I got to work this morning and started Netscape w/Bonaire Web Cams The Works as my homepage (Naturally). I could not believe the colors on the North Cam, may be the morning light, could be a flashback, could just be a spectacular day in Bonaire. Anyway here it is.



At least it's not Parrot Poop.

Minor Duh. I just noticed that this is an old image and I'm not getting new images. No wonder the lighting look so different, I never get to see it this early in the morning. I wonder if the feed from Bonaire is down, I need new images. (Talk about needing a life)

Cecil, I was thinking the same thing. It looks so amazing today. It's so nice that we get to share in the beauty even when we're not there. = )
Of course I saw the same picture when I checked in at 9:43 this morning. Time seems to have stopped today in Bonaire.

The feed just came back up. New images, I feel much better now.

The lines between Bonaire and the rest of the world have been very bad the last couple days. On Tuesday, I could not get a line out for over two hours. The images are still captured and saved up to be uploaded later into the archives. So if some one was scheduled to be "seen" on one of the cams during an outage, the missed captures can be retreived by Jake or myself. Jake is suppose to develop an archiving program so visitors can search as well.

The only thing that would result in totally missed captures would be a long power outage on Bonaire. We good for a few hours on battery and we have a back up generator so its not likely to be a problem.

It looks like I spoke to soon the lines must be down again (It's stuck on 11:02 now). Linda, do the same people run the phone lines in Bonaire run the California Electric companies? : )

The same thing happened a couple of days ago. I made a capture of some fish, and much to my suprise they were in exactly the same position for quite a while. Oh, but it would be nice if time would stop (but not freeze everything) for those that are there.

Kris,not the first time looking at the island,especially Cecil's wonderful sunset"Pefect Timing' Thread of a couple of weeks ago ,that it seems Bonaire and Brigadoon are related.If you haven't seen that one,do look. The whole bowl of sky and water are captured. And the Samur looks like she's about to sail over the edge of the world into forever.Cecil, If I say 'Kerri wanna capture' nicely,could you do a Gif of 'Perfect Timing' and this morning's sunrise for me? You've earned your freedom from those who'd poo-poo your pooh-pics with those two.IMHO

Kerri, I converted those picture to GIF's and they look terrible. Sure you don't want the JPG's. Thanks for the compliments here is the Sail into the Sunset picture (since the feed is still not working).

Actually, Dan's the one developing the archive retrieval program (gotta make sure that I don't take the "blame" for it) :-)

Jake

Well since the feed is still down (Jake/Linda What does Bonaire use a cable or satellite?). Here's a shot I took last January in Bora Bora of a double rainbow. I use this shot for my wallpaper (reduced to 50k for this upload), memories, memories.



ps. Kerri did you want me to E-mail those images to you?

Thanks Cecil...I just made bora bora my wallpaper too. And as far as the CA electric company...they took a bad idea, didn't run it by the voters...and now look what has happended. We haven't experienced any rolling blackouts where we are, but there have been some that have up north. There is acutally some business street in LA that still has all of their christmas lights up and running 24/7. They say they can't get the equipment to get up to them to take them down. If you think I am joking, I am not!

whew....sorry I just had to vent

Beautiful picture Cecil! Thanks for sharing with us. I'm having withdrawal today.

I just tried to ping our servers on Bonaire (the capture server, among other), and the connection in Miami is not letting things through (I'm in DC today, back to NY tonight, and finally home to Bonaire on Saturday - yeah!). I know Linda is majorly frustrated at not being able to maintain a good connection out to the rest of the world via the Internet - it's been a pain all week, but today is particularly bad... Of course, for those of us stateside, it's a pain too :-(

As far as the type of link Bonaire has to the rest of the world, it's a fiber optic link from Bonaire to Curacao and from there to Miami. There's a back-up satellite link from Curacao to New York which gets kicked in when the fiber link will be out for a while.

Jake

What scares the hell out of me is that New Hampshire is getting ready to deregulate our utilities. Hopefully they will learn from Ca. debacle.

Cynde, you used the 50k jpg for your wallpaper. Do you want me to e-mail the bitmap, which is 2.29 Megs?

Great picture cecil.
I wanna go back to Bora Bora with Cecil. Come to think of it I wanna go anywhere with anyone where I can be warm and dive.

Jake and Linda - Hang in there, we'll give ya moral support. We feel your aggravation and appreciate your effort.

Alan

I use a great picture of the Hilma Hooker as wallpaper.

unfortunatley I cannot post it but can email if someone would like

Wow! Great Bora Bora picture, Cecil. Much better than the parrotfish p... Absolutely Beautiful!

I'm back for the moment. Cruising at... cough..cough 392 bytes/sec. That's right folks bytes. And going down 365

Thanks to Ellen I will try this again.

Thanks to Ellen I will try this again.

Cecil, yes, email me the bit map. And Barry, I would love to see the Hilma Hooker, can you email it to me? Thanks in advance gentlmen.

Cecil, hope and pray that they do not deregulate the utilities, or else in a few years you will be in the boat we are in. It is not a viable plan and has not worked anywhere it has been implemented as far as I am aware. The Governor has declaired a state of emergency.

Hang on Linda! Do what I do when I am at home with my ancient machine...I click to go somewhere...go clean something...come back and it is usually up, look, type, hit enter to go somewhere else...go clean something else. I get a lot of house work done while I am surfing the net!

ohboyohboyoboyoboyCecil yes,please an e-mail.And could I get BoraBora too,please. And,since you've been in the Pacific. Do you have a Moorish Idol? And just for Jake's benefit,so I never confuse my watermasses with a North American Oriental Restaurant Aquarium again, do you have a real grown-up Yellow Tang. I believe the pic 4 down on the right of your SeaScout posting was a grown-up Blue?.Yes,I'll try Jpeg, it's supposed to work with Webster here.And speaking of utilitiesthe loonies currently running our government are also talking Dereg. Fortunately,Cynde,California is providing the horrible example that's giving them pause.Course they won't admit they're wrong. But with enough time we can un-elect these Bozos!venting is good!Oooh Barry,I'll take the Hooker since you're offering!:-)

Do you know why we love these Boards? We love Bonaire? Mebbe.We like each other? ehhhhhhh. We think Linda and Jake are swell? Could be. Naaahh. The reason is,who else among your friends will not only sit still for "My Vacation" show and tell,but encourage you to show MORE! And then ask if you'd give them a copy for their own!!!! Just a thought to ponder on a cold and snowy Friday night!:-)

Kerri, Cynde Bora Bora is on it's way. Kerri I'll have to wait till I get to work for the other two. Moorish Idol ??? The Tahitians are predominatly Catholic except for the occasional headhunter(to much Gungi).

I finally understand the Yellow and Blue Tang comment. Nice somebody actually went to the Scout page. One note of historical significance, the first picture at the Airport, I have glasses on, never again. Thank god for Lasers, Lasik surgery and cheap Canadian Health Care. I've yet to dive with my new eyes, I can't wait. No contacts to worry about, close and distant object in focus, almost as good as sex. I always say there are three times when glasses suck; Working Out, Swimming/Diving and Fooling Around. : )

My house would be really clean by now but I wouldn't want Jake to not recognize his own home when he finally drags his frozen you-know-what back home.

I've got a couple of volunteers (on island already - sorry guys) to clean the lens come Saturday.

A surreal ending for an "unreal" day...I've been seeking out as much diversion from reality as possible today - MASHA DANKI!!

Good stuff D. That big empty sea just waiting for you.And me. And Barry.And Cecil.And Alan.And Cynde.And on.And on. We could start a whole new country of our own.

Awesome Dara. Thanks for saving these for us. Soothing to the soul. I was sitting here thinking along the same line as my friend Kerri M...and here she posted my thoughts.

That's what I needed today," back to Bonaire", masha danki for the inspirations!
The pic of Bora Bora are beautifuL!!If we ever decide to anywhere else ,that is one of the places I've thought of, reconfirmed my thoughts of it, thanks!

Lorraine, French Polynesia is truly spectacular. The islands and the people are the best. Well worth doing, we did it for the millineum celebration. As great as it is, it is not cheap. My trip cost about $8,000 for 10 days. I'd still do it again.

I can think of three famous people who threw everything away to go live in Tahiti; Fletcher Christian(mutiny on the Bounty), Degua (sp French painter) and Marlon Brando. I've considered it myself.

On Moorea there are 12,000 people, one third do tourism, one third do agriculture and one third do nothing(ie. fish the reef, eat coconut crabs). To the Tahitians the choice is yours. I'm leaning towards the last. I've talked to the wife, if we sell everything (including the teenager) and went and lived on a motu (coral island). We could probably get by on $7,000 a year (that's for booze and tank fills). We must have our dreams, you know.

Has anyone heard of Webshots.com? I down loaded it and now all I have to do is right click on any pictures I see and save them to it. It will adjust the pictures to the perfect size to use for the desktop and or screensaver. My screensaver is all Bonaire pictures from posts from the newsgroup. You can also double click on the picture and it becomes your desktop. It is really neat.

I agree with Cecil's assessment of French Polynesia. One of my favorite memories of Bora Bora is while visiting a thatch roof maker's motu, a group of little kids was running around on the beach followed by their dog. They ran in the house, out of the house, down the beach, into the shed, total mayhem and fun. When they ran close to us, we discovered their "dog" was actually a pig! Wonderful people, beautiful children, fantastic scenery and very romantic. I am not sure we will ever be able to afford to go back, but it was indeed the trip of a lifetime.

Unfortunately, as a result of our trip to Bora Bora, we are hopelessly hooked on coral reefs in general, and will spend the rest of our lives eating peanut butter and crackers so that we may save enough to visit places like Bonaire, Bora Bora, and the GBR. Dreaming of tropical places helps us cope with Wyoming prairie winters! Dream on!

Cecil, French Polynesia makes me dream... BTW, I think it was French painter Paul Gauguin who went to Tahiti. Edgar Degas stayed in Paris at the Ballet... :-) [just the remnants of a Fine Arts degree in the ancient past...]

Niki, Thanks for the correction.

Hazel, my favorite memory was on my first full day on Moorea we did an island tour. We stopped at a small store on the far side of the island to pick up bread (Fresh French bread naturally) for lunch. An elderly Tahitian woman showed up to get her afternoon bread and she had a fresh flower in her hair. Now since we were about as far from the tourist areas as you can get, it struck me that the Tahitians puts fresh flowers in their hair because they can, not for the touristas. It was quite an epiphany for me.

In all of my ramblings about French Polynesia and it's people do not detract from my equally warm feelings for Caribbean and it's people. It must be the warm climate, because you do not seem to get the same warmth and outward love from cold climate people. There's something to be learned for all of us.

Cool story, Cecil. I agree - the cold makes me cranky! 43 days.....

Me,too,Hazel and Cecil. I'd a lot rather meet people wrapped in a sarong,with orchids and hibiscus in my hair, than in my pjays with the feet in,wrapped in a once-was-flannel robe,with my nose the colour of orchids and hibiscus.Oh,yeah! The cold makes me\blinkcranky,too.

Me,too,Hazel and Cecil. I'd a lot rather meet people wrapped in a sarong,with orchids and hibiscus in my hair, than in my pjays with the feet in,wrapped in a once-was-flannel robe,with my nose the colour of orchids and hibiscus.Oh,yeah! The cold makes mecranky,too.

I can't wait, 7 more days

Thanks for the tip Darlene. I downloaded webshots and now have many desktop options. I haven't figured out how to move pics from this site to my desktop though. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Also, your not that far from us. We live in Cambridge and enjoy Bonaire very much. Our most recent trip was from 12/28/00 to 1/10/01 and we hope to return in July 01. We had the fine pleasure of meeting Jake and Linda and even participating in a cleanup dive with Jake. July seems so far away. I will continue to visit this site though as it keeps me as close to Bonaire as I'm going to get until July.