bonaire, the entire island is a protected reef and there is a lot of shore diving. When you come up the wall and get to the top of the reef you're pretty much at your safety stop and can linger there for 3 minutes and look at the octopus. We found an octo living in a little bit of coral near the Buddy pier. When I first saw it it was surrounded by all these divers and I thought for sure they were going to get inked. At least I was hoping tosee a bunch of curious divers in a lively moment of confusion in a cloud of octopus ink. That would have been picture worthy.

And so the trip went. We dove, drank, ate, bitched, laughed, slept a little. Charles, was itching to go somewhere else besides Bonaire. He wanted to go to Venezuela really bad. He wanted to charter an airplane to take him and anyone else who wanted to to South America. Fortunately, he spoke to the dive shop manager, Augusto, who was from Venezuela and wouldn't even go back there himself. He told Charles that he would most probably be dead before he left the airport. That changed his mind and so he began concentrating on Curacao or Aruba. He wanted to hit all the ABC islands.

Charles was the one who had to get the diving certificate before he came on the trip. He turned out to be a really good diver, and I hope he continues to dive.

On the first boat dive, I lost my tank. I am a slow motion diver and my dive buddy, along with everyone else, flew down the reef at a pretty good clip. I was pacing the dive master, Lala. Lala was from Brazil and was a tech diving instructor. I looked over at him and he was motioning for me to come to him. I though, crap, what's the matter? I felt around behind me and my tank was gone. I was breathing just fine but the tank was floating up somewhere above my head. Lala corrected it for me and I told him I was half way down on air and would head back, but did not know where my dive buddy was. All of this was communicated in DiverSignSpeak. Don't ask. I wanted to tell him not to touch the tank,as that is how I roll, but found the topic too complex for dive hand signs.

I got back on deck, Kirk and Charles were already there, and then the others were making it back. Lala came back on deck and gave everyone a lecture about the virtues of looking at your gauges once in a while when diving, it helps. I look at my gauges constantly. Or rather, my diving computer, as it tells me everything. Such a gossip.

We had two days of two tank boat dives and two days of one tank boat dives. The shore diving was spectacular and one day Lori, Betty, Sally and I decided to hop in the van and take a ride down the coast and do some shore diving. We decided on a site, The Hilma Hooker, which is a 300' vessel scuttled in 1984. We dove and swam to the reef which dropped off to a sandy area and another reef across a deep channel of sand. I didn't see any ship anywhere. But I did get to see a nice eagle ray glide past in the channel. So we paddled around for a while till the air ran out and came back to shore. Coming out of the surf, Lori remarked, "Wow, that was a great wreck". When I went back to the shop and told Lala we couldn't find the Hilma Hooker he thought I was retarded.
We went back another day and snorkeled out to the buoys and descended the lines to the wreck, so we ended up finding it after all.
The last day we went shore diving, Charles had rented a motorcycle and was tooling about the island. He came upon us at a dive site to stop and say hi and that he was having a great time. Later that day, he was in the hospital getting his face stitched up. Wrecked the motorcycle, cut himself up pretty bad and broke his foot. Only the day before he had a close call with a scorpion fish in a mangrove that took a shine to him. He had gone on a kayak snorkel outing and met with some mischief that day as well. Scorpion fish, in case you're wondering, are poisonous.
Earlier in the week, Betty and Lori declared that they saw a shark. No one believed them as seeing a shark in Bonaire is about as likely as seeing a polar bear wandering the Superstition Mountains east of Phoenix. but they stuck to their story. Everyone else was pretty convinced that they say a tarpon, which is a large fish.
On our last dive together, Lori and I were cruising down the reef at Buddy Dive and there was a huge tarpon just hanging there. I looked at Lori and made the shark gesture, she looked at me and made the f*** you gesture. I laughed so hard I flooded my mask.

Later on we took a sunset sailboat cruise, which was really nice.

We took a day long surface interval before flying out and did some touring of the island. We pretty much stuck to the South Farthing as we were lost in the area the first day we tried to find the Hilma Hooker. There is a lot of garbage washed up on the beach around there and it's kind of a shame that no one picks it up. There was an amazing amount of flip flops.


So that was Bonaire.

The ScubaJedi

Whale Riding in Rocky Point

So I had never been to rocky Point, Mexico. For someone living in Arizona, it's almost a required duty to "go to the beach", and that is the closest beach. Coming from Florida I had never really been that tempted to go to the beach again until I fell in love with SCUBA/Snorkeling. So a friend of mine and I decided we would go to Rocky Point as neither of us had ever been there. We gathered up two other women friends and made reservations at a swanky hotel on the beach and went.

I drove the Altima, my status symbol, and not only is it a comfy, attractive car, it also gets great gas mileage. Heidi, who I concocted the trip with, parked at my place and we went and picked up Amy and Betty, who live in the lower east portion of the Valley of the Sun and we headed out on a sunny, warm Friday evening.

We were busy yukking it up and generally being silly en route and right after we turned off of I-10 to start the southward journey to the border, Amy piped up and declared that she forgot her passport! In order for Americans to get back into their own country from Mexico these days, you need to show a passport. I think we would have been able to pull it off on the return trip as Amy is a tall, willowy blonde and could in no way be really mistaken for being Mexican, at least not in the stereotypical sense. But you never know if you get Lieutenant Neidermeier at the border who would detain us indefinitely until proof of Amy's citizenship came forth. So we decided to err on the safe side and went back for the passport. After all, we were only 1 hour into the journey and that meant an hour dive back and another hour to get back to this point. 3 hours down the toilet, but hey, we were on vacation. The only real concern was getting to the border before midnight because after that, Mexico is closed for the evening.

But we made it and without incident.

I had made the hotel reservation and after taking the underside of my car out on a vicious speed bump in the hotel's drive through guest offloading area, I went inside to check in. I had neglected to call my bank and inform them of my travel plans and I had just gotten back from a Caribbean vacation on Grand Cayman, now I'm trying to use the card in Mexico. To the bank, it looked shady and the card was declined. In a way I was happy that my bank was looking after me as well as covering their ass in avoiding refunding my money if some low life slime ticket had appropriated my debit card, but then I had, like, no money. So I went back out to the car and told the girls that we couldn't check in with my card and so Heidi stepped up and put the room charges on her card and we would reimburse her. I would call my bank in the morning and straighten it out.

We went to our room which was really very nice. they are beginning to realize that the gringo money can be very handy and so luxury resorts are popping up all alone the coastline in Baja. There were two queen beds and a safe to lock up our passports. I brought a box 'o Sangria and we partied for a couple of hours before hitting the hay.

The next morning was perfect. I was looking out at the quiet beach and all of a sudden a motor boat towing some sort of inflatable water sled came rushing up to the beach from the open ocean. I was perplexed as to what manner of watercraft that was and was later informed that it was a "banana boat". They are towed behind motor boats as a thrill ride for tourists, or anyone with $5. This particular "banana boat" was shaped like a killer whale. It did not take long for vendors with tents, tables and various and sundry crap to sell turned up on the beach. Our own pool deck was off limits, thankfully, and it was nicely appointed with cabanas, lounge chairs, a swim up bar in one of the pools, everything a gringo could want.

We dressed and went down to breakfast at the hotel dining room buffet. Heidi and Betty took the first round and were gone for the better part of an hour fetching food. After a while Amy and I began to wonder what happened to them. Did they get caught in an unusually long line, or captured somehow by local white slave traders and are now somewhere in Morocco addicted to drugs? I got up and went to see. Waking up in Morocco addicted to drugs would be a welcome relief for me considering the stress I've been under from work lately, so I decided no matter what it was, it was all good. It turned out that the self-serve buffet offerings were strange Mexican items that were not a usual breakfast for Americans, and Heidi and Betty were not interested. There was an omelet line and that's where they were. They were pretty much up next for their order so it wasn't much longer. Amy and I opted for the weird food as we could eat it right then. I cannot tell you what I ate, but it wasn't too bad.

After that we staked out a cabana and parked there for the day. Betty and I had the lofty adventurous idea of snorkeling off the beach and so we had our SCUBA fins, boots, masks and snorkels with us. We decided not to enter off the beach where it had become very crowded with vendors, suckers for the vendors, food wagons, Mangoes on a stick, people renting jet skis and of course, the banana boat operators. We walked down the side of the hotel for a while along a wall that provided a barrier to the pool deck and the ocean. We scrambled down the rocks, suited up and splashed.

Absolutely nothing to see.

I don't know what I was thinking, there is no reef there. It's just sandy bottom all the way out to Baja California. I mean, this was the Sea of Cortez. I have scuba dived it many times, there is cool stuff down there. I've not seen but heard stories of whale sharks, and hammerheads, giant Humboldt squid that will kill and eat anything, including fishermen and scuba divers. I have a friend who caught one once and said it was like reeling in a parachute. But I wasn't really expecting the Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau, just maybe a couple of colorful fish, maybe a little ray. But not only could I not see anything, but I could not see anything! I saw Betty. She saw me. I was taking a new mask out for its maiden swim and thought it was completely fogged, but it wasn't. There was just so much silt kicked up from the goings-on from the beach, that there was total absence of anything to look at save sandy water and my snorkel buddy.

We paddled around out there for a while as it was relaxing to get away from the riff-raff nearer the shore, then we went to shore, carrying our fins with our masks around our necks and me in a shorty wet suit. We looked like weird diver people emerging from the deep. Creatures from the Sandy Lagoon. We went back to the cabana and enjoyed the scenery for a while. Amy, in a moment of giddiness, thought she was going to be able to take a nap in the cabana. Almost as soon as we got to the cabana, the music started. I'm not talking about soothing poolside cool jazz with a humming light saxophone and relaxing xylophone melodies, but loud, and I mean really loud, Mexican music. That coupled with the hoards of screaming kids in the pool made for not the most restful environment.

Heidi and I decided we would take a banana boat ride. Betty had done this before and her advice was "To just hang on". I thought, how hard could that be? So we each took $5 with us and went to the beach. By now there were two banana boat operators (hereinafter to be referred to as whale boat drivers as the sleds were colored and shaped like killer whales). We waited by the spot where one of the operator docked and there seemed to be a lot of kids awaiting a ride. We looked around and saw the other one coming to shore and rather than wait, we went over to that one. The guy who was taking the money looked a few pence short of a quid, missing many teeth and completely devoid of an understanding of English other than to say "Five" and "Want to ride Shamu?" Pronounced "Chamu". Of course we want to ride Shamu, who wouldn't?

I found out I wouldn't after the ride, but I am getting ahead of my story.

We hopped on the whale boat and waited for about 10 minutes for them to find more passengers. They managed to get a young couple and they sat in front of us on the sled. Then before you knew it we were off. I began screaming my lungs out right away. For some reason I was petrified. He went so fast and I felt so helpless and it frightened me beyond words. I don't really know why. I have dived to 120' in barracuda infested waters, been hopelessly lost in the wilderness and had to drink untreated creek water, been to Peru. You would think this would be nothing. But I was in absolute sheer terror. The ride went on for what seemed like hours. He flung us around a point and down by the area where we would be dining that night, then circled around to come back. Hanging on wasn't as easy as it sounded. At one point the girl in front of me fell into the middle and he stopped to let her get situated again. I was hyperventilating and shaking uncontrollably. Heidi then realized my screams were in sheer terror and not in fun. We got back to the shore and I couldn't get off that thing fast enough.

I walked back to the cabana and announced to the others that I just crapped my pants. For some reason they all thought this was funny. I guess the idea of being unceremoniously flung out into the open ocean is appealing to them. Whatever, I was never going to do that again. Fuck.

Betty and I decided it was toddy time and we went to the swim up bar for some libation. As fate would have it there was a drunk American there, surprise surprise, and his level of inebriation was off the charts. He offered to buy our drinks, we refused. Then Amy came by and he fell in love with her. He then produced a wad of folding money from his pocket and flung it into the pool. I grabbed one of the 5's and handed it to the bartender , motioned to the drunk guy and said, "Que pendejo". The bartender got a kick out of that. This gringa can swear in Spanish.

After a while, drunk man was escorted out of there after refusing to pay his bar tab. He tried to charge it to his room, but I don't think he actually had a room at that hotel. Some others joined us in the swim up bar and they found a $10 floating around. Drunk man could have paid his tab if he hadn't tossed all his money into the pool.

We asked the barman where a good place to go have dinner was and he told us about a restaurant in the seafood district or somewhere "downtown" called La Palapa. I think that mean umbrella. He told us to look for a huge palapa atop the building. So we took a cab and told him we wanted to go to La Palapa.

When we got out of the cab at La Palapa, there was what we thought was the Maitre 'D waiting outside with a menu. He was dressed nicely in a clean Aloha shirt and he asked if we were dining with them this evening. We said yes and he escorted us to a table. Then he sat down with us. We still thought he was a host of some sort so we yukked it up and made jokes up until he asked us to buy him a drink. We all sort of looked at each other with a "What the F***" expression and it occurred to us them that he was a local scamster looking for freebies. So we caved and bought him a drink. He originally asked for a beer and when it came to him ordering he took a rum and coke. Then he sat there for the longest time trying to talk Betty into going to the disco with him that night, I'm sure all on her dime. After a while everyone was looking down at the table and I was giving Taco Head my best "Get lost, Friendo" look. Finally he got it and left. He later ordered a meal and asked the waiter to ask us if he could put it on our tab. I think all at once we said "No!".

We looked around in the shops after that at all the vulgar t-shirts, cheap jewelry, and general crap you would find ultimately in a garage sale. We wandered over to a huge statue they have in the town square called El Camaronero. It's a man riding atop a huge shrimp. So, we took it that Camaronero meant "Shrimp Rider", like a Caballero is a horseman. Some weeks later upon speaking with a Latin American friend, I was informed that a Camaronero is a guy who catches shrimp. Like a Shrimperman. That blew it. I liked the idea of Shrimp Rider much better, because it was so completely preposterous it was hilarious.

After an hour or so of browsing the market and being duly offended by the vulgar t shirts we decided it was time to go back to the hotel. Then came the task of finding a cab to get us back there. We wandered for a while until we found a corner where a lot of taxis drove by and we flagged one down.

The next day we had a decent breakfast and a look around locally by the hotel, then headed back stateside.

The WhaleRider (aka The ScubaJedi)

July 4 Camping Weekend 2008

I am a member of a local singles activity group. We do a lot of things involving drinking, dining, dancing but every now and then we have a real adventure such as a hike or a camping trip. This past weekend was a camping trip.
It started out as a trip up north to Payson, or so we thought. Mis-communication caused the organizers to think it was going to be in a forested area in the Payson, Arizona area but it turned out to be a four to five hour trip farther north than Payson getting into the treeless tundra area of Arizona. Anything is usually a relief from the Phoenix or Tucson area as the temperatures are sweltering this time of year and camping in extreme heat is just plain stupid.
So the plans were changed to an area south of Tucson, and we were to team up with a singles group in Tucson. I was asked to help co-lead the trip and even though I was looking forward to just kicking back and letting someone else do the work, I agreed since the northern excursion was canceled.
So I organized things as best I could for the Phoenix group. There were 7 signed up and they all actually showed up which is a miracle. So many times people wake up in the morning and change their minds and just blow off the activity, but this one was pre-paid, so the odds of people showing up are better.
I had everyone meet up at the Arizona Mills Mall parking lot in front of the Rainforest Cafe, since it is an obvious landmark. They have it decorated in a loud tacky way and I figure people can't miss it, but somehow they do. They think that they are supposed to meet for carpooling inside the mall at the cafe (which is never open at the hours we meet) or they can't find the location at all. I am amazed that some of these people can function in everyday life being so directionally challenged and unable to reason things out that I find to be perfect common sense. It's exhausting.
We carpooled up and I rode with one of the newer members who turned out to be really nice. She didn't have too much in the line of camping gear and so it made it easy to pack the Altima. I had no idea where we were going, but to meet the Tucson group at t a Fry's in Tucson. I am not all that familiar with Tucson so we went all the way through town to the meet up place, and still one carload in my caravan ended up getting lost.
So we met with the Tucson group and headed out. The campsite was dispersed camping which meant no toilets. This presented cause for concern with many people on the trip. They would drive into town to use the facilities. I am not kidding, taking an hour trip into civilization to pop a squat. Admittedly, using the bushes isn't my favorite thing, but I would rather bite the bullet and hang around camp than make a day trip to have a pee. The area we were camping in was pretty sparse of good trees and shrubs and it was a challenge to find some privacy.
The way out there was marked with chartreuse signs, the second of which I missed as I was trying to avoid the major ruts in the road with my low clearance car. I ended up leading two other cars to Kentucky Camp, which is what was mentioned in all the writings about our camping weekend. I ended up getting a call from one of the other campers saying we were way off track and guided us back. By the time we got there most of the great places to pitch a tent were gone and so I went a little bit up a hillside and found a fairly flat spot and started pitching camp. I am so generous and constantly worried that everyone else is content that I forget about myself. One other guy was looking for a spot to pitch his tent and I offered up part of my area. It was under a tree and there were scant places under trees in the much coveted shade. So I said, "Hey! I can scooch over a bit and you can pitch your tent right next to mine". Then I stop to think, what am I saying? I don't know this guy. For all I know he could spend the night snoring and farting and I'll never get any sleep. There isn't much sound insulation with a paper thin layer of nylon. So at 3 am when I was waking up to the sound of snoring and farting from the next tent, I really regretted being so nice.
Waking up at 3am really surprised me as on Friday night when most of the others went in to Sonoita to watch fireworks, I stayed behind to get plastered on vodka with the boys.
The next day we had two big things planned and that was to go to the ghost town of Kentucky Camp, which is really a derelict mining operation not so much a town, and ot go to the lake in Patagonia. We went to Kentucky Camp first, which was a 5 mile drive from where we were camping. You have to park at the top of the hill and hike 1/4 mile in and you see the old buildings that are being renovated and some that are not so renovated. There was an outhouse much to the delight of just about everyone, myself included. We sat on the veranda of one of the buildings and told stories and generally yukked it up for a while before heading back for lunch. There was a bed and breakfast down there as well, but I can't imagine why anyone would want to drive out there to stay.
We had lunch then all decided to head off to Lake Patagonia. It's an artificial lake, as usual in Arizona, and there was a little beach. Some of us went in swimming, and I can never resist the water, so I was the first one in. We explored the area for a couple of hours, then headed back for yet another meal. It was our last night camping out and of course, snoring and farting were in abundance from the next tent over. My carpool companion said it best when she said the guy didn't have much to say, but his body sure did.
I was still up by 5:30 in the morning to the sounds of yet another camper packing it in to head out as soon as possible. I had to use another table to make coffee on, and it was a plastic table. I didn't even think about it and I ended up warping it out with the heat from my stove. that was my bird-brained move of the day. Overall, I had a great time, it was sure a nice relaxing respite from the hell that is work for me lately. Beautiful serene scenery, friendly fun campers, and three days away. The cats were sure glad to see me though.
Until next time, the end.