Who has had something stolen in Bonaire

[ronrosa]

My wife and I have been six times and only had one incident. In January 2001, we left some items on the back patio of our apartment at the Yachtclub overnight. Even though the patio was surrounded by an approximately 12' high fence, someone was able to climb over and took my Bio fins, boots, mask, snorkel, swimsuit, Tee shirt and other items, but left my wife's Force Fins (Frankly, I don't like the Forces either) ....

Wow, that's pretty ballsy. I would have expected my stuff to be safe in a situation like that.

I haven't been to Bonaire. The issues of theft are not the reason. It's the cost and convenience of the flights. One day I'll make there.

 

[diversteve]

Liz, this interested me. I ran the same search on ScubaBoard, except for two different locations:

Cayman
Theft 11 threads
Stolen 12 threads
Robbery 0 threads


Bahamas
Theft 6
Stolen 8
Robbery 1


Realizing this poll means nothing in real terms. Still, it is interesting that there is a 6x reporting difference.

All the best, James

This actually makes sense. Given that Cayman is the offshore banking capital of the Caribbean, it's a given that the authorities have things more under control there. So theft from divers - or lack thereof indirectly benefits from that.

As for the Bahamas, I'm sorry, but who really dives there anymore? People on Liveaboards and Cruise ships, both of which are harder to steal from and get away. And since other meaningful statistics are probably centered on Nassau or Freeport, the only islands with any sizable diver traffic, the comparison is diluted by the sheer volume of non-dive tourists. btw, I doubt Atlantis has a lot of theft...

I think any comparison is meaningless until you factor in the actual amount of divers vs. general tourists at each location also. I've heard that Bonaire sees over 60K divers annually so their theft percentage per diver would be higher since the majority are divers and more likely to post here on Scubaboard - compared to the thousands(hundreds of?) of non-divers who go to Nassau or Freeport and don't report here. Since the thieves have more non-diver targets, it makes sense that dive thefts are significantly less there.

I have no sense of the diver/non-diver ratio on Cayman but your statistics suggest that it's a fraction of that vs. Bonaire. Better security due to the amount of money trafficking through Cayman has to be a factor. I saw a list of approximately 100 banks that are on Cayman. And Bonaire is 25% larger than Grand Cayman, 112 vs. 76 square miles.

Otoh, problems like the recent Plaza theft, where the thief stole items while the people slept in their room is something that the Bonaire authorities should be very concerned about. That's something BONHATA should pressure the authorities to publicly resolve. God forbid that someone from the Netherlands or the U.S. gets killed if that situation goes bad - look what the Holloway case did to Aruba tourism...

And frankly I think there's more of a problem than BONHATA will acknowledge publicly, why else are there security guards at the dive resorts at night? Not that that doesn't also happen in the Bahamas and most other places I've been.

fwiw, I'm on the list of people who've never had anything stolen. Even when I inadvertently left my video camera in the truck one afternoon in town with the windows down.

 

[diversteve]

It's the cost and convenience of the flights. One day I'll make there.

There's the new Saturday Continental flight out of Newark....

 

[NDH]

I just received a response from AB Carrental car rental in Bonaire about the boxes.
They said:
We tried this in the past but we found out that thieves are very interested in the locked boxes and this made it only worse.

Thank you AB Carrental for your response

 

[Jetwrench]

After 6 trips to Bonaire, I have had 1 theft 3 years ago...spare tanks stolen from our truck while we were diving at 1000 Steps. A young couple's vehicle was also broken in to due to the fact that they locked the vehicle with valuables inside and visible(didn't know the no lock rule, this was their first time on island). We filed a police report, and a month later we were informed by the owner of the dive op that an arrest had been made and several of their tanks had been recovered, including the ones from our truck.

On my last trip in Sept. I noticed a considerable increase in the visible presence of the police from previous trips, both in town and along the west coast where most of the dive sites are located. During that stay I had conversations with several locals about what the police are up to, and all seemed to convey they are being more pro-active in their efforts.

Finally, I personally have never felt more safe anywhere than I do when I'm on Bonaire. For those who believe(justified or not) that crime on Bonaire is out of control or unacceptably high, please allow me to run your guantlet for you and you can stay home... safe and sound. I'm willing to make that sacrifice for my fellow divers!

Jet

 

[oly5050user]

been to the island many times- a few years ago a diver in our group of 28 had a bcd ,an old seatec,stolen from the rear yard a plaza resort..Another in our group a couple of years later had a new bcd stolen from the rinse tank at Buddy dive..That one we believe was stolen by dutch tourist family that were last seen on the dock,not diving,who left the island the same day..
If common sense is used and the same precautions that you use at home(we are from NY) you should not have any problems..The majority of crime on the island is not any type of violent crimes but most likely youths that see an opportunity and take it.. I myself never had anything taken..

 

[fdog]

Liz, I just wanted to clarify this. (I guess I wanted to defend myself)

James,

First your ran the ran the search on Scubaboard and are comparing those numbers to Bonairetalk, a bonaire specific website. Almost like comparing apples to oranges.
<snip>

(emphasis added)

<snip>
On Scubaboard I did the same thing, but in all threads and specified Bonaire. I didn't get an exact number of total threads - it's huge though:

Theft 67 times, stolen 67 times and robbery 6 times. This is also since 2002.

<snip>

I replicated the search parameters as you specified above, and replicated your results. The comparison was ScubaBoard to ScubaBoard.

As I said before, though, this is as uncontrolled of a poll as you can get!

All the best, James

 

[DiveTyme]

I have been to Bonaire 5 times in the last 5 years and am leaving Feb 3 for another week. I personally have never lost anything. Last year we noticed a stepped up patroling of the dive sites by the police.
Yes, theft is a problem, but it is here in the states too. I will say I have never been anywhere in Bonaire that I worried about my personal (or my wife's) safety. And we have covered the entire island.
Tim

 

[tedtim]

Mike,

Apparently you have never been to Bonaire and are making assumptions about the crime situations on Bonaire. I'm not saying that they don't exist, they do, as on other islands, and as someone who lives and owns a hospitality related business on Bonaire and came to Bonaire for 15 years prior to living, I have kept a constant watch on the crime situation. Luckily, we have never had a theft problem now or in the past.

Not to be nasty Liz, but please recall what happened in February 2006 at GRI. The couple in the room next to us had a few items taken including a digital camera. I know that you told us that it was probably people from another island, but theft is theft.

They also experienced a second incident where some items were stolen from their truck at a dive site along with items from a few other vehicles. They managed to get video of the thief's vehicle, including a clear shot of the licence plate number. AFAIK the local police did nothing about this.

 

[NDH]

Do ya'll think the rooms broken into are random or do they already know what's there?

Blawler1 Posted that someone went over a 12ft fence. That's a pretty good size fence to scale not to know what's on the other side.