The Caribbean Princess was at the pier by 7am this morning. [The photo at left was taken from the Divi Flamingo Resort pier where we try to swim each evening.] There are supposed to be two cruise ships here on Friday and two more on Thursday of next week.

This morning, we had a 30 amp twist lock connector that had a broken screw on one terminal. I like a challenge and decided to see if it could be repaired. It was a ‘challenge’, but the repair was accomplished and I was able to assemble an adapter cable to connect the UPS at the transmitter site. This way it would not be necessary to remove a 30 amp connector from the UPS and have an extended time of outage.

After our noon meal of Japanese chicken and rice, Virginia and I headed to the site. We noticed at least three things while on the way.

First, the Caribbean Princes was already leaving. The cruise ships, we have seen, have always left at sunset.

Second, we noticed there was a ship at Salt Pier. It was the United Tenorio that was here last week! We asked the pier guard where it took the salt. He replied ‘America’. My response that it made a quick trip made him chuckle and say that

the ship had gone out to sea before fully loading due to the rough waves of the past week. It had just now come back to complete loading. I thought I had seen a similar ship (to the United Tenorio) a long distance from shore over the past several days and opined whether it might be another salt ship arriving.

Third, we observed a truck and trailer capable of loading a 20 foot container onto itself at the transmitter site. He was moving the dozen or so containers that WEB, the electric company, has there, by loading them one-at-time, then taking them out to the main road and transferring them onto a truck with a container trailer. As fast as he could load the containers another truck would be there to take it. All the containers were moved in a period of about four hours.

Most of these containers were Aggreko generator sets that WEB had rented to meet the increased power demand for Bonaire before they built their new power plant just south of BOPEC.

At the site, I swapped out the old UPS and installed the new UPS. Everything went smoothly until I started to push the UPS under the lab workbench. The stiff electric cable caused the standard 110 volt plug to ‘pop’ out of its receptacle! [There is a reason a lot of UPS’s use twist lock plugs for the output.] Since the power was already down, I took the extra time needed to ‘safety wired’ the plug into its socket before turning the power back on.

Now it was necessary to check all the transmitter’s automation equipment to see that everything was working. This also included the dial-in remote control feature which, though not working at first, seemed to recover after a few minutes.

It was nearing time for ‘sign on’, so we delayed our departure to make sure the transmitter came on with no ‘glitches’. While waiting, I investigated what was needed to do a couple other projects on my ‘to-do’ list. One is the capability of overriding the photo cell to remotely turn on the tower lights. The other is to shut off the transmitter’s office area air conditioner by a time command and/or remotely. I was able to glean some useful information for both. Hope to have time to implement both.

The transmitter came on fine, so we headed home for a swim. The waves were still a little high, but not dangerously so. It is amazing how refreshing the swim was after not being able for several days.

This morning when we looked out the window we could see another cruise ship, the Caribbean Princess, at the dock. It is just so interesting to me to be able to look out and see the ship from our house!

After doing a bit of house work, I walked downtown and stood in front of a webcam for about 10 minutes.

It was really hot standing there. (The real feel temperature is 103 degrees and I admit, it feels every degree that hot!) I had planned to buy an ice cream cone to eat while I stood there, but the ice cream shop was closed. Guess it is only open in the afternoon. Our grandson Mark’s blog shows what was on the camera.

I took a picture of one of the flamingo mosaics on the sidewalk. They have them on the corners on the main street. I also made my usual stop at the Fish Market to buy bananas.

This afternoon, we are at the transmitter site. It is nice for Larry to have someone here, rather than him being alone out here. While at the transmitter site, I will be having a meeting via Skype with some of the staff in Elkhart, IN. (Missed my

meeting — I had it on and then the internet did something and I lost it. By the time I rebooted, they had probably given up and turned off their computer! I was only a little late :-/) It has been good to be able to SKYPE with friends and family while we have been here. A big change from 40 years ago. It still takes at least two weeks for snail mail though! That has not changed!

The men have been working on our fence and it is beginning to look very nice. A nice improvement. The lizards have been enjoying the short grass (at least I can see them with the grass short). There were two out there today, and I managed a picture of one. It is different from the others that I took pictures of in our yard.

After about a week of no problem with the transmitter, the Gentner called this morning at 7:45am. I quickly fired up the laptop and checked to see what was wrong. The Gentner showed that there was no power at the site. This was verified when I checked the camera aimed at the transmitter control panel and saw NO lights. I then looked at the audio rack camera and the only lights on were those supplied by the uninterruptible power supply (UPS). Since there is no standby engine, not much can be done except wait for the power came back. Sign-off is normally at 8:30am.

After devotions this morning, my priorities have been changed. Joe informed me that the three new APC SMT-3000 UPSs had arrived and were ready to install. One was for the transmitter site. When it is installed, the large one temporarily moved there will be returned to the office/studio. The second UPS would go into the Intelsat room and the third would be a ‘standby’ and located in the automation room. It will be running with a very light load to keep the battery charged and ready for use in case of a failure of one of the other UPSs.

These new UPSs have a power supply input cord with a 3 prong 110VAC 30 amp twist lock plug. For the ‘standby UPS’, I had to make up a cord with a standard 110VAC ground plug on one end with a socket to mate to the twist lock plug on the other end. This was not a difficult project, but finding the parts took a bit of the time. Benny was called to bring a standard plug from the site. Fortunately he was already out there unloading the new site UPS.

When Benny delivered the plug, I was able to install the ‘standby UPS’. It was connected to one of the servers in the automation. This server has two power supplies, and either one can provide power should the other fail. This standby UPS was connected to one of these two power supplies.

These UPSs have a lot of features that can be monitored and configured using a computer. The manual is on a CD provided with the UPS, so we downloaded it onto a computer for easier review.

For noon meal, Virginia and I decided to order Nasi Goreng carry-out from China Nobo Restaurant. It was delicious and there was enough for two meals for both of us. After lunch, we went to the site for the afternoon.

I removed the UPS from its packing box and began to assess what was needed to connect it. Initially I was thinking of using the cord from the large UPS (that actually belongs in town), but the diameter of its cord was much too large to allow attaching a standard 3 prong plug for connecting it to the output of the new UPS. I began searching around the site for a suitable cord — large enough to carry the required current, but small enough to fit the standard plug. I finally located some ‘Romex’ type cable and connected the standard plug.

I was then going to shut off the large UPS to retrieve the ‘receptacle’ socket from its output cable to attach to the cable I had just made. Here is where the next challenge came. How do you shut off a UPS? If you pull the power plug, the output is now powered by the battery backup! The large UPS requires a key to shut it off and there was no key. After calling Joe a couple of times, I finally located a key in a well hidden place. The time was now after 4 pm, so the decision was made to wait until tomorrow to make the transfer, rather than risk ‘on-air’ time.

Now back to where I left off yesterday — tracing the fire alarm wires. On the punch block located in the ceiling behind the audio rack, I found two wires of a 2 pair cable attached to the fire alarm terminals. The wires were traced to a terminal block on top of the audio rack with feed through terminals going inside the rack. Two wires went inside a plastic duct and by removing the cover the wires were easy to trace. They went down, then looped back up to — THEY ARE NOT CONNECTED!! Joe and I will need to discuss what to do from here. At least wires are already there, if we want to connect them for extra monitoring by the Gentner.

Now my curiosity motivated me to see where the other ‘fire alarm’ wire went. I found that it was attached to the bottom two terminals of all eight punch blocks in the phone panel and to the bottom two terminals of all three punch blocks in the transmitter hall. There was a two wire cable attached to the punch block located in the ceiling above the audio rack, but this cable did not go to the audio rack. By lifting numerous ceiling panels, I discovered it was attached to a transformer on a speaker (with grille) mounted in the ceiling. It dawned on me that this was the paging system for the whole building, and one of the punch block covers had written on it something about ’70 volt audio line’. I’m not sure that there is even a functional paging system any more. All the phones I have found are directly connected to an outside line and I don’t recall seeing a PA system anywhere.

This evening, we went for a walk along the shore into town. It seems the waves are lessening, so hopefully we can swim tomorrow evening.

For supper we had the left over nasi goreng from lunch.

Today, I again updated the ‘Security System Notes’. This draft is nearing completion, but I know of a couple more things that need to be added. One of these I researched this morning for checking out this afternoon at the site.

There was a ‘Comm Failure’ error on the security system keypad left from Friday when the men wanted to hear what ‘siren’ sounded like. Because the alarm was set off, it attempted to contact my cell phone eight times and a secondary phone eight times. These repetitive calls confirm to us that there is an alarm. Because the system is looking for a security company computer and did not get the response it expected, it recorded the above error. How to clear that error was my initial quest of the afternoon. I already knew the user code or the master code would not, therefore it was speculated that the installer code might do the trick. NOT so!! The only way found to clear it was by powering down the system, which requires resetting the clock. If necessary, we can live with this, but will investigate the possibility of also using the pager alert function of the system.

With the intent of providing additional monitoring by the Gentner controller, I began tracing wires from the old fire alarm system. I found two outputs. One goes to WEB, the electric company sharing the south end of our property, and turns on a fire alarm on their supervisory panel. The other goes somewhere in the building.

I found a label on a cable going out of the phone line distribution box that said fire alarm to Gentner, so decided to trace from there. After lifting ceiling panels, and following ducts through four rooms, I found that it ‘dead ended’ in the room that once housed the BBC 500kw transmitter. At one time, the Gentner must have been located there, but was later moved to its current location near the Nautel 100 kw transmitter.

I now began to more intently trace the second output from the old fire alarm system. Fortunately, among the hundreds of phone line wires, the wire colors for this pair remained the same. After passing through a couple of telephone punch blocks, the wires were traced to a punch block labeled ‘TX Hall’. To this was terminated a 33 pair cable with beige PVC jacket.

Now the challenge was to find the route the cable took to the transmitter hall, and where it ended. Again, lifting ceiling panels and tracing ducting (again in four rooms), I discovered it went into a conduit down the south wall of the transmitter room. Under a built-in desk were some doors concealing two more punch blocks. The PVC jacketed cable being traced terminated on one of the punch blocks. The fire alarm pair was jumper to the second punch block to which another cable was terminated, but this one had a braided shield over the outside.

I was fairly confident that this shielded cable terminated at a punch block in the ceiling just behind the audio rack for the transmitter. By now it was 5:30pm and time to head home. This search will continue tomorrow.

This evening we walked again, instead of swimming. The wind is out of the west, a very rare occurrence. It is almost always out of the east. This west wind results in large waves at our usual swimming beach and all along the west coast.

Today I decided to walk downtown and see the action since there was another cruise ship, Ventura, in the harbor. It is a big one again. I could see that a lot of people just stayed on the boat. Probably a good thing for Bonaire, but it seems to me to be a waste of a cruise to not see the places where they stop.

I like to see what kind of food the vendors are selling for the tourists. It’s easier to buy food there than to try to hunt down a restaurant that sells the type of food I want to try. Most of the restaurants seem to be mainly bars, so buying from the vendor, helps the locals and we can eat it wherever we like.

Today, the vendor had fish that she said was shark. She put some yellow spice on it before frying it. She served it with saute’ onions and green peppers. She also served some pickled red cabbage, pumpkin and rice. And she included some Tutu, which is a local dish. I found a recipe for you to look at or try. I am not sure that she used black-eyed peas or just regular red beans. She told me it was beans and maize, but she may not have known black-eyed peas in English. It looked like regular beans to me. It was very tasty. Would be a fun dish to try. She did not put butter or cheese on it either, but I think this is probably close to what we ate.

Tutu
(Corn Meal With Black Eyed Peas)
Adapted from The Jewish Kitchens of Curaçao

1 cup corn-meal
16 oz. packaged dry black-eyed peas
6 cups water
3 cups water
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
3 cups funchi or corn-meal
4 tablespoons butter or margarine

Cook the black-eyed peas in the 6 cups water until soft. Drain.
Add 3 cups of water to the peas and bring to a boil, then use a whisk or “lele stick” to break the peas. Add sugar and salt and whisk again. Taste for seasoning, and adjust if necessary.

Add corn-meal, and in a combination of beating and mashing the mixture, blend it well to avoid lumps using a wooden spoon. Reduce heat. Continue the beating/mashing technique until the meal disappears and the mixture pulls away from the sides of the pan. Add butter when done and either invert on a platter or use an ice cream scoop (dipped in water before each scoop) for individual portions. Serve with butter and cheese.

We took a picture of a trailer load of bicycles on their way to the cruise ship. Bicycles are a popular mode of transportation as well as a big sport on Bonaire.

I also took a picture of this sign advertising unusual things for sale. I have not yet had time to explore what the unusual things are.

In the evening we went for a walk and stopped in the ‘Mall’ and had ice cream. I had mango ice cream and it was very good and refreshing.

Harborside Mall is actually a walk way from the main street to the beach front, the width of two buildings. There are several small shops and an ice cream shop. There is also a second floor that has an art shop, a restaurant and other small shops.

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.