Bonaire Crime - Our experience - Looking for input to share

[Pedroinspain]

Being this thread is gotten so funny, Here some photos I found on the net for snorkeling at windsock, Bonaire .. Windsock made the top 10 list #8 in fact... My Cousin and his girlfriend went to Bonaire and loved the snorkeling... I'll let the photos and facts speak for themselves ...
10 Amazing Snorkeling Spots in the Caribbean

http://www.caribbeanandco.com/wp-co...Swimming-b5448c0e6c55a643017441113491ad7e.jpg

https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/02/46/2f/19/klein-bonaire-coral-reef.jpg

http://media.buzzle.com/media/image.../1200-99546333-snorkeling-with-sea-turtle.jpg

And a nice little 4 minutes of real life snorkeling on Bonaire...
And I just got off the phone with the head of Bonaire and He said the minute the rest of the world fixes their DRUG and Petty crime problems, Be sure to head down and fix Bonaire... Till then, They will be sitting on the beach drinking a ice cold bright and enjoying the sun shine....

Jim...

Jim, here is a genuine travel forum quote:
Mike F.: “Snorkelers beware of Bonaire! Bonaire may be great for divers, but is NOT for snorkelers. … Hurricane Lenny apparently wiped out the shallow coral in Bonaire in 1999. What Lenny didn't take out, Hurricane Omar finished off. Nearly every place we went was nothing but rubble. The reef typically begins at a drop-off anywhere from 25 feet to a hundred feet from shore. If hovering over coral in 50 feet of water is your idea of a great snorkel-you will love it. Otherwise this place is not worth going to. … There are two different books on "Best snorkel spots" Don't buy them, they are crap. "Oil Slick" rated "Excellent snorkel" is coral rubble. Andrea 1 & Andrea 2 rated "excellent snorkel" is coral rubble. "Bari's Reef" rated "Excellent Snorkel" is coral rubble."

And, Jim, as you noted, Windsock, a top-10 Bonaire snorkel site is ..... crap, unless you find hanging way above the reef, where the detail is an olive blur, to be fun, as Mike noted. Your photos were not from Windsock nor from any of the shore-based snorkel sites.. Much of the video was taken by a diver. They are all from the western end of Klein Bonaire. You get to them with Woodwind. And yes, some of those sites are fairly decent, but they are few. If all the snorkellers on Bonaire had to frequent them ..... *shudders* There are two great snorkel sites accessible from the main shore .... out of what, over 70? Imagine 400+ people going there, so I won't mention where they are. And back to a mega-negative getting to the Klein Bonaire locations with Woodwind. 4 persons for 13 days at $65 per trip = $3380.

Here is a photo from Andrea 1 - nice fish; the usual crap main-shore coral plus rubble and a few live bladed fire corals. I have hundreds just like it. I have super photos from my diving. Our debate is not about that.

The next two photo, also mine, also snorkelling, same depth; same camera (Olympus Tough G4) are not from Bonaire.

 

[scubadada]

mmmbelows:

I do not pretend the rental agency insistence on leaving windows down & doors unlocked has no connection to crime. It's clearly in response to it. I don't know anyone who pretends otherwise. My home door locks are a response to the threat of burglary.

While the specifics of crime vary by location, you can find it most everywhere, and it turns out rental vehicle petty theft concerns are not unique to Bonaire, nor is the wisdom of some of the risk mitigation practices.

That said, I agree with NetDoc's last post, stick a fork in it, it's done.

Richard.

It was already done, unfortunately, several had to get in the last word. This thread has repeated many times, as usual, no progress made, everyone takes sides. Go to Bonaire or not, your choice

Running over the same old ground, what have we found? The same old fears, wish you were here. Gilmour, Waters, 1975

 

[Lemuzzon]

It's not like renting a vehicle elsewhere that one renter out of 100 MIGHT park in some remote location frequented by vandals.

This. Obviously the thiefs in Bonaire have learned how to take advantage of opportunities. In Vancouver theft from vehicles is relatively minuscule, but go to any walk-in-campsite in the surrounding area (and there are hundreds) and you will see signs plastered all over the parking lot advising against leaving any valuables in your car and suggesting to leave your doors unlocked. The parking lots are often completely surrounded by trees, a few miles from any town and a few hundred feet from the actual campsites. Generally, campers have expensive gear and will leave SOMETHING in their car. This all adds up to it being the perfect robbery opportunity and the local low-lifes know that. However, it doesn't deter me from going camping where I want to go camping.

I don't really find it that weird that the rental car companies in Bonaire have told people to leave their doors unlocked as a result of high theft rates. I would be thankful for the suggestion. I've stayed at many accommodations in my life (from hostels to 5 star hotels) that will make you sign a waiver along the lines of "...any damage to drywall or furniture will result in a penalty of [insert ridiculous amount of money]." They're simply reacting to multiple bad situations in the past.

Obviously I understand the logic behind leaving your car door unlocked, but I don't think it's a good idea in most situations. If I left a $20 bill on my dash, I would think someone may try the door and if it's locked, their thought process would be to carry on. I doubt that most people would take it to the next level and smash the window. But, as Lorenzoid pointed out, places like Bonaire are a rare situation, where there's likely no one around to hear someone going through the window...

 

[mmmbelows]

Bonaire is unique in that every single vehicle that is rented WILL be parked at some time--probably multiple times in a week--at a remote site at which vandals have been known to prowl and can easily pull off a smash-and-grab without anyone seeing them. They can hide in the brush until nobody is around, complete the crime in two minutes, and be off into the brush again. They know the drivers are out in the water and may very well have left some personal item hidden in the truck rather than take it in the water. I can't name anywhere else in the world with this perfect storm of conditions.

It's not like renting a vehicle elsewhere that one renter out of 100 MIGHT park in some remote location frequented by vandals. It's certainly not like hotel rooms or homes, where there are enough potential witnesses around that would-be burglars think twice. Bonaire is unique in this respect.

I love your description of the problem, you've summed it up succinctly and demonstrated how easily the problem can be solved if they wanted to. A tiny number of known crime scenes, police couldn't ask for an easier set of circumstances to catch criminals and end the crime.

 

[DustyC]

As I said before, in most major cities in the U.S. a car break in will get a phone report most of the time. We don't send cars out for them, ever. It's a waste of time. Some still do, when they can.

 

[Lorenzoid]

I love your description of the problem, you've summed it up succinctly and demonstrated how easily the problem can be solved if they wanted to. A tiny number of known crime scenes, police couldn't ask for an easier set of circumstances to catch criminals and end the crime.

I don't know anything about Bonaire's police force--maybe you do--but I suspect it's a lot more than a "tiny number" relative to the number of police officers and vehicles they appear to have available. During a week-long stay there might be one or two times I sight a police vehicle out on the road. I do think the police could increase the patrols of, say, the 5 or 10 sites that seem ripest for criminals to take advantage of. But I suspect the police don't have the manpower to monitor even those sites all day long. If they roll through twice or even three times a day for a few minutes at each of those sites, that's a lot of man-hours, and is it really going to make a difference? The miscreants will just wait until they see the officers leave, knowing they won't be back for hours. If you have reason to believe the police are sitting around in their offices with their feet up when they could be out patrolling, please share your knowledge.

 

[ontdiver]

Just in case someone actually wants to follow up with the police here is a link: Bonaire

 

[mmmbelows]

I don't know anything about Bonaire's police force--maybe you do--but I suspect it's a lot more than a "tiny number" relative to the number of police officers and vehicles they appear to have available. During a week-long stay there might be one or two times I sight a police vehicle out on the road. I do think the police could increase the patrols of, say, the 5 or 10 sites that seem ripest for criminals to take advantage of. But I suspect the police don't have the manpower to monitor even those sites all day long. If they roll through twice or even three times a day for a few minutes at each of those sites, that's a lot of man-hours, and is it really going to make a difference? The miscreants will just wait until they see the officers leave, knowing they won't be back for hours. If you have reason to believe the police are sitting around in their offices with their feet up when they could be out patrolling, please share your knowledge.

You were doing good, then you went all negative. Not very hard to arrest a dozen known thieves on an island of 15,000 people that is only about 100 square miles in size with one main road going around it, especially when everybody already knows who they are. "Jimmy what you doin on the ring road in the middle of nowhere carrying a stolen car battery? You aren't stealing again now are you?, what's that in your pocket, a camera? Is this yours? It is, okay let me look at that, how you take these pictures dated yesterday of people in snow?"

 

[Lemuzzon]

You were doing good, then you went all negative. Not very hard to arrest a dozen known thieves on an island of 15,000 people that is only about 100 square miles in size with one main road going around it, especially when everybody already knows who they are. "Jimmy what you doin on the ring road in the middle of nowhere carrying a stolen car battery? You aren't stealing again now are you?, what's that in your pocket, a camera? Is this yours? It is, okay let me look at that, how you take these pictures dated yesterday of people in snow?"

This made me LOL. You're right to a degree. But if everybody knows everybody, maybe the cops don't want to arrest them. Like "hey Jimmy, what you got there a camera? Hmmm, where'd you get this camera? You better give me half the money for selling this or else I'll call your parents and have to put you in jail."

I haven't been to Bonaire, but I had my camera stolen from underneath my tshirt, an arms reach away on the beach in El Nido, Philippines. By the sound of it, the town is much smaller than Bonaire, with one tiny police station. The only people, other than my friends, that came near us when it was stolen were the little kids selling beads. I bet their parents would be happy to try to sell it on their behalf and if the cops ever found the kids with it I bet they'd confiscate it to sell it themselves. It's not the same as breaking into a car, but I bet the principle of catching a thief thereafter is basically the same...

 

[gbf]

What I find disturbing in this thread are the many supporters of Amstel and Brights. Clearly Polarcita is a much better choice.

I have found beer preference to be a very personal thing, subject to strong opinions and controversy - I guess such a discussion is not much of a hijack.