Bonaire -- Spare Tire Stolen From Truck at Something Special

[nippurmagnum]

I’ll 4th endorse AB Dive full coverage with their dive and drive package. They are cheap Chinese trucks that can pass inspection for the EU, US nor Canada. AB has their repair shop on site. But word to the wise, A buddy and I arrived late and ran down to the Salt Pier for a quick dive after the Sunday afternoon arrival. We left our wives who don’t dive sitting on shore on the tailgate of the truck. When we finished about 45 minutes later our truck was the only one in the parking lot. As we got to the truck a small beater truck with blacked out windows was pulling by doing a “ drive by” . We saw another beater doing a drive by at ?Aquarius as we were heading into Kralendijk. They roam at dusk looking for solitary vehicles in parking lots. There’s more safety in numbers. If you are the only vehicle in a parking lot with no one to watch you are in a very risky situation. We are fortunate that our wives are happy to sit on the beach and soak in the rays (and have a rum punch) while we shore dive. A few weeks ago the police raided 4-5 houses and recovered lots of stolen items according to some of my Dutch friends on the island.

Reminds me that apart from our stolen tire incident, we also had a truck with tinted windows show up at Lake as we prepared to get in the water for a night dive. Creep turned off his lights and just sat there waiting for us to get in. We asked what he was doing, and he said he used to work for Stinapa but had been fired, and now he just liked to make the rounds to make sure nobody stole anything. Yeah, right. Best insurance in that situation is to take a picture of the guy In the truck, with your underwater camera, and take the camera with you on your dive. If anything goes missing, very little chance that the cops wouldn’t know who he was.

 

[Protondecay123]

Reminds me that apart from our stolen tire incident, we also had a truck with tinted windows show up at Lake as we prepared to get in the water for a night dive. Creep turned off his lights and just sat there waiting for us to get in. We asked what he was doing, and he said he used to work for Stinapa but had been fired, and now he just liked to make the rounds to make sure nobody stole anything. Yeah, right. Best insurance in that situation is to take a picture of the guy In the truck, with your underwater camera, and take the camera with you on your dive. If anything goes missing, very little chance that the cops wouldn’t know who he was.

That’s certainly sounds like a BS story! But they prowl at dusk/early evening. The night dives are really a gamble if there aren’t a couple of groups on a different time schedule at a dive site. Thieves do their best work under the cover of darkness!

 

[nippurmagnum]

Epilogue: just got my credit card statement, and Budget has refunded the $150 for the spare tire! They credited my account four days after the original charge. You’d think they would have emailed me to let me know, as I almost didn’t see the credit to my account. But whatever. I wonder if the tire turned up? Or if they waived the charge as a customer retention type of thing? Anyway, three cheers for Budget, will definitely use them again in Bonaire ...

 

[Bubblesong]

Epilogue: just got my credit card statement, and Budget has refunded the $150 for the spare tire! They credited my account four days after the original charge. You’d think they would have emailed me to let me know, as I almost didn’t see the credit to my account. But whatever. I wonder if the tire turned up? Or if they waived the charge as a customer retention type of thing? Anyway, three cheers for Budget, will definitely use them again in Bonaire ...

I will use budget too, I’d rather have a car rental agency that backs me up.

 

[boat sju]

Glad to hear that, good for them.

 

[homerdoc]

bonairereporter.com has a good section on reported crimes.

I was actually surprised reading it they are doing traffic stops now. On previous trips I never took my license going to dive sites, just 100 bucks in cash or so. Looks like I better carry it with me now

 

[homerdoc]

Should have noted, all that said, this is a really safe island. I have never felt uncomfortable anywhere. So don't take my prior post as rabble rousing about bonaire being crime ridden

 

[nippurmagnum]

bonairereporter.com has a good section on reported crimes.

I was actually surprised reading it they are doing traffic stops now. On previous trips I never took my license going to dive sites, just 100 bucks in cash or so. Looks like I better carry it with me now

View attachment 570638

Interesting crime report. I agree that Bonaire feels generally safe but i didn’t see much of a police presence at all. I doubt property crimes get investigated beyond the taking of a report. And of course how many people bother reporting thefts to the police while on vacation? I imagine there is vast underreporting of thefts at dive sites. I certainly didn’t report my stolen tire ...

 

[arcticat99]

meanwhile the thief's sell the tires back to the rental car companies

 

[undrwtr1]

Try doing a shore dive in Rockaway (NYC)! Scuba Shore Diving Site Page for: Beach 8th Street, Queens of New York, USA East
Bonaire is perfectly safe. Use common sense and don't leave anything valuable in your truck. Something Special is on essentially a dead end with a ramshackle house right there and is also a beach area where people often hang out right near the street. If you park in the lot about 100 feet away you have a busy street, but the lot is a a dozen yards off the main road and there is some foliage there as well. A spare tire is a bit unusual, probably means that there was nothing else worth taking! I was there a couple of weeks ago and kept looking under my truck when I got out of the water because of this - LOL.
I have NEVER felt unsafe anywhere in Bonaire and I would expect petty theft exists everywhere people leave their valuables unsupervised for a while - solution is to leave nothing of value around. Spare tire? I've got no solution for that!!