With thanks to Tom Bartikoski I shamelessly copied the idea for this message from him.

I wonder if any of you "transplanted" residents of Bonaire would care to tell the rest of us what you miss least about where you came from that you don't have in your life on Bonaire.

Also, I wonder about what you miss most about where you came from that you don't have in your life on Bonaire, or don't have enough of.

I'm thinking crime and traffic and pollution and [insert your own viewpoint here] to what you miss least. But I'm really curious about what, if anything, besides friends and family, of course, you wish you had now on Bonaire that you used to have nearby before. Aside from possible commercial applications (starting a business on Bonaire), I'm wondering what one would need to get used to living without (or make plans to provide) if one were seriously considering living in Bonaire.

Hmmm nice questions. Will answer to that. But the wind was down over night so first things first.... DIVE!!!!
laters :-)

Miss the most: Large bagel selection
Miss the list: Scraping ice of my car in the morning.

Miss the most: easy shopping. Sometimes it takes trips to every possible store looking for something. Maybe it ran out everywhere, it's only in the last store you went to, or was never on Bonaire.
Miss the least: telemarketers

This is a great idea! It is fun to see the insights!

Miss the most: fast affordable Internet connection; Wal-Mart (or its kin); Szechuan & Hunan cuisine at the local Chinese take-out

Miss the least: snow; air pollution; seasonal allergies; stoplights; traffic; junk mail & junk phonecalls; political correctness; and rude people.

Jake

Good Lord, Jake least misses the stuff I would really like to least miss myself.

OK, slightly off the mark here, but....

Personally, as much as I love the tropics, I could only stay for a couple of months here and there, I'd miss the coziness of an open fire and snuggling under a big duvet.. amongst other things..

wal-mart on bonaire? how many coolers would they find on the annual klein clean-up then?



know what you mean though, it's a darn handy store!!!

Miss the least: traffic, rude people, the joneses(you know, the ones everyone's killing themselves trying to keep up with) Miss the most: my grandbabies
Scott(who travels a lot with his job) says: Miss least: airports, hotels, customers, rude people, email
Miss most: haven't lived there yet, so don't know

Well lets see if I could dream I lived there...I would miss....relatives at a stones throw...unless we could move them too....Good avian vets....shipments of seed in bulk...being able to water your garden with real water....and (I looked everywhere) tropicana ice pops....we have quite the addiction! How about a Rita's water ice?

I would miss: diving in the murky cold waters of the "Oosterschelde", donning my drysuit (including the 16 KG weight belt) in freezing temperatures, the hectic pace of life in the big cities (NY-style) --> NOT (-:

What I really would miss are the summer evenings with daylight until 10 PM. It gets dark so quickly around the equator. And I agree with Jake on the fast Internet connection.

Peter, you can do dry-suit diving on Bonaire, just don't wear your "wolletje"

Well yeah Martin, you can do sunbathing on North Pole as well. But is generaly not seen as a sign of good mental health. (-:

I was thinking about the deep dives (windjammer and stuff...)

I guess you're right on the extremely long dives (Walt?). But still, for most of those dives a 5 mm with a hood is probably sufficient. In March we've done multiple dives with a bottom time around 1.5 hours wearing only a 3 mm (no hood). At the end you get a bit chilly, but it is still manageable. What we never do is diving in shorties. There are too many underwater critters that sting. There were tons of jellyfish last time. They are not supposed to sting but I'm not sure whether they know that.

Peter

Peter - the counter point to the light summer nights is the really early dark winter afternoons. I prefer reasonable consistency in my day lengths, and love not having to change every clock in my house twice a year to accommodate the changes you guys up north have :-)

Jake

Here's what we have so far:

Miss the most: Large bagel selection; easy shopping; fast affordable Internet connection, Wal-Mart (or its kin), Szechuan & Hunan cuisine at the local Chinese take-out; the coziness of an open fire and snuggling under a big duvet; my grandbabies; the summer evenings with daylight until 10 PM.

Miss the least: Scraping ice of my car in the morning; telemarketers; snow, air pollution, seasonal allergies, stoplights, traffic, junk mail & junk phonecalls, political correctness, and rude people; traffic, rude people, the joneses(you know, the ones everyone's killing themselves trying to keep up with); airports, hotels, customers, rude people, email; diving in the murky cold waters of the "Oosterschelde", donning my drysuit (including the 16 KG weight belt) in freezing temperatures, the hectic pace of life in the big cities (NY-style) --> NOT (-:; the really early dark winter afternoons.

C'mon you all can do better than this!

No, actually, I'm grateful for the information you've given. Based on this small, but presumably informed, sample, it seems one of the major differences between life on Bonaire and life elsewhere is rude people. Also, it's apparent there are less things missed the most than missed the least, indicating life for the respondents of this poll is better on Bonaire than it was wherever it was before!

Bill -
In Bonaire, it is not considered rude to break into parked cars & help yourself to the personal belongings of others. Ditto for room theft and drug traffic. I guess it's because the purps smile and wave hello the next time they see you.

But don't get me wrong, i love Bonaire.

Bill,
Add rude people to what I miss the least. It certainly wins out over bad shopping.

Bill,

Did I mention that one of the things I like the best about Bonaire is how everyone living here can seem to get along, no matter what color or nationality they are - a virtual melting pot?

And what among what I miss the least are rude people (which includes bigots who call all Bonairean thieves)?

Jake

PS And it would be these same bigots who complain loudly of being pigeonholed and stereotyped for their own physical characteristics. That's hyprocrisy at its best (and fortunately something lacking on much of Bonaire). Sheesh.

Ouch!

C'mon Jake-
No one said all Bonairians are thieves (except you in your post). In fact, Bonairians weren't even mentioned. Thieves in Bonaire come in all sizes, shapes & nationalities. Some are even website entrepeneurs, according to your recent accusation.
Perhaps it is you projecting your own bigotry toward native Bonairians.
I may be many things (that you dislike) --but a bigot? Never.
My post was not written to inflame you or your wife. It was a humorous look at an aspect of life in Bonaire. Enjoy the joke or not, let's not make this a personal issue between us.

According to the FBI:

In the US overall (not just urban areas), in 2000 there were 728
felony robberies per 100,000 of the US population.

I think this would project to about 73/year
given the Bonaire resident population. Does
Bonaire have 1-2 felony robberies a week?
If not, their crime rate is less than the US.
(Felony Robbery is forcible theft - not breaking into a room when someone is in another)

Felony Larceny-Theft (not using force) for the US
is 2550 per 100,000 of population per year.
So, for Bonaire that would be about 255 per year
That would be felony theft every day or two
at the Bonaire scale.

Most of the bonaire incidents were not
felonys as defined in the US, the ones
I have heard of are misdemeanors. The FBI does
not even bother to track those.

Also, this rate is for the US overall. I think
Bonaire crime rates are almost surely lower than
in urban areas of the US.

So .. this question can be answered by Bonaire
people .. are their crime rates comparable or less?

I'm guessing significantly less.


Reference:
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_00/00crime2_8.pdf

Mimi, your "jokes" are hardly jokes. Jokes are funny.

Your statements are intentionally inflammatory, and any newbie reading what you wrote could hardly be blamed for supposing Bonaire to be a den of iniquity.

Don't bother to say "I never said anything about a den..." - I'm well aware of that.

Whatever your problem is, why don't you take it somewhere else?

to all the newbies & oldbies-

The dive newsletter Undercurrent (which can be accessed on the internet) has a section devoted to reviews written by their own readership/divers.
In addition, the publisher and his diver-wife go on dive trips under a pseudonym and then write their own reviews of the experiences.

If anyone wants to read a cross-section of opinions & reviews of Bonaire ( as well as other dive destinations) do yourself a favor and go to their website. www.undercurrent.org
Undercurrent takes no ads and is fully funded by reader subscriptions. The publisher accepts no freebies. He identifies himself on the last day, immediately prior to check out, only when he plans to write a positive review. If the review is going to be negative, he does not identify himself. Presumably, he wants the option to return to see if things have improved, without being identified.
I don't always agree with all of the opinions & reviews, but 80% of the time they are right on the mark.

Mimi...none of us here are laughing...your sense of humour is warped if you think you are being funny. I know I said I would not respond to any more of your comments, but you make yourself a target.

Mimi, I think you need to get a life!! I'm a relative "newbie" to Bonaire and I know that no place is exempt from crime and thieves; however, Bonaire is one place I would be the least worried about this problem. Things like you mentioned can and do happen everywhere, but from my experiences with the people on Bonaire (both native and non-native), everyone seems to get along more peacefully than any other place that I've ever visited....and they were much friendlier to "tourists" than other places I've been!!!!!

You may have been "joking" but it definitely came across as a stab at the people of Bonaire!!!!! I'm not laughing either!!!

after being on bonaire 3 times, and spending time with many friends on the island, including jake and linda. i will make the statement that i did not notice any bigotry there at all. only an easy going, friendly, get along with everyone attitude that i wish we could find all over the world. it seems to be one of those lovely places that if you give someone a hello or smile, you get a big smile and greeting back. i also have always felt physically safe on bonaire. in that aspect i feel at home because growing up in the country side in north dakota- we were the same way.

Oh... you're "Bonaire Talking" about RUDE people. I thought you were writing about missing the NUDE people. I guess rudeness is in the eye of the beholder.

I thought Mimi's image of the polite, smiling thieves was pretty funny. I don't know any more about it than what I've read, but I believe burglary is much more of a problem on Bonaire than, say, here in the U.S. Who would think of leaving their car unlocked to prevent crime?

Most everyone on Bonaire smiles and waves, though...

Nope, Bill. We've got NUDE people. The Sororbon Beach Resort is a naturist resort.

I was going to post this earlier - tech problems prevented it from being timely however - I'm still going to post it........
Hi guys!
I follow several threads on this site for months as I'm going in September
for the first time.....I'm so excited. I just wanted to put my two cents
in here... I've been to many of the islands and also have a friend who
owns a home in St. Thomas and St. John. Bonaire, although close in
proximity to the "Caribbean drug trafficking" ring (which is the source of much of the crime) - doesn't seem to figure too much into the
statistics when doing research. ( I'm an economist so I do that stuff) In
fact, Crime stats on Bonaire are so negligible that they hardly figure into the Antilles overall socio-economic & cultural analysis’s currently reported. Also, if people, info, openness and the general enthusiasm that exists on this site is truly indicative of the attitude of the island
then Bonaire must be true paradise. I've had my camera stolen from the front seat of my car at my home in Atlanta & now I live in Chicago - can
you say "crime?"
Sooooo...I can't wait to get to that island!
In August I can begin counting in days!!!!!!!!
Michelle

Michelle,

I know you'll love it. The people, both native and "imported" (like Jake, Linda and some other friends), are very friendly and show great hospitality. From the first time we spend our holliday on Bonaire, we fell in love with it. We have seen some parts of the world (Europe, Azia, Africa, Caribbean, US) and we never felt as welcome as on Bonaire.

As sayd before on this tread, there is some crime, but on Bonaire I can leave my car open without it beeing stolen. In Holland you cann't leave anything valuable in your car, so why should I want to do that on Bonaire??

Just use common sense. Keep your room locked when you're not around. I don't leave my house unlocked when I'm of to work or out diving either....

I hope you'll be as enthousiastic as most of us about Bonaire after you're back.

And, most important, be carefull not to suffer from to much PBD....

Thanks Martin. In Chicago you have to be extra careful. That's the whole reason I picked Bonaire. My husband and I wanted to go somewhere to "relax"
(My personal favorite past time), Good Book, Good sun, new snorkel and mask -

So..... I picked Bonaire - where better in the world to go, right?
Michelle

Michelle,
I appreciate your fact based analysis of the crime on Bonaire. It seems there are a few who have not directly experienced any crime on Bonaire who have an emotional need to play Chicken Little (i.e.the sky is falling). I think your analysis is much more balanced and realistic. We've been to Bonaire 20 times and have never been crime victims. We do know people who have had break-ins..but their attitude is that these petty theives represent a very small percentage of Bonaire's population and that while any crime is a problem, on Bonaire it is not a significant one.

I've never felt unsafe on Bonaire, and my daughters or wife have never been subjected to "cat calls" or harrassment of any kind when walking past groups of young men in town.

Bonaire is not perfect, but it sure beats any other place I've been (including half the Caribbean Islands, Mexico, Hawaii, every state in the USA except Alaska, and Eurpope).

It will be great to read your trip report!

Scott

Bill,

I think the likelihood of valuables which are left out in the open being taken out of a car (whether it's locked or not) when the car is parked in a remote location is probably as likely if not more so everywhere else in the world as it is in Bonaire. Bonaire isn't Shangri-La, but it's a far cry from the crime-ridden h***-hole Mimi would seem to want people to believe.

As far as Mimi is concerned: do a search on her name on this website and you will see why she brings out the worst in all of us.

Our first visit to Bonaire last August resulted in some petty theft from our rental vehicle which was parked at Andrea I. One of the guys with us had been to Bonaire many years ago and told us not to bring anything expensive along in the vehicle while diving. So we all had cheap sunglasses, clothes, shoes, etc. except for our friend who didn't take his own advice. Andrea I is the only divesite that was off the main road that we dove and the only time that our stuff was bothered. The funny thing is that I called the thief a nice guy because he only took a few pair of shorts and our friends' expensive sunglasses and expensive hiking shoes. He was kind enough to take the keys out of the pocket of the shorts he took and put them in the glovebox. We could have been walking back to the room. Once again common sense rules. Leave your expensive stuff at home or locked up in your motel room. And like our friend, you have no one to blame but yourself if you leave stuff in the vehicle that is valuable or can't be replaced. I never felt unsafe during our week in Paradise. No one approached us in a threatening manner. I actually felt safer there then I do in most places in the USA. And everyone we met was polite and anxious to please us. Enjoy your vacation!

Like I said....I think there is a full moon out there.....sheesh is an understatement, Jake! Welcome back to the board, Carole...fireworks galore....sheesh...Carole

Revisiting Bonaire...Even the Flamingoes Can't Stay Away.

Interesting analysis. Crime is everywhere, even Bonaire. Spearfishing still exists. Turtles, conches, octopi, fish, and other natural resources are regularly taken. Thieves are global, but cheating (stealing's sick cousin) is so rampant in colleges and high schools even the SAT are being changed, adding a cheatproof essay. It is too bad it still happens on Bonaire. It is part of the human condition. Students at a local prep school hacked in the Princeton SAT company's mainframe and downloaded the math exam. Imagine the mindset of kids to do that. Bright ones too. They got caught.

Recently, 2 educators friends of mine who run the Adventure Learning Centre in Nassau, Bahamas, told me they have 3 doperman pinchers and razorwire around their home to protect their family and belongings. btw, this is a really cool learning center... www.alcbahamas.org/
students come from all the islands on field trips to study nature and see their capitol city.
The Bahamas are a great place too. Exumas, Andros, and many other out of the way places. But crime there is serious stuff.

The cheating, stealing, and terrorism is our world is tough to swallow. True, the temptations on Bonaire are too much for a small fraction of the population. It is still one of the greatest places in the world to soak your head, relax, do adventurous things, and even has safe water to drink. In fact, the water is so delicious it could be sold. Try that in Montezuma's Mexico. It would be interesting to see if Bonaire is the most re-visited vacation destination on the planet, after Orlando, per traveler. Reading through Bonaire Talk it seems the travel bureau should have another ad campaign..."Revisit Bonaire...even the flamingoes can't stay away".

Well, to you and all the other flamingoes out there that read this BT board, you know what I mean. It is a unique place, that attracts unique folks. Birds of a feather, I guess. I think this affinity is because things happen to you on Bonaire, amazing things, on the inside and the outside. It is a good place to scrub your soul, for sure, but nature is so full of never-ending surprises. Couched in this tiny, quiet, out-of-the-way salty atoll, really interesting stuff is always happening.

I am sure you have your own stories too. Mine started the very first time I was on Bonaire in 1966. My sister and I went off fishing is what was an experimental charter fishing boat. It was a sizeable boat and an American crew that still didn't have any clue as to how the Bonaireans day in, and day out, where bringing in big tuna, mahi mahi (dolphin, the fish species), swordfish (I remember one Bonairean boat bringing 3 swordfish caught between Playa and Klein in one morning...imagine that site in one of those tiny Antillean boats), wahoo, cobia, and the like.

Heading north on the charter boat, they raised some good-sized billfish, including large marlin, but they could not catch them on lures. I remember the Bonairean mate told me the best bait was red snapper and on the way home rigged one up. Bang ! Out zinged the line at a pitch that would make any island dog howl. My sis was in the chair and it was all she could do to not go waterskiing. This was a good test for her champion butterfly swimming muscles. 45 minutes later an 85 lb. wahoo emerged, glowing stripes and all.

This is where the story begins, but for lack of time and BT disk space I'll end it. Well, it is not easy to get an 85 lbs (5.5' long) fish home with a VM beetle. It was a crazy sight to see this wahoo strapped all the way around the front of the car on the bumper and fenders. The island stopped to watch this trophy go down the road from Hotel Bonaire (the original) to town. The friendly fishing neighbors that lived next to my Trans World Radio cousins steaked and filleted the wahoo. It fed the neighborhood for a while. Now what would you give right now for a fresh 2" steak of wahoo grilled with limongee (Caribbean lime) and Dutch butter. That itch you feel may be flamingo feathers growing.

If this story, like so many others that happen on Bonaire, sticks to your ribs, well you probably have some flamingo in you too. Like the conchs in the Florida Keys (those folks are just as allured to those islands), you probably won't be able to stop yourself from going back to Bonaire. Of course, this is a testable theory. But I say once a flamingo, always a flamingo. You are either planning a trip to Bonaire, thinking about a trip there, dreaming and re-living vibrant moments there, wishing you were there, or doing some other dysfunctional thing, like work, that will eventually bring you to the conclusion you need a vacation, which starts the whole flamingo cycle again. And certainly a little crime, as repugnant as it is, would not stop you from packing.

btw, I am revisiting Bonaire again at the end of July, just to test the theory. btw2, did I ever tell you the one about 500 lb. loggerhead behind Hato (Small Wall) in 1979...

Bud Gillan

Flying Fish.
Florida

Thank you, Bud...fascinating tales...looking forward to some "new" ones from the upcoming trip. Your note says it all....Carole

Thanks Bud, that was a great story! I feel my flamingo feathers getting ready to fly!!!