Regardless it was a stormy day with some rain, and it was pretty overcast all day. Who would have thought in just a couple hours this evening it would become so clear that you could see the moon and the stars so well? What a wonderful surprise!

I’ll try to take a few pictures tomorrow night and see if I can do a nighttime moonlight shot. Wow, maybe I’ll even crack out the tripod.

So the pictures are up and now I will have to be keeping up with the web-site more than I have been. Writing to my blog more than once every 4 months, LOL.

I’ll try to be changing things up every once in a while, especially where the pictures are concerned. The pictures now start up with scenes of Saba but perhaps in August I’ll change it up to dive pictures.

Hope you all enjoy!

See the story at http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,332038,00.html.

The aircraft that crashed was one that had given Steve and many others who worked on the the development of the aircraft much grief. If you think that these are just machines then you are somewhat incorrect, they each have a personality of sorts. This one in particular had been a problem child.

This crash is a pretty severe loss for the Air Force and represents 5% of their B-2 Bomber assets and there are only now 20 others surviving.

News of such an event draws to the forefront many memories of the fun and exciting work I got to do for this awesome bomber. It also brings up many friendships that were very strong and are still held dear.

While this crash is the first I guess it will not be the last but let’s hope the next is off in the distant future.

While back in Seattle over Christmas I purchased boxed noodles by Farm house and Pasta Roni to pack in a box and ship to Saba. That was just a small part of the goods shipped to Saba but unfortunately they shared the box with Otter Pops for the kids. Well the box was not treated with care so some of the Otter Pops did some popping creating… liquid to be absorbed by the boxes of noodles. Without too much detail about the state of affairs when the box finally arrived, lets just say all but 2 boxes of noodles were thrown out and I’d say about 12 of the Otter Pops were empty leaving the rest to require washing and then drying.

Perhaps those Saba grocery owners aren’t interested in soggy merchandise, do ya think?! Perhaps since the only way to get groceries to the island is by boat… close to water… that means there is a likelihood of soggy merchandise.

The light is now on and I do understand. Perhaps for very similar reasons there are no Otter Pops on the island either, ya think?!

Regardless, rations (that survived the epoch journey) have been stowed, and we are now mostly good to go with what we have for the year!

When making bread the old fashioned way (from scratch) I always worry that I will make the liquid too hot, killing the yeast. I wanted a candy thermometer so I could be assured that my liquid was the correct temperature.

Keep in mind that it is after noon on a Saturday which means on Saba that the single “department” and hardware stores on the island have already closed for the weekend but there are some utensils at Big Rock, one of the local grocery stores. They certainly had one for 27.10 gilders, which equates to $15.05 US. Fifteen dollars for a candy thermometer? That is worse than highway robbery. This was no Crate n Barrel kind of gizmo it was the standard Dollar store variety or perhaps the kind from Fred Meyer for $2.99. Good grief! I gave up in disgust and decided that maybe the meat thermometer would have to be good enough for the job even though the needle will barely rise from the peg to indicate the correct temperature.

On to the next oddity… When Steve got back on Saba after spending Christmas in the states the car battery was completely dead. He borrowed a battery charger and charged the battery to no avail. After fiddling with that for over a week, we then called Auto Depot in St. Maarten and asked them to put a battery and some other auto parts on the Dawn II ferry for us. It took us 3 tries to get the goods from the store. So we finally had the stuff, but the battery that we received was dry, i.e. had no battery acid in it to make it hold a charge. After discovering that distilled water will not do, we had to find battery acid on Saba, yeah right!? One mechanic would not sell us any without selling a new battery too. Another happened to have given the last of his away the week before and would order more. Finally after Steve shared this story with a very helpful local he learned that the body shop had some. Two tries to the body shop and we were in business with acid in the battery. We hooked it up to the charger and… nothing!!!

After a month of waiting and trying different things we gave up and have learned now that when you ask for a battery you have to ask for one that is wet or “ready to use”, LOL… I thought they all were, at least that is how it is back home. Not so here. Sometimes I don’t think I am old enough to survive being dropped back to the 1950’s. Whew!

Just one more thing. We live next to the construction of 2 new houses. These houses are nearing completion or at least completion of the outside and plumbing, etc. The electric company (GEBE) came on Friday with their big truck with a cherry picker on it and blocked the road so we could not get out and turned the electricity off for most of the day. Boy is that fun! Then on top of that with no fans to circulate air flow the neighbors, who didn’t have electricity either, thought it was a good day to Clorox the outside of their house along with their gutters. Gotta love that bleach smell!

All that to say in the span of just 2 days. Stay tuned I am sure there will be more to say.

Life is good. Now the biggest hold up is time.