Getting Ready

We are getting ready for a National Park trip from Chicago to San Fransisco with major stays in Glacier and Yosemite. By chance, Pop Pop recently read a fascinating book called Second Nature by Michael Pollen. He argues that the Thoreau ideal of "romantic nature" where we are but observers of beautiful vistas should be confined to spectacular spaces like Yosemite, but that our real ideal should be the garden, or a place where man is not only part of nature, but adds to its usefulness and splendor. So later blogs may just drool over spectacular vistas, but may also speculate how we should interact with nature in a balanced, responsible way. As a start, here are some pictures of our current (home) garden, a place where we have tried to interact in a way consistent, hopefully, with Pollen's principles.

Growing coral

I mentioned earlier how the coral is growing, but not as colorful as thirty + years ago. Here are a series of primarily coral pictures, just to show what is going on under the waves.

Butterflies

Earlier, I promised some pictures of the butterflies. It is a small area to view, but very nice if you like butterflies (we do).

Bonaire - north side

Bonaire is shaped like a boomerang with the outer edge pointing northeast (to the open Carribean and Atlantic) and the inner edge pointing to adjacent Venezuala. Soo ... you snorkel on the inner, leeward side, and - not so much - on the northern side.

Bonaire's south side

Bonaire has one of the world's most unusual sights: a Cargil "farm" for sea salt. They have taken about 20% of the southern tip of Bonaire and made what look like rice paddies except the flat areas just have sea water in them. As the water evaporates, what is left is salt, which is piled into hills of the white stuff, and loaded onto ships docking at the end of a humongous conveyor belt. Other "southern" sights include the town, a mangrove swamp, a butterfly sanctuary (pics on that in a separate blog), and flamingos.

Schools of fish

Not all fish swim alone - in fact, schools and congregation abound. The blue tangs are interesting - pale blue if the sun shines on them, deep black if the sun is behind them.

Fish in water

We are here for the fish - so here are some fish. These are one off - next blog we'll post schools and fish groups. THe pictures are for a French anglefish, a blue parrot fish, and a blue tang.

Harbor Village

Well, here we go with another test. Techy doofus Pop Pop (aka Popsie) locked himself out of the "travel" computer, and had to get MicroCenter to erase my password. Because of that, we did not have the portable laptop in Bonaire in February/March. Some of the pics were good, however, so this is a late blog of a Feb/Mar vacation. We stayed at Harbor Village in Bonaire, so we'll open with a few pictures of the digs and our buddies for the next two weeks, Iggies.

Spring has sprung!

This is the "berry" year: raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, bush cherries, and elderberries. We already are harvesting spinach and lettuce due to an early planting under "hoops."

The big row of plants just in front of the shed is full of garlic, planted last fall. Hopefully we'll have garlic to eat and store.

Return to Rio

We're back in Rio, flying out tonight for ATL and PHL. As we came back, we saw some Carnaval "mummer's" in Receife. For our last day, we walked the Copacabana beach - here are pictures of the beach and hotel.

More faces

For our faces today, we show Fernando, Rudolfo and Kaia, and Stephanie. Fernando, who is from Naronha, pulled Donna completely across Baia do Sueste to see turtles, a shark, a school of sardines and some very big fish interested in a few sardines.

Rudolfo and Kaia were our captain and first mate as we went snorkeling around Naronha,and eating freshly prepared fish (sushi and stew).

Stephanie is typical of Brazilians on the move. She wanted to learn English better, had difficulty getting a visa from the U.S.; Britain was too expensive; so she went to Queenstown, N.Z. for a degree in wine. Who knew you can study wine in college?

Maravilha

A place is just a place, but Maravilha on Naronha is very special. We chose a couple of pics from the surroundings to give a sense of the feel for our posada. One is the view to the bay out of the dining room, one a path to our room, and finally, a view of a wild lily bloom that lined the walks, and appeared each day in the flower arrangement at out table for breakfast and diner.

Good-bye Brazil

We wish all the best to Brazil, and all the warm, friendly people we met on this trip. We are particularly grateful to our guides, Teo, Ricardo, Marcelo, Carlos, and Celina. A very special thanks to our guide in Fernando de Naronha, Adrianna, who made the island stay really come alive, with beaches, boats, food, and most of all, snorkeling. Also, hats off to Fernando, Rudolfo, and Kaia, who led us in the water to sights we never imagined.

For our closing pics, we have chosen our mode of transportation on Naronha, the Yellowjacket," a view of Praia do Leao, one of the three (all tied for top three) "best beaches in Brazil," and all on Noronha. And Leao deserves every accolade! When we took the picture, we were the only ones on the beach, and it reminded us of The Lonely Planet. Later, a total of 16 people sat and swam on a mile-long piece of heaven on earth.

Finally, we had to close with a sunset over Naronha.

On the water

Today we took a boat ride around two of the "off" islands and the length of the northwest coastline facing Brazil (but 300 miles away). Our captain and mate were Rudolfo, who hailed from Receife (but has been in these waters over 20 years, and Kaia, a native islander who is one of the island's surfing champions. They know these waters! We ran with several hundred dolphins, but it is hard to catch moving dolphins above the water with a camera. Rudolfo prepared a delicious sushi, and a fish stew (onions, potatoes, garlic, ginger, soy sauce, and freshly caught fish all included) for lunch - mmmmm! The frigate birds loved a few morsels of sushi scraps.

More faces

A big part of any vacation is eating, but not at Micky Dees. Here are three faces - Fabio, the head chef at our posada, Maravilha. He trained at the Greenbriar, and next week, he is moving on to the Cateract Hotel in Iguassu, where we stayed at the start of this trip. Adrianna is a Brzilian from Sao Paulo who graduated from Cornell and is married to an American. Adriana's husband writes for Lonely Planet. Adrianna has guided us around the island made our stay here on Naronha memorable. The third pic is Rafaella (where else, also from Sao Paulo) who works at Mergulhao, a wonderful restaurant with sunset views, and cool breezes.