Yes we could. Although not at dawn as I’d hoped. In fact, if it got much later I was concerned that we might need to take torches. There had been much dragging of heels & last peeings in the sand dunes before I had finally managed to drag the last of them kicking & screaming into the shallows at 11:00.



There was an air of anxiety hanging over us & I repeatedly stressed to all who could hear me over the pounding surf, that there was no shame in returning to the beach if they were less than 100% happy to face the challenge that lay ahead. Needless to say, there were no takers & the seven us shuffled backwards holding hands into the foam like it was our first day in school.
Secretly, I half hoped that one of us might have second thoughts. The car had been burgled the previous day & whilst nothing of great value had been stolen, it still left a nasty taste in the mouth. So to have one of us standing guard over our possessions in this remote spot would have been comforting. Certainly, the thought of another four hours at the police station filled me with far more dread than anything this dive was likely to throw at me.
Marcia suffers from an ongoing high blood pressure condition, which she struggles to keep in check despite medication. As you can probably imagine, there are times when I’ve been (quite unfairly in my opinion) accused of compounding the problem. Our local GP, who fortunately is also a diving medic, had stressed that if he was to give his blessing to this trip (& therefore qualify her for travel insurance) Marcia must only dive shallow & in water over 50 degrees. Even then, she must use Nitrox, & the stronger mix the better.
Thanks Steve Jevon & Toucan for making sure that she had an adequate supply, even when the island ran virtually dry of O2 during our stay.
Fortunately the doc had said nothing about Tsunamis, so we figured that todays dive was ok as she’d complied with all of his afore mentioned requests. As an added precaution Wayne, who was buddied up with Mel, offered to carry her camera & strobes through to the clearer water as he had a hand free, having no camera of his own to worry about.
Walt had been right. Whilst it hadn’t been that apparent from the shore, the waves were definitely more powerful now than they had been at dawn the previous morning. Things seemed to be going nicely & Marcia & I (still holding hands, bless us) were making fair progress through the rough stuff. Suddenly a great wall of water broke above us & our despairing outstretched fingers were ripped apart. When I reached the surface & had retrieved my mask from around my ankles, I found to my horror that Marcia was nowhere to be seen. I shouted for all I was worth, but to no avail. I couldn’t even hear my own voice above the roar of the surf, never mind hers. I gyrated (spun round, Dave) frantically in the water praying that she would pop up before me. The view back to land was unobstructed & I could see Wayne stumbling ashore with Mel & Marcias camera. They’d decided it was a little too rough for their liking. Behind me & out to sea, I could see nothing. I was still in the midst of the breaking waves & their peaks & troughs hid the other four, including Marcia I hoped.
Stupidly, I decided that as things were, I was obviously no use to her wherever she might be, & I might as well return to the beach (some 60 yards distant), from where I could hopefully see her & collect her camera at the same time before returning to the water.
Lurching back to my feet ashore again, I turned to see Marcia & Kris (we had two Chris’s, so I’ll start one of them with a “K”) making ok signs with their arms in round hoop like contortions over their heads. Thank Heavens! I waved back happily before picking up Marcias camera rig. Striding back into the foam, I left Wayne, Mel & Steve, who had also retired gracefully, muttering at my foolishness, as they sat recovering from their ordeals on the horizontal tree trunk which marks the point of entry for the dive.
It was a struggle as I also had my own video housing to drag along but the adrenalin was flowing & the embarrassment of failure would have been a far greater burden to bear than the weight of the cameras.
A few grueling minutes later saw me breathlessly ok’ing Kris’s descend sign. At least they’d been good enough to wait. Marcia snatched her camera from me with a look that plainly said “Where the hell have you been?! We’re bored stiff.” & we submerged into the blissful tranquility below.
Immediately, a six foot black tip shark cruised slowly towards us. I was so surprised at this unexpected treat that I simply watched, all thoughts of using the video forgotten, despite the mammoth effort required to bring it along. Coming to my senses far too late I switched it on just in time to catch some dismal footage of it disappearing into the distance. Ordinarily I’d not give the pic a second glance, but as I reckon they are a fairly uncommon sight on the typical Bonairean dive (I know some of you will say otherwise), I’ve decided to post it.



From here on the dive went well, although the viz was considerably poorer than yesterday & the accompanying surge made close up photography impossible.



An hour soon passed. Marcia had taken on the appearance of a contented cow grazing in lush pasture (probably not a comparison she'll thank me for).....She washed backwards & forwards in the ever present surge, blissfully unaware of me & everything else beyond the all seeing eye of her camera lens, which was hoovering up ever scrap of fish life onto the film within. I mused that there could probably be no better therapy for her high blood pressure than this.



Reluctantly we headed back to shore, surfing the last thirty yards or so as we had done the day before.
Back at the roadside all was not well…..
Chris was sitting on the back of his truck with his bare feet poking skywards.



He had missed the exit point & fallen down in the shallows about twenty yards north of the desired spot. He’d then spent the next thirty seconds being rolled backwards & forwards in the spiny black urchins who resented his attempts to rearrange their back yard. Fortunately he’d managed to protect his face & hands but his feet resembled pin cushions. The spines having even penetrated the soles of his boots!
“Good dive?” he asked enquiringly as I flopped down beside him. “Yeah, & you?" I countered. Chris looked down at the blood dripping from one his heels. After what seemed an eternity he turned towards me & trying desperately to keep a straight face said, "It was ok, but I've been thinking....I reckon that I might drop this diving lark at the end of the trip & give Tai Chi a go!"

Excellent! I appreciated the use of "visuals" as well. Marcia deserves a medal :-)

ok I should be hard at work, but I squandered many hours reading up. A true great epic work, the screenplay and movie production will cost millions.

Who should play the part of Andy Keely...Donald Southerland(a la "kellys heros") or one of the monthy python crowd?

god... even I can spell better than that, I ment "Monty" of course

Tai Che? looks like the pic caption should be "And this is what your hand looks like after one of Keelys deep dives" you know with a sort of theatric delivery

Actually half a nanosecond earlier the guy was sitting astride his Harley. He tweaked the throttle a tad too hard...et voila!
I can't begin to tell you how much I've missed you these last 3 weeks Monthy. Never took you as one to have a lisp dahling.
While (fighting hard not to put "st" in there somewhere) I think of it...What's all this "goeth" nonsense in that verbally diuretic outpouring of a trip report you posted recently?

Andy...jesus...trip report? the referenced diuretic attempted to describe about 20 minutes of one dive, I mean I didn't even talk about the important stuff...like the local beers, liquors and that Kava stuff, if you really want to hear about a diuretic.

Whats that? you want to hear about Kava, right here in your own thread? well ok then I'll keep it short.

Kava is a mixture of some kind of powdered pepper tree root and water. It seems to be the centerpiece of fijian society and very popular. Everybody sits around a giant bowl of the stuff, claps once and is rewarded with a half coconut bowl full. Some of us sat around the bowl trying not to expose our western private parts. I mean the southern private parts of a western person.

(and just for you Andy, as Fiji was yet another part of the empire, the visa cards under "nationality" have no reference to "american". The closest option for me was "european" which put me into a tizzy, I mean the French are european too, are they not?)

Well, this stuff. What stuff? oh the Kava... is spoze to really get you off if you get enough, which of course was my objective.

Most of the aussies and yanks in the crowd drank the polite one offering and then just watched the rest of the cerimony, which was basically me drinking about 3 gallons of this stuff. it indeed tastes just like dirty dish water, I know because I just came from the kitchen where I killed a glass of dirty dish water; just to make sure the description fits, it does. I mean, I want all of my posts to be accurate as possible.

Well about half way through a 5 kilo bag of the root which made up about 5 gallons in six seperate lengthly operations and I notice that my hosts are looking like I want to get. I mean these guys are moving real slow. Other than the fact I cant feel my face, I was doing ok. really... I really was. After about another two gallons(Andy a Gallon for us is about the same as two pints of english beer) and my new fijian brothers are dropping off into some type of drug induced stupor(would that be stupour in metric?)

Well no more Kava left, my new brothers packed up all the kava mixing hardware and left me all dressed up in my new dress with a numb head and no place to go.

Can it be possible that we now have the battle of the keyboards at hand??!! Love it! The more you two go at it, the more entertainment there is for the rest of us. Bravo to you both...should be "required" reading worldwide.....keep 'em comin', fellas! Marcia, Marcia, Marcia...bless you, my child. Wonderful stuff...can't go wrong with the material at hand, be it Bonaire or Fiji. I hope this never ends......Carole

Andy, is that some sort of blight/bacteria I see eating away at the seafan and the coral? Carole

No, it's just the result of a careless fin kick or two from Marcia, Carole. But don't fret...she repaired it shortly after I'd taken the pic with some spent gum that she'd been chewing.

I'm just relieved that Dave Goodwin, of Rincon Athletic Club trip report fame, hasn't become a regular contributor to these pages.....now he really did pose a threat!
I still can't make up my mind whether his missing the "n" out of Sand dollar (the first time he mentioned the place) was intentional or just a freudian slip?

You're right Dave...The French are Europeans. Mercifully, despite what you may be told to the contrary, we British aren't & are never likely to be! I mean...the Euro! It doesn't even have a picture of the Queens head on it! No way will any true Brit ever touch the stuff, nevermind carry it around in his pant pockets in close proximity to his crown jewels!
Martin, on the other hand, being a die hard European would be quite at home squatting beside you during the Kava festivities. Not being one to hide his light under a bushel (so to speak), his only misgiving would be the grass skirt, which he would doubtless find an unneccesary restriction to his policy of openness & the sharing of all good things.

fancyskirt and fancypants, again, thank you for my much needed afternoon giggle...especially andy's explaination of his friend's harley riding out from underneath him...love your wit!

On a more sober note, kava has been show to cause severe liver damage (the kind of herbal tablets you get in the health food store)...your liver feelin' ok fancyskirt?

A continued note of sobriety, the FDA is seriously considering the removal of Kava Kava in the Health food stores. I would like to review comparison studies with the concentration of the over the counter stuff and the brew they serve in Fiji and other sorted, not sorid, places ....Just depends on the maker I guess. What do they measure ? So I won't drink 35 cups. Honest....Booze is lethal at 5.0, forget any liver problems your dead, the jerk level is 2.0, that's the problem. I myself prefer zoning folks to jerks, they can't find their keys to drive nor do they remember they have car or what a car is.....
In Maui there is little Kava bar about a block off the beaten track(in Lahiana) you have to know where it is or you'll miss it) and they charge $7.00 for a cup of the tranquilizing ucky hot slough water. So like aspirin 2 are great, 200 cause liver damage. However, those seeking the pleasurable effects of any herb are not prone to moderation and thus problems could arise. But it could be great for hypertension. Now if THC had a diuretic component as KK that would be totally cool.
Just in case anyone at all cares.
Pat

umph...
Cynde..as to wit, gee, I thought the "mild" DCS condition known as monkey hand by the commercial diver crowd was a tad more witty than the harley explaination.

Liver? well if I knew that I would live this long I might have taken better care of myself. The large S on my chest is starting to fade somewhat.

Moderation? maybe if I stoped at 35 cups. Glad I didn't get into the beetle nut story from a few years back.

Just in case anyone is interested...here is the letter from the FDA...
FDA - Kava Kava

Added info.
The FDA is for the first time seriously considering the never before venture into non- medicinals secondary to the alarming problems recently experienced. Each instance of a product causing significant documented side effects, a short step closer to begin it's cross over to the remedies sold within Natural Health Food Stores. Gingko Joba also been closely followed. My source was a report on the Medical Hour, KGO, hosted by Dr. Dean Edell Tuesday in the San Francisco Bay Area,who read from an article eminating from the FDA. Specific herbal products would be targeted and NOT the entire industry as that is an impossible task the agency obviously wants to avoid.
Pat

Pat, enough sobriety.
Tell me.....your e-mail address:-

sycan@home.com

It's supposed to be read as:-

sick & at home

Right?

Andy, I've got your hat.. desperately trying not to crush it! Will give you a call when I get back.. S

Wonderful Sarah!
Whatever state it reaches me in I'll still be delighted. After all, it's the thought that counts, isn't it?
Hadn't crossed my mind before, but I reckon that the hat saga is almost worthy of its own chapter.

Have a great time over Xmas.(And the same wishes go to everyone else out there!)
Looking forward to hearing from you on your return to freezing Blighty.

Andy, yes, perhaps a new Chapter for the hat is a good idea! I was seriously considering modelling it whilst on BON.. though was a little concerned it would be blown off of my head by the trade winds!!!! It's a little smushed.... but I'm sure it'll straighten out some once placed upon one's head!!! Just kidding... anyway, signing off now, might pop back tomorrow.. if not, have a great Xmas and talk soon.. best to all... Sarah

Andy..you have to model the pants...and the hat, at the same time for us....Please!.just think of the fun....plus another chapter...whooo whooo...again as you can tell, life in New Joisey is oh so exciting....looking forward to the fashion show....Thanks Sarah! Happy Holidays to all....you too Andy! Give Mum a kiss from us all....