Bonaire going down the drain??

[VooDooGasMan]

Soo is the cruise ships stopping on Island now, the fella that I rented a house there say's the hotel stop for a reason I do not recall, besides had to do with the ships of some sort.

The one thing I did know is the fence business was always there from the donkeys eating your plants and making a mess.




Happy Diving

 

[rye_a]

Soo is the cruise ships stopping on Island now, the fella that I rented a house there say's the hotel stop for a reason I do not recall, besides had to do with the ships of some sort.

The one thing I did know is the fence business was always there from the donkeys eating your plants and making a mess.

My brain hurts.

 

[Mossman]

Unfortunately (I know this becomes touchy now) this did not apply to places where the locals had African roots, like many other islands in the Caribbean (Curacao!!) and Pacific seas, USA and certain places in Europe, naturally in Africa (I spent many years of my professional life in Africa and could write books about this issue).
Stealing is part of their daily life for most of them, in Africa we had to live in camps with big fences and armed guards, not funny at all.

Coming back to Bonaire, the building industry is thriving, strangely enough you will hardly see locals working, almost all workers (untrained as well) are "imported" from South America, there would be lots of jobs for the locals they, but obviously it is easier and less strenuous for them to live from social payments.
They should better work and earn money, in that case there would be no need to steal t-shirts from tourists.

Sounds a lot like the way poor Aryan folk in Germany blamed their woes on wealthy Jews, then used that an excuse to steal all their worldly possessions, confine them in concentration camps, then kill them.

In fact, the Africans you bemoan were originally stolen from their homes by rich white Dutch. The alternative was staying at home to become slaves in Dutch diamond mines. At least in Africa, it's not much different today.

In the old days you guys could have simply done an ethnic cleansing of the island. Today, I guess you'll just have to deal with it or stay at home. Preferably the latter.

 

[Mike]

No one expects that divers will clear the Caribbean of LF. They can however keep their numbers down on the reefs that divers frequent. When their numbers grow much larger, we will be able to economically harvest them with rov's and/or tech divers, and/or slave divers like the Honduran lobstermen(see the article in DAN's magazine).

Here is a clip of cooking and eating LF. Sorry for the background noise, it's the compressors running

ROVS and Honduran Tech divers harvesting lion fish?

I have to guess you meant that as a joke?

Unless you're talking about solid gold lionfish that we don't know about?

 

[lionfish-eater]

mike- not tech divers like you are thinking about, with advanced training, multiple gasses, computers, etc, but the type of diving done by the honduran lobsterdivers. According to an article in DAN's magazine, these divers go deeper than recreational limits with no equipment other than tank, reg,mask and weights. They usually do 8 to 10 bounce dives a day. They harvest until they are out of air, then surface, switch tanks and repeat. They are often out for weeks at a time for the season. They have no medical care and most if not all retired lobsterdivers and crippled. A doctor in La Ceiba has built his own chamber to treat these men. All this so we can have all you can eat lobster night. Kind of like realizing that your diamond ring was mined by a slave in africa working for a dutch diamond company, takes some of the sparkle away. There is more in the article and I encourage all to read it. I don't know how to find it online, but if you call DAN they can tell you.

Mitridate I was being sarcastic. I am not suggesting that we abandon all hope. I believe just the opposite. However until we focus on the bigger issues (like building a nuclear power plant in an earthquake zone on the shores of our oceans, or allowing free for all plundering of the worlds oceans and natural resources. The slaughter going on under the surface of our oceans is equivalent to the slaughter of the american buffalo. We have moved from hunting for meat to ranching because there was nothing wild left to hunt. It will soon be that way with fish as well. All along the coast of south america are fish farms with huge holding pens out of sight of land. The fish are fed feed and pharmaceuticals and the farmers just move them once they have polluted one area.

I agree that social welfare programs can remove incentives to work. There is a huge difference between your opportunities for employment and those of the average native bonairian. You had available to you a post war educational system that is one of the best in the world, They had some old textbooks and few role models. Also one of the goals of walfare is to have a large pool of unskilled workers to do the menial tasks of a society. The other goal of welfare is to give them just enough to get by on that they don't uprise, revolt and heaven forbid show up in your neighborhood.

I also found your remarks to be quite racist. However, I will not stoop so low as the other poster who made reference to your unfortunate legacy!

 

[mitridate]

Sounds a lot like the way poor Aryan folk in Germany blamed their woes on wealthy Jews, then used that an excuse to steal all their worldly possessions, confine them in concentration camps, then kill them.

In fact, the Africans you bemoan were originally stolen from their homes by rich white Dutch. The alternative was staying at home to become slaves in Dutch diamond mines. At least in Africa, it's not much different today.

In the old days you guys could have simply done an ethnic cleansing of the island. Today, I guess you'll just have to deal with it or stay at home. Preferably the latter.

Apparently you have missed vital parts of history at school (providing you have been at a school) .
The African slave business was run by Africans, they went after their own guys, "stole" them from villages and sold them to "rich white people", the majority being white Americans, English and French, only a minority was Dutch, just to get things right.

But this indeed is another example how Africans exploit even their own people.
Open your eyes man and make your homework first.

And by the way, blame my parents for what they did to the Jews, but don't blame people which have not been around when this awful holocaust took place!

I am not an racist, but I have been around to distinguish between what is right and what is wrong.
And how come that almost everywhere in the world, specifically in the US, white people move out of streets once African Americans moved in???
Ever been to Bakersfield??

 

[mitridate]

mike- not tech divers like you are thinking about, with advanced training, multiple gasses, computers, etc, but the type of diving done by the honduran lobsterdivers. According to an article in DAN's magazine, these divers go deeper than recreational limits with no equipment other than tank, reg,mask and weights. They usually do 8 to 10 bounce dives a day. They harvest until they are out of air, then surface, switch tanks and repeat. They are often out for weeks at a time for the season. They have no medical care and most if not all retired lobsterdivers and crippled. A doctor in La Ceiba has built his own chamber to treat these men. All this so we can have all you can eat lobster night. Kind of like realizing that your diamond ring was mined by a slave in africa working for a dutch diamond company, takes some of the sparkle away. There is more in the article and I encourage all to read it. I don't know how to find it online, but if you call DAN they can tell you.

Mitridate I was being sarcastic. I am not suggesting that we abandon all hope. I believe just the opposite. However until we focus on the bigger issues (like building a nuclear power plant in an earthquake zone on the shores of our oceans, or allowing free for all plundering of the worlds oceans and natural resources. The slaughter going on under the surface of our oceans is equivalent to the slaughter of the american buffalo. We have moved from hunting for meat to ranching because there was nothing wild left to hunt. It will soon be that way with fish as well. All along the coast of south america are fish farms with huge holding pens out of sight of land. The fish are fed feed and pharmaceuticals and the farmers just move them once they have polluted one area.

I agree that social welfare programs can remove incentives to work. There is a huge difference between your opportunities for employment and those of the average native bonairian. You had available to you a post war educational system that is one of the best in the world, They had some old textbooks and few role models. Also one of the goals of walfare is to have a large pool of unskilled workers to do the menial tasks of a society. The other goal of welfare is to give them just enough to get by on that they don't uprise, revolt and heaven forbid show up in your neighborhood.

I also found your remarks to be quite racist. However, I will not stoop so low as the other poster who made reference to your unfortunate legacy!

Thanks for your feedback. I know, that my remarks must sound racist, but sometimes it is necessary to stir up mud to put things into perspective.
Only this morning I read an article in our local newspaper, that the European Union is going to invest 20 Billion Euro into Bonaire to build roads, but our community has no money to repair our roads and the big potholes will "Survive" for another year.

Spending European taxpayer's money for new roads on an island, where stealing from tourist has become a hobby apparently, because the "poor" locals can't buy themselves a t-shirt....give me a break.

Getting blamed for Germany's unfortunate legacy only disqualifies people doing this, but I really appreciate your remark.

 

[DiverVince]

Only this morning I read an article in our local newspaper, that the European Union is going to invest 20 Billion Euro into Bonaire to build roads, but our community has no money to repair our roads and the big potholes will "Survive" for another year.

Spending European taxpayer's money for new roads on an island, where stealing from tourist has become a hobby apparently, because the "poor" locals can't buy themselves a t-shirt....give me a break.
.

I was kind of wondering about the genesis of why you felt the need to use the caustic title you did on this thread. I guess now I understand it. You apparently have an axe to grind. Stealing from tourists is a hobby? C'mon, get real. You really do the people of Bonaire a great disservice by painting with such a broad brush.

 

[cagemaker]

When the Bonaire Marine Park was being established in the late 70's there was political opposition from the indigenous (Papiamento) power brokers about subsistence fishing becoming illegal. [Note: In general, reef fish are not very good eating and quickly spoil. Quality eating fish are found farther offshore (blue water) and keep longer.] Anyway, to make the Marine Park a reality the concession to allow fishing was included in the regulations.

I lived on Bonaire for 4 months (2005) and during this time did not see very much reef fishing activity. This limited fishing for random catch does not impact the fishery as much as spearfishing for "trophy" fish which produce vast greater amounts of eggs per fish, so spearfishing is banned.

 

[Mossman]

Apparently you have missed vital parts of history at school (providing you have been at a school) .
The African slave business was run by Africans, they went after their own guys, "stole" them from villages and sold them to "rich white people", the majority being white Americans, English and French, only a minority was Dutch, just to get things right.

That's right, it's not the fault of the rich white people. With all those black people on sale for so cheap, how could they resist? They're no more guilty than the housewife who blows the mortgage payment on the cable shopping channel.

But this indeed is another example how Africans exploit even their own people.
Open your eyes man and make your homework first.

You've convinced me. White people never exploit others, it's all the Africans' fault. What was the name of your school you keep blabbing about, the Academy of the Third Reich?

And by the way, blame my parents for what they did to the Jews, but don't blame people which have not been around when this awful holocaust took place!

Amazing that you sound just like your parents. I bet you look like them too.

I am not an racist, but I have been around to distinguish between what is right and what is wrong.
And how come that almost everywhere in the world, specifically in the US, white people move out of streets once African Americans moved in???
Ever been to Bakersfield??

Of course you're not a racist. You use terms like "African" instead of "black" so you're obviously just biased against the continent and anyone who descended from the continent. Surely your claims extend to white South Africans too, right?

As for Bakersfield, the last time I was there was to attend a wedding at a fancy country club where I don't recall seeing a single black, excuse me, "African" face. What's your point? (I would show your post to my black neighbors who live up the street to see if I moved as soon as they arrived, except they I think they were here before I moved in.)

If you're not a racist, then I'm not a diver.