Coral Cay Conservation Tobago - Settling In

Four weeks ago I arrived in Charlotteville, Tobago to begin my 4 month contract as the scuba instructor for the Coral Cay Conservation project here. Coral Cay Conservation are a British non profit making organisation that have several marine and forest projects around the world where they have been invited to monitor and survey habitats. The surveying is done by volunteers who pay to come and learn to dive (if they don't already) and survey the reefs or forest. Each marine project has a scuba instructor to teach the volunteers and local scholars who don't already dive.

Apart from teaching open water to divemaster courses my responsibilities also include maintaining and fixing equipment, dive logistics and planning and helping with the general running of the project base. It turns out this is a lot of work for one person!

I have already taught EFR and Rescue for 3, Open Water for 3 and Advanced for 2. And I have 5 people to train to divemaster level in the next few months. Should be interesting.

The base here is an old holiday cottage right on the sea in Charlotteville, Man o' War Bay on the North East side of the island. There are bedrooms for 14 people with bunk beds in each and a small amount of storage space. We also have a living area, kitchen and outside deck. Breakfast is at 6am, lunch at 12pm and dinner at 6pm. Meals, cleaning and other chores are done by everyone on a rota basis. A typical day starts with breakfast followed by kitting up for the morning dive and chores. The first dive goes out at around 7:30 – 8am and sometimes a second wave goes out after the first gets back if we have more than 8 people diving. After lunch we dive again and after each dive any data is entered and any training/paperwork completed. Days are full with often something going on after dinner as well. Saturday night we try to relax and party and Sunday is a day off where breakfast and lunch are DIY but we have extra chores on Sundays to deep clean the base each week.

 

There is a house reef out front but I haven't yet seen it as hurricane Tomas hit here pretty hard in October and the whole bay as been pretty silted out. It is now starting to clear so I am very much looking forward to getting out there and seeing if there is any reef left after the battering it got and the 2 months of silt cover.

Charlotteville is a small fishing and holiday village with a few small dive shops and beaches. Everybody knows everyone else and says hello to everyone as you walk through the village. It's a pretty friendly place and now we are settled in and the very intensive science training is done for us we should have an enjoyable few months here.

Bonaire on Land

While Bonaire is mainly known for its diving there is plenty to do above water too. We managed to fit in several days of exploring the island during breaks from diving and also while I had a minor ear infection and so had to stay out of the water for 5 days.

The far north of the island is the Washington Slagbaai National Park which I have already written about. Just South of that is a large lake called Gotomeer which is one of the flamingo nesting sites. Just inland from the East coast there are escarpments containing caves with Indian inscriptions. There are also the wind turbines for the island. The South of the island is mostly salt pans and is very flat and wet. Also on the East coast is Lac, a natural harbour bordered by mangroves and used mainly for windsurfing. Close to the airport and the capital, Kralendijk is the Donkey Sanctuary, where sick, orphaned and injured wild donkeys are taken in and cared for.

We made several trips into the National Park, for diving and non-diving. The highest peak on the island is Seru Branderis at 241m. It takes about two hours to get to the top and back from the car park. The first part is an easy walk through woods and scrubland and the higher part is a scramble up the volcanic rock of the island. The view from the top is spectacular. You can see the whole of Bonaire and on the day we went up we could see across to Curacao as well.

Unfortunately, since I arrived at Coral Cay in Tobago I haven't had time to finish this properly. But thought I would post it anyway. See facebook for some photos.

Final few weeks on Bonaire

We are leaving Bonaire for Tobago tomorrow so thought I should write a summary of what we've been up to in the last few weeks. Mostly we've been diving.

We have picked up a couple of dive buddies along the way. Lutz from Germany whose wife is a snorkeller and Eloy from Holland who is here alone. We dived with Lutz for about 2 weeks and explored various sites together. He was a pleasure to dive, drink and eat with!

A couple of weeks ago Hurricane Tomas passed by to the North and brought with it a lot of rain. The after effects changed the usual wind direction making the usually calm west coast dangerous to dive due to a lot of surge and unpredictable currents. The bigger waves also stirred up the sand making visibility much worse than usual, particularly in the shallows. However, the change in wind direction alos meant that the usually rough east coast was calm enough to dive. So we did several east coast dives. These dives had a very different underwater landscape and distribution of life than the west coast.

We saw many more eagle rays than on the west coast and also some Southern stingrays that we hadn't seen before. There were also large schools of grunts, goatfish, margate and chub which do not appear on the west coast. At Sorobon dive site many turtles live and we did 3 dives on which we lost count of the turtles we saw. Fantastic!

We also had the opportunity to dive the far north dive sites on the island, Candyland and Tailormade. This seems to be the only part of the island where the hard coral still grows right up to the coast (everywhere else storms have destroyed it) and there are huge towers of hard coral. We saw many barracuda here and also less common fish such as ocean and queen triggerfish.

Another interesting thing about Bonaire is that it is a cruise ship stop. Every few days the island's small population swells by several thousand when a cruise pulls into port. These ships can be seen from almost anywhere on the island and are far taller than any building!

In total I have done about 25 days diving on Bonaire and about 70 dives. We definitely haven't seen everything and would love to come back and do more diving here. Bonaire really is "diving freedom". Pick up some tanks, throw them in the truck, drive to a dive site and get in the water!

Driving on Bonaire

Being on Bonaire has put the fun back into driving.  We hired a pick up truck for a month so we could get about the island - most of the scuba diving is shore based and while plenty of people offered us lifts we wanted the freedom to dive whenever we wanted.

It took me a couple of days before I realised what was different - there are no traffic lights on Bonaire!  And only two roundabouts.  Traffic jams don't exist.  As for parking, I can just pull up at the side of the road anywhere there is space to fit the truck.  Its a far cry from driving in Enfield.

The main hazards to driving here, apart from it being almost mandatory to drive while using a mobile phone, are the wildlife.  Goats frequently bound across the road, donkeys step out in front of you and the lizards are everywhere.

Of course, the roads aren't up to UK standards.  The main roads in Kralendijk and Rincon (the one town and village) and along the coast, are tarmac and in pretty good shape.  Although these roads are generally narrow, there are fewer potholes than at home and it makes getting around the island fun.  There are plenty of dirt roads too, to get to the more remote parts of the coast and the many caves here.  These are fun to drive on, but you don't get much speed up!

We broke the truck too.  It had a faulty parking brake which locked one of the rear wheels when it got wet.  The first time it happened, I eventually freed it up by revving the engine until I could smell burning brakes, the second time we got stuck in the National Park for an hour until it eventually dried out.  We now have another truck while the hire company try (and fail) to fix the original.

EDIT: We just had one of those "adventures" that you're supposed to have while travelling.  Driving on the dirt roads was always going to be an error after the storm last night.  But we were keen to find the (locally) legendary Maiky Snack for a Bonairean lunch.  One wrong turn later onto one of the less well used dirt (now mud) roads and I got the truck well and truly stuck.  After much wheelspinning and trying to put bits of wood under the back wheels I gave up and set off to find help.  Fortunately, Maiky Snack was only five minutes of sloshing up the road and, despite being closed - "we weren't expecting any customers because of the bad weather" the owner came to my rescue, calling in a friend with a bigger pickup truck.  Back at the mud, the friend decided his truck would get stuck too, so went off to get shovels and a commercial jack.

We jacked up the truck and got rocks under all the tyres and some wooden planks to drive onto and, after an hour and a half of getting dirty we finally shifted the truck onto solid ground.  I think I'd better get it washed before I take it back to the rental shop!  The tyres have lost a lot of rubber, but they were pretty bald to start with.  We'll be going back to Maiky Snack tomorrow to buy lunch, and leave a very big tip :)

Soft Coral Garden

Week two on Bonaire

After our trip up to the National Park we took it easy on Wednesday as I was feeling a bit ill. We headed up to Eden Beach, where the Wannadive dive shop is and sat on the beach and did a bit of swimming. Later on I stocked up on food at the supermarket investigating what is available and not ridiculously expensive. Predictly, that isn't much given the size of the island. Most food is imported from the States or The Netherlands with some fresh fruit from Venezuela. Trying not to think too much about the food miles.

Thursday, we investigated the diving options from Eden Beach. There is a marked dive site not too far away - Front Porch. Here there is coral reef and plenty to see. Off the beach itself is mostly sand and rubble but still quite a lot of life to see if you spend the time. There are also three wrecks, a small wooden skeleton of a ship. Our Confidence, just south of the beach at about 18m deep which was quite interesting. And also two other small but more intact wrecks, a tugboat and sailing boat at 20-25 m further north. There are many morays and snake eels which seem to swim freely more often than I've seen elsewhere. We've also seen a couple of 1.5m tarpon quite close up. We did three dives Thursday, two on the Our Confidence and one going North from the beach. The currents seem stronger in the afternoon and are usually flowing south.

Friday we did a boat dive at Keepsake on Klein Bonaire. This was a nice relaxing dive with no current and plenty of pristine coral to see. No turtles or big fish but a nice scorpion fish and good to be out on the boat. In the afternoon we stayed at the beach and did two more dives. One down to the deep sailing boat wreck, which contains a mattress growing soft coral and one much shallower on the reef. One interesting thing of note is the Sergeant Major damselfish which are nesting at the moment. The males are darker in colour and guarding dark blue patches of eggs. If you get too close they will take a nibble out of your fin tips! I guess this is a warning to keep away. Just deeper than the wrecks where the reef gives way to sandy bottom which is populated by hundreds of garden eels. These are so cute but retreat into their holes as you approach.

Saturday was another relax on the beach and snorkelling day. We were both pretty tired from the quite deep dives the previous day. Also my computer had been telling me I had 2 minutes of no deco time left at 7.5 metres on the way back from the third dive so I had pushed right to the limits and thought a day off would be useful.

We ate out Saturday night at City Cafe. One of the few restaurants/bars that seems almost reasonably priced. But the best part was the ice cream from Watta Burger afterwards! I think there will be many more of them!

More diving and the National Park

Last Monday we moved from the Black Durgon Inn (which was a little quiet and far out of town) to Wannadive Hut  (http://www.wannadive.com/) which is in town and has a bar. We have a studio room so can cook our own food which we need to because there are no cheap restaurants on Bonaire. It's actually renowned as having some of the best restaurants in the Caribbean!

Tuesday we were invited to go diving with a couple of guys staying here from the US (see http://www.tacomascubacenter.com/ for the dive shop they run if interested in diving near Seattle (Brr!)). We headed up to the Washington Slagbaai National Park with a truck laden down with 15 cylinders and 5 sets of dive gear. Extra air was added to the tyres before we left! Note the the roads in the park are untarmacced and generally 4 wheel drive only.

We left a little later than planned due to some excess beer (not us) on Monday night but made it up to the park around 11am. Very rough country and hot and dry. The track around the park is one way and takes around 3 hours to drive with 2 hours to the cafe stop after you've started. We stopped a couple of times on the way to the dive sites at an area where you can clearly see the uplifted reefs, a blowhole and an old lighthouse. At every stop there were lizards and iguanas swarming to the car looking for food. We also saw many wild goats and donkeys.

Our first dive site for the day was Boka Bartol. A mild surf entry and then a fair surface swim out to the site. A nice long dive with beautiful coral and lots of life. We saw a foot long lobster at 29m - biggest I've ever seen and our first turtle of the trip. Just a small hawksbill but lovely nonetheless. After a short surface interval we did our second dive at Playa Benge. Another surf entry (the sea is a little rougher in the park compared with further south) and  a swim out over the shallow reef and sand channels. More good coral and fish life and a buzz by a metre long jack.

Unfortunately, we didn't have time for another dive in the park as we needed to be in the water by 2:30 to allow for enough time to drive back to the exit of the park by the 5pm closing time. Instead we stopped for at the park cafe where we ate our picnic lunch and ccould see more wild goats and flamingoes! On the drive back we had to slow for a young donkey that had got separated from its mother on the road and couldn't work out how to get off the road. Aaah!

Sunset on Bonaire.

Diving

Dive, eat, beer, sleep. Repeat.

That about covers it.

Settling in

4 days after leaving the UK we're starting to settle into Caribbean life. We had a few minor hiccups in getting here but have accommodation in the same place on Bonaire for the next month.

We left London at 10:10 BST on Tuesday 5th October 2010 on BA2159 to Trinidad via St Lucia. Landed in St Lucia about 8 hours later but unfortunately all we saw of it was the runway from inside the plane as we weren't allowed off. A couple of hours later and we arrived in Trinidad. We weren't allowed immediately through immigration since we didn't have a print out of our onward ticket with us! Seems they are a lot stricter on these sort of things in the Caribbean than anywhere else I've ever been before. A nice man from BA managed to get us a print out from our next airline and we were through and in a taxi to the Holiday Inn Express. Probably the most expensive hotel we will stay in all year but the only hotel close to the airport and it was pretty nice to get there after a long flight.

The next morning we headed back to the airport to continue our journey to Curacao and Bonaire. Along the way we paid more in excess baggage charges than I have ever paid before (we each have our dive gear in a separate bag). For future reference, Liat have particularly high charges, we handed over an extra $184 for the 2 hour flight to Curacao, only slightly less than the cost of the tickets!

After dealing with more immigration difficulties in Bonaire (no onward flight ticket and no booked accommodation and wanting to stay for 40 days apparently not OK) we found ourselves in the tourist information office in Kralendijk desperately seeking a room during the busiest week of the year, International Regatta week! Luckily we found a room for that night only that didn't cost the earth and was in town. Next day (Thursday) we found a room further out of town, at the Black Durgon Inn, for a few days at a very cheap rate.  Good enough while we looked for something more long term but a long 3 mile walk from town.

Finally on Thursday afternoon we had a chance to get in the water. Just for a snorkel as we arrived too late for a diving orientation of the marine park. Water is 30 degrees C at the surface, clear with almost endless visibility and a stunning number and variety of fish even in 2 metres depth!

Thursday evening we walked into town and went to Wannadive Hut, where we are planning to spend the rest of our time here, for their weekly all you can eat BBQ with free run punch :-) Seems like a very friendly place bustling with divers and cheapish beer. Met a group from Seattle who spend most of the year cold water diving much like ourselves. Hopefully, we will see them again and maybe go diving with them.

On Friday we started diving. The Black Durgon Inn has access to a site called Small Wall which we're told is a very good site that you can only dive if you are staying here or come in by boat (Bonaire is pretty much all shore diving). After breakfast and an orientation we jumped in and had a pootle along the reef to see what we could see. Was pretty awesome (not quite as diverse and colourful as the Indo-Pacific but pretty close). After the dive I headed into town to take my CV to every dive school I could find. Every one had pretty much the same answer, no work permit it's going to be difficult especially as the law changes on Monday when Bonaire becomes a municipality of The Netherlands. Also I'm not really here for long enough to be of use to anyone. So guess it's just going to be a long (and expensive) holiday until I head to Tobago in mid-November to work for Coral Cay Conservation. I probably need the break anyway. A second dive just before sunset cheered me up and this time we actually saw the wall part of the dive site which the current didn't allow us to earlier. Pretty impressive. Will hopefully have a chance to learn more about the fish here as they are quite different to those I know in Asia and The Red Sea.

Saturday (today) has been a diving and relaxing day. 3 dives, some reading, some eating and some napping :-) First dive of the day was to 35 metres where a sizable stingray swam past. Also saw lots of morays, a couple of snake eels, 2 cuttlefish and a huge barracuda amongst thousands of other fish. The cutest sights of the day are probably the tiny tobies and a juvenile burrfish who was hanging around at the start and end of our third dive.

Tomorrow we plan to dive further afield having grabbed a lift with a couple of guys who arrived today. Not sure we've quite adjusted to the slower pace of life yet but definitely getting there. No running has been accomplished yet but I think we may have found the Bonaire Hash House Harriers who run every other Wednesday.