Yesterday, we finally made it into the water with our scuba gear. I got Tracys ready first so we could see if there were any problems with her buoyancy compensator(BC) jacket. It still has a small leak, actually a couple, that we will be working on. Just going to take some time and a bit of glue. We'll be going back to the store on Sunday that helped us on Wednesday trying to get it fixed. He may have found the part we needed. Once Tracy came back on board, we found bit of water inside the bladder of her jacket so we'll be looking into that also. Mine was fine with no leaks and the new regulator I brought into the US Virgins worked just fine. We dove for about 40 minutes before coming back to Zephyr to get everything washed, dried and stowed for the next dive. I'll be going in on Saturday morning and getting our tanks refilled. We bought a card for 21 fills and it's time to use two.

Today, we dropped the lines to our mooring buoy and took off the empty our black water(stuff from the head)tanks. We are one of the few that has tanks for the heads as most boats just pump it straight over board. Here in Bonaire, it's against the law to pump your black water over board. You have to go five miles of shore to do it. We left at 0900(20 to 25 knots of wind in the bay) and finally returned just before noon so we know we went out as far as needed. We were in water over 1,000 feet deep when I pushed the buttons on both forward and stern heads. Now our tanks are nice and empty for another ten days or so. Then we get to do it all over again. As for the other boats in the mooring field, many having been here for a long time, we never see them drop their lines and leave to take care of business so I figure they just pump over board what they leave in the head. I guess since they have no tanks, they have no choice. We who have tanks must leave as emptying them in the bay would cause problems for the reef. Our forward tank is about 25 gallons and the stern is 18. A little pumped overboard is fine but a lot at one session isn't. That's how we killed the morning.

When we returned, we moved farther east along the shore and took a different mooring. This ones lines were in great shape though the port side line was to short to make it to the deck where I could attach our lines to it. We did get attached to the starboard fitting and then Tracy jumped in and I handed her our line for the port side mooring line . She threaded it though the "eye" at the end of the mooring line and handed it back to me and I attached it to the forward cleat. After lunch, I put on my suit and dove down to attach a shackle to one of the mooring blocks and installed our back up line. Now we have three lines attached to the mooring blocks. Two of theirs and one of ours. We're not going any where.

The rest of the day was quiet as we waited for another boat to come in and crowd us here in the anchorage. So far(it's now 2230) none have shown up but there is always tomorrow. They have the buoys packed in here but with no anchoring in Bonaire, they have to. Imagine showing up here after a multi day/night passage and finding no where to tie off your boat unless you go into one of the expensive marinas. Not a good way to make friends with cruisers.

Tomorrow, we are headed into town as the Animal Shelter is having a "garage sale" of sorts where people drop off things they no longer want or need and the public can buy them. One of the scuba shops we went into suggested we stop in there as many times, people or shops donate used scuba gear. Maybe we can find a used buoyancy compensator instead of having to buy a new one. Once we are done with that , it's down to the dive shop and get our tanks filled. Then we will try and get in another dive. Hopefully the winds and waves will have stopped as it's never fun to get thrown around by big waves as you're trying to get in or out of a dinghy in full scuba gear. In the Baja, we say the "Buffalos are running". I'll let you know how that goes.

It's now Sunday afternoon and we are back from town. We got to the animal shelter right at 0800 since that was when they were to open. OOPS! We forgot that we are on "island time" and that means nothing starts when they say it does. We got to the restaurant where the advertisement said the "garage" sale was to be only to find nothing. One of the waitresses saw us just sitting out back as we waited for someone to show up. She knew nothing of any "garage sale" even after we showed her the advertisement. She went in and asked and surprise, surprise, it wasn't at the restaurant but across the street. No clue who wrote the notice but they sure got it wrong. As it was, nothing was actually ready to be sold till much closer to 0900 as everything they had inside had to be lugged outside and put up under four tents that they also had to put up. We saw several BIG tubs of what looked like scuba gear come out and after waiting a good bit, slowly wandered over to the tubs. What buoyancy compensators they had were MUCH worse than what we had. I did find another pair of fins as I needed some parts off them to fix my pair(bought in 1981!). The adjustment clip for my heel had started to snap and these had just the part I needed. Cost $10. Not bad as I saw another pair similar to what I had just bought at a scuba store for $165!
We hiked back to Puff and headed back to Zephyr to get our scuba tanks so we could get them filled. Tracy lowered them down to me and we took off for the dive shop. While there, I asked if they had any "BCs" for sale. Yes they did but at a different location farther down the shoreline. While they filled our tanks, we headed down only to be disappointed on what they had for sale. Old, no frills BCs that had been very well used. There wasn't a place for weights so Tracy would be wearing a separate weight belt. We passed on it-cost was $150(probably close to what they originally paid for them) where a brand new one with lots of extras was only $299. We returned to the dive center and still had to wait for the tanks as they still were not filled. Once done, I carried them to their dock and lowered them to Tracy and off we went back to Zephyr.
I still wanted to work on Tracys old BC but we needed to run the generator and it's darn near impossible to hear the "hiss" of escaping air with a generator running close by so I waited till after lunch(Tacos again--YEA!) and the batteries were full and between the two of us got hers fixed. I keep on board some nice pieces of rubber that were originally intended to be seals for the diesel tanks but one sheet has had a few chunks taken out of it over the last five years or so so it was time to take some more. I laid out a pattern on the rubber and cut around it in a somewhat nice circle. Cutting thick rubber with scissors never gives you a perfect cut or circle but it came out well and after we discussed what needed to be done some more, we had the parts we needed for some better seals as what was on it wasn't keeping the air in. It took some more work but we got it all together and after filling the BC with air and spraying soapy water over the valves, it looks like we have the leak sealed!!! No air appears to be making bubbles at any of the valves and the air I put in it 30 minutes ago seems to be staying as the jacket is still nice and puffy. We'll be going in the water tomorrow to try it out and then hiking to the dive store that was so nice to us a few days ago. He's checking his inventory of parts for something else that might help us solve the problem permanently.
I've attached a picture of some of the wind generators along the northwest coast of Bonaire. We counted 12 but saw more in other parts of the island during our golf cart ride. Cheap and environmentally friendly.