Saturday morning is the one day of the week that we can sleep in an extra hour or so, which we did. I was just getting up when someone called from outside to say I needed to move the car out of our driveway. They were going to pour a new gate post and were letting us know that it would be trapped inside the yard for the weekend.

This morning, Virginia wanted me to repair the gas dryer in the outside utility room. With high humidity the past few days, it has been difficult to get things dry. The dryer drum belt was missing (apparently broken) but there was a replacement belt on a shelf beside the dryer. I popped the top up, took two screws out near the

top of the front panel and lifted the front up about a 1/4″ to gain full access. That part was amazingly easy, then I saw the idler pulley assembly laying in the bottom with no screws and wondered where it was supposed to go! Fortunately a drawing on the package for the belt showed a typical installation. From this, I figured out that one end of the assembly fits into a slot in the bottom panel of the dryer and the tension of the belt holds it in place.

I put all the panels back on and started it, only to hear a ‘thump’ on every revolution. This was resolved when it was discovered that the plastic bearing surface attached to the front edge of the drum had slipped out of place. Some of the plastic clips that hold it in place were broken, but when put back in the correct position the remaining clips held it OK. Now, after again replacing the panels, the dryer was up and running great.

We planned to do some sightseeing after a lunch of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and ice tea, but rain began to pour down during lunch. Now Virginia was really glad that the dryer was working! As the rain kept up for quite a long time, with water running

everywhere we decided to take the opportunity to work on updating our blogs. We heard later today that Curacao, around 40 miles west of Bonaire, received the equivalent of its annual rainfall in one day! Glad it was not that bad here.

After the rain let up, we went shopping. Some of the things we were wanting were missing and in their place were empty shelves with a sign apologizing because Hurricane Tomas had delayed their shipments. Some of the things we noticed missing were spaghetti, cheese and butter.

Weather was looking pretty good after shopping, so we decided to see what the ‘new’ road from Belnem going across the island to Sorobon was like. Before doing so, we elected to make a detour via Salt Pier to see how loading of the United Tenorio was progressing.

On the way, we noticed that waves were really crashing against the east shore which is usually very calm. This precipitated a stop at Bachelor Beach, where we used to frequently swim, to take a photo. This was much worse than the effects of Hurricane Tomas — must be from the storm that passed through earlier.

Moving on down to Salt Pier, we noted that the second of five holds was now being filled. At this rate, the United Tenorio will spend at least two, maybe three, days at Salt Pier.

Since we were near the transmitter site, I decided to run a test of the security system by switching it off, then later coming back after the auto-arming programmed time to verify that it had indeed armed itself. On our way into the site, we noticed that the water had risen even higher and was over the paved road. Fortunately, it was not more than a couple of inches deep. I entered the building, disarmed the system, then locked the door upon leaving,

We now began our trip from Belnem to Sorobon. This must be the straightest road any where on Bonaire. With all the black marks seen on the pavement, it looks like it is also being used for a drag strip! It definitely seems to be the fastest way straight across the island east/west. When we got to Sorobon, there was a big group having a party on the beach. We also noticed that there were a lot of cars, most of them rented, at the Naturist Resort.

We came back the same way to Belnem then went to the site to check the security system. It had auto-armed as it was supposed to.

Due to the high waves, Virginia and I took a short walk tonight along the shore, then came home for a supper of nasi chicken. ‘Nasi’ is the Indonesian work for rice. We used some mango chutney on it, which really gave it an excellent flavor.