Jake, Dan and Faith flew out Sunday morning on the AA flight. I asked them to find out about the recent issue with the Bonaire airport security in regards to sharp items like dive knives in checked baggage. After the WTC incident, all sharp items were being confiscated from all baggage (checked and carry-on) and mailed to the owners.

This is not the case anymore. Airport personnel told Jake that as of a week ago, they are no longer taking such items from checked baggage. Of course, you still cannot have them on your person or in your carry-on which I'm sure we all appreciate.

FYI - any residents of Bonaire that are here under a work permit or residents permit need to aquire a re-entry permit before leaving Bonaire on a trip. This permit was supposedly required starting sometime in this summer but we did not see any enforcement of this issue until this weekend. Jake said Immigration officials were at the airport checking documents when he departed on Sunday.

And of course, we had already left our dive knives and my nail file kit with Linda before heading the airport Sunday, so we didn't actually get to formally test out their willingness to put sharp objects in the checked baggage. But we figured that we were at least able to help out the next round of travelers...

Faith

Faith,

We'll just bring those things up with us in November if that's okay. Would be faster than mailing them at this point, I think...

Jake

Sounds reasonable. We're in no rush to dive at the moment, and I have enough replacements for my nailfile around here that I can survive without it for a while...

Faith