If you haven’t checked our ’13 Nov 2010 Saturday’ blog entry since 9:35 pm on Monday 15 Nov, it is now completed and has a lot more pictures from our visit to Washington Slagbaai National Park. Scroll down to see the photos added within the last couple of hours.

Yesterday we traded the Toyota Tercel we had been driving for the Suzuki Samurai, a 4 wheel drive jeep type vehicle. We left home about 7am to go to Washington Slagbaai National Park on the north end of Bonaire for the day. The entrance opens at 8am and we were the second vehicle to enter. Here are photos of our day:

Click Playa Chikitu for panoramic view, but notice the big difference in apparent distances. Panorama camera uses a very wide angle lens making objects appear more distant than they are.

NOTE — To see a bigger (and in some cases, expanded) version of any of the images, just click on the one you want to enlarge.

BokaBartol panorama

At Wayaka beach, several varieties of fish came right up to us. There were Blue Tang, Sargent Major, Yellow Goatfish, and most impressive of all, French Angelfish. There was also one that looked like a Bar Jack and then some small black ones. The only black ones we could find listed at a nearby dive site were Black Durgon, but, if so, these were small ones.

Click on Slagbaai panorama.

We arrived back at the entrance gate about 3pm, and then it began to rain. We got out just in time! Now we spent a few minutes at the museum and displays.

Alonso de Ojeda and Amerigo Vespucci landed on Bonaire in

1499 and claimed it for Spain. This, the north part of Bonaire, was settled around 1580 A.D. by the Spaniards. In 1633, the Dutch took control of the island.

This evening we went for a swim, but ended it after a few minutes of being tossed about by the heavy surf.

Interesting site for fish sightings at dive sites around Bonaire:
http://www.reef.org/db/reports/geo/TWA/8503/1993-01-01/2008-12-31

Today was the big day to reinstall the second UPS at the office/studio. On the way into the office, I noticed that one ship, Oceana, was already docked and Grandeur of the Seas was coming in and about a hundred meters from the dock. (See Virginia’s blog for more details)

After devotions, Joe and I finalized plans for the transfer of certain loads back onto the second UPS. The FM transmitter was on the air, so we decided to shut down briefly and temporarily transfer the necessary equipment onto one of the smaller UPSs received on Monday. This would ease the rush to make the other transfers.

When the second UPS had been moved to the site, all of its vital UPS loads had to be connected to the first UPS. This required temporarily jumpering the wiring between the load centers for the two UPS units. Now we needed to return all this wiring to its original configuration.

It was possible to do this without shutting down power to the Intelsat (satellite communications) equipment. All the Intelsat connections were on the right side of the load center of the ‘live’ UPS. By leaving the UPS running, shutting off all the breakers on the left side, and covering up the ‘hot’ feed at the top of the load center, it was possible to work on the left side without fear of getting a shock. All the temporary jumpers were connected to the left side, so we pulled them out (loads and neutrals) one-by-one and connected them back to their previous positions in the other load center, This transfer work took about an hour to complete.

That being completed, we fired up the second UPS and put it on line. After everything was verified as functioning properly, the FM was briefly shut down to restore everything to ‘normal’. Now for a sight of relief that this was done!

After lunch, I turned my attention to the smaller UPS that had failed at the site some months ago. Since it would cost more to repair it, than it cost to purchase the new units, it was decided to salvage the batteries, which are identical to the ones in the larger UPS.

Also since the larger UPSs are the same brand as the smaller failed one, there are a lot of parts the two sizes have in common. I next stripped these parts out of the smaller unit to be saved as spare parts for the larger ones. This included some of the screws that I had noticed were missing, or mismatched, on the covers of the large UPS. The rest of the unit will be scrapped. Now to find a box in which to store these parts that will fit on the same shelf as the other stocked parts.

Joe wanted to more evenly distribute all the electrical loads in the building for better loading on the standby generator when it is needed. We noticed that phase 1 had about a 20% higher loading than the other two and decided that the UPSs should be on the other two. Initially UPS(A) was on phase 1 and UPS (B) was on phase 2. There is a slight difference in the loading of the two UPSs which was also used to help balance the loads. We ended up with UPS(A) on phase 2 and UPS(B) on phase 3. With this arrangement there was less than 5% difference between all phases.

Earlier in the day, Benny had mentioned that the motion sensor at the transmitter site had not ‘seen’ him when he ‘disarmed’ the system yesterday. After work, Virginia and I prepared for a swim at Bachelor Beach (it is Friday night and Divi Flamingo Beach is full of partiers).

On the way, we went by the transmitter site to return some parts and to check out the motions sensor. It worked, but could probably be more sensitive. Will have to check to see if there is any adjustment on it.

We noticed that the United Tenorio was gone from the Salt Pier. For the past two or three days there has been a large ship hanging off shore a mile or two. It looks like it may be an oil tanker waiting for a berth at BOPEC.

We started our swim at Bachelor Beach (I think we used to call it Lime Beach) just about sunset and was able to watch the Oceana leave headed for Aruba. The Grandeur of the Seas had departed about 4:30.

When we got out of the water at Bachelor Beach, the mosquitoes attacked in mass. It was so bad, that I didn’t bother to put on my shoes and socks to get to our car. My feet hurt from walking on the coral, but the mosquitoes felt worse. I guess no more late swims there!

Happy 25th (quarter-century) Birthday to our youngest son Joshua!

This morning, Benny and the other men, picked up the UPS, that I took out of service yesterday at the transmitter site, to bring it back to the office. While they were doing that, I helped Virginia identify and label lots of old slides, especially those that were of transmitting equipment over the years.

When the UPS arrived, it was discovered that some parts had been removed to adapt it for use at the site. Those removed parts had been left at the site, so I focused on removing the old batteries from the UPS and installing new ones. Each battery looks exactly like a heavy duty car battery.

On our way home for lunch we saw the Aggreko containers that left the site yesterday were all located near the pier. Each was on its own trailer ready for transport. Bonaire does not have the equipment to load and unload containers onto ships, so the containers arrive and depart already loaded on trailers. The large container ships probably port in Curacao.

After a lunch of sandwiches, bananas and mango, I went to the site to pick up the needed parts for the UPS. I observed that the United Tenorio was still loading at the Salt Pier. On the way to the office, dropped Virginia in town to do some shopping. She walked home from there.

I now completed swapping the batteries and connecting the new ones to the UPS. To install the previously removed parts, it was necessary to remove all the panels of the UPS. The input had to be changed to an electrical cord with a 60 amp plug on the end, so the UPS could be plugged into UPS(A) socket. [There are two large UPSs for the office and the other is UPS(B)]. A 60 amp receptacle, plus interconnecting wires, had to be remounted on the UPS back panel.

We wanted to have the UPS operating overnight without load to fully charge the batteries before putting it on line tomorrow. We had a dinner appointment and I needed to leave about 4:45pm. I thank the Lord that the UPS was plugged in and successfully just before leaving.

I had just enough time to clean up so we could go to Pastor Baran’s for dinner at 5:30pm. The chicken and rice main dish, salad, and fried plantain were delicious. For desert we had ice cream. They used their nice open back porch for dining this evening.

Before dinner was over, the mosquitoes started to find us. They brought out a device that looked like a tennis racquet but when they began to swing it around there were numerous ‘zaps’ as mosquitoes met their demise. It was called an ‘electric swatter’ and this one was rechargeable.

We had great fellowship and learned a lot about Pastor’s ministry. He is both an expository preacher at the International Bible Church and an evangelist. It was interesting to hear him tell about several new believers in the church and their enthusiasm in sharing their new faith. Most of the ones he mentioned were men over 60 years old. One was a Rastafarian, who is now witnessing to his friend who is still a Rastafarian.

We also spent some time reminiscing with his wife Felecia. She had worked for the Dan Harvey family of TWR in the 1960s and Dan led her to faith in Christ. I am pretty sure that I remember her from then. We were able to recall about a dozen TWR families that we both knew in those days and shared about what we knew of their whereabouts now — many are now with their Lord.

This morning the view from the window was a bit different as there were two cruise ships, Grandeur of the Seas at South Pier and Oceana at the north pier. It is quite impressive to be so close to two such big ships at such small docks.

This morning, I walked down town to buy a papaya, but they didn’t look very ripe, so decided to leave them there to ripen and I would pick one up on another day. While I was downtown, I stopped by the vendors and visited with a couple of them and bought our lunch and picked up a few curios. Our lunch consisted of red snapper, tutu (black-eyed peas and cornmeal), squash and plantain. It was very good, even though we are not used to having the fish stare at us as we eat it!! We also had a real Bonairian meal last night (Larry describes it in his blog). Such good food!

After lunch Larry dropped me at the Warehouse Market and I bought groceries and walked home. Those bags (with laundry soap, bottle of softener, milk, sugar, juice, two packages of meat and a jar of mango chutney) got heavy quickly!