I've been off the Board for almost 4 years and there were a few things then that don't seem to be around any more....or maybe I'm just looking in the wrong places.

1. Car Breakins....seemed an everyday event then...are they still active
2. Pink Dive Bus.....alive or immortalized?
3. BTers weekly dinner at um er um "whatshisname"'s place.

Prolly more vague memories will breach my rusted brain pan between now and september but these are the first I found. When someone on here told me that Bobbejeans was still open..."he wept"

educate me on the world of changes wise ones and I shall stay yet a butterfly yearning for learning

cheesit
joe

Car breakins still occur but are usually limited to those that leave things inside and/or lock the vehicle.
Pink Dive Bus is no more. If I remember right it finally broke down and couldn't be fixed.
BTers haven't meet at Gibi's in awhile. He is doing breakfast at Golden Reef Inn and also a Monday nite dinner there. There was some discussion about rotating places to meet but haven't heard anything recently.
Keep asking and we will all try to give you the best answer possible.

Reading the trip reports will give you some insight into the changes on Bonaire.

Andy

the pink-now blue-dive bus is living a new life as the "hospitality" bus for the kite boarders out at Atlantis .....

Interesting; I assumed car break-ins were no longer on the board because they reflected badly on Bonaire so the moderators rejected them.

Mel any type of theft or crime can be posted on BT. We as moderators only insist on a police report to back it up..Please read the posting policies again...especially this:Special Note In Regard to Posts on Crime Issues: Postings in regard to crime on Bonaire are taken seriously by the Moderators of Bonaire Talk. If you post about crime on Bonaire, be prepared to back up your information with a police report. The moderators will remove posts that are vague, involving 'hearsay', and that cannot be backed up with facts in regard to the crime.

Mel, we don't allow them because of hearsay as Freddie has posted. It got out of control with folks saying they heard someone who heard someone who hear someone say. This is not fair to anyone.

You don't have to have a crime report to post that your crappy shorts were nabbed while you were diving. But is it even worth noting your crappy shorts were taken while diving? when i leave stuff in the truck to dive, i go in the water fully expecting it won't be there when i return. thus, i don't leave anything i'd be bummed about not being there when i get out of the water.

Life is to short to get focus on things that are transient in nature....i.e...my crappy shorts being taken. A lot worse things can happen to you on vacation (cheezy joe knows what I'm talking about).

That said, I've never had anything taken. I've even left things I don't want (a flamingo hat, not yours freddie) for a whole week...no one took the bait.

Sorry for the rant folks...but when the mods are accused of censorship because it "reflects badly on bonaire" our feathers get ruffled. Just ask any business owner on Bonaire if we do that, they will tell you the exact opposite!!!!

Cheezy Joe, one thing you really need to do is buy the new edition of BSDME...Susan has made some great additions and updates to the guide. Some sites are no longer there, some new sites have been added. New entries, exits, etc. You can order it at www.bsdme.info.

And here is a pic of the blue kiteboard bus at Atlantis
\image[old pink bus, now blue bus}

dang, need to have my coffee before I try to post pics

"as he gingerly withdraws a lovely pinkytoe from the fetid brown lump.....the grasshopper wonders if he mighta stepped in poopie caca (that's for Cynde), quickly washes his appendage and skips away, laughing giddily...."Cmon everybody can I get a seriously giddy laugh?""

Hopefully my velveeta renditions of american political figures will be completed before the trip....they rock...well actually they don't rock when left in the sun.....the Dick Chaney became a lovely yellow snowboard in the back of my truck.

cheesit

I hate to encourage confrontation.....much prefer empowering babble without constraint and the fabulous giddy laughs. Grasshopper has learned today.

Oh yeah, Cynde...I took your shorts...they're in the shrine......(fade out to soft unbalanced laughter and slapping feets)

Mods, I've had stuff taken from my car. Nothing valuable, because nothing valuable was left in the car, and no windows broken, because nothing was locked. But doesn't this miss the point? The relentless small thefts never get mentioned, so it appears they are not happening. Is that really an honest view of the situation? Is it really a good situation that I cannot lock my car and leave something in it? In no way am I saying you are censoring. I'm just wondering if the current policy of "don't ever mention it" is helping to solve the problem. I've heard you guys say over and over that all you want is a police report; that is a *really* high bar to set. So I assume you think I am lying if I say something was stolen from my car, or elsewhere. I had a computer stolen from a rinse tank, and my wife had a wetsuit taken from a drying rack. Do you think I am lying?

Mel, Mel, Mel....
I've been active on this board for 3 years and for you to say there is no talk of petty thefts is CRAZY talk!!! OMG!!! are we reading the same threads??? Thanks to the posts on this board we knew not to leave things in the truck, we knew not to lock the truck, we knew that electronics are a premium for thieves and thanks to the policy of requiring a police report we knew to use the safe, we knew to lock the house windows and we knew there had been break-ins (in detail and verified)....
The mods have been beyond patient and clear about the policy for posting about 'break-ins'.

You're just either trying to stir the broth or not reading the posts.
What the heck....

Dear Mel,

First off, thanks for assuming the Mods reject any data that reflects badly on Bonaire. I'm afraid your premise is false. If you had stuff stolen from you, and failed to file a police report because it is too much trouble, then I have to assume you did not file an insurance claim for your missing gear, and that you are not concerned enough about crime on Bonaire to get your theft on record. That would make you part of the problem. Since anyone filing a claim would need a police report, I think it's a reasonable request. If you have a better idea, like Ross Perot, we're all ears.

We used to allow these type of posts unregulated, and it always ended in threads going to a donnybrook.

One other problem is that victims never suspect it might have been a fellow tourist who ripped them off, and they minimize their own culpability . (How long was that computer in the rinse tank? Some folks forget their gear overnight and are surprised it goes missing by morning.)The police reports often contradict the victims posted story. People are less likely to embellish and spin when talking to the police.

Even when we allowed all crime posting w/o a police report, people would still have stories about having $600 stolen from their vehicle while diving. Or leaving all their electronic goodies out on tables with their patio door open and unlocked, and then being surprised when their toys got swiped while they slept.

We also used to have a contingent of users who live on Bonaire, and they felt that posting inflammatory gossip about crime was a fine idea. Those people have been discouraged from such participation, and they have generally stopped using BT as their personal outrage machine.

I hope this clears up any misconceptions you've been harboring; have a pleasant day.

Sorry, guys, I really don't want to cause a fuss. I bring two groups a year to Bonaire and intend to keep doing that as long as possible. I tell my folks when Cultimara is open, how to enter at Karpata, and never to lock the car. What is bizarre is that my insurance company won't pay if I don't lock the car...no "due diligence" on protecting my property. So the only solution is to never have anything valuable in the car while diving, and that seems unsafe to me. No first aid kit? No cell phone? No polarized sunglasses for the drive home? So I, like others, accept the higher risk of shore diving in Bonaire for the higher quality of the diving....but that quality is degrading due to overfishing and nutrification. The recent surge in construction is remarkable, and cannot help. None of this will go away if we don't talk about it. BT is the only place to talk.

I'm beginning to believe that petty crime on Bonaire is no more than any other tourist spot on earth, and likely even less. And that the only reason that people talk about "all the crime" is because the rental car companies have done what nobody else on earth has done...actually advise their renters to prevent being victims of crime by leaving nothing of value in the car with the windows open.

We spent 2 weeks recently on Bonaire and felt safer than we ever have at any other Caribbean destination. At first it was weird to leave the truck completely open, but after the first couple of days, we found it refreshing and actually enjoyed the freedom.

Cheesy, I want my crappy shorts back!
- grasshopper

Seb, I learnt a new word today..."donkybrook"

DiveWarm - you are sooooo right about petty crime the same as any other tourist area. In Hawaii, on the trunk lid of the car, in BIG BRIGHT RED LETTERS, it said not to leave anything valuable inside the vehicle...hmmm...and that's in the good ole' U S of A.

Think about this logically. Bonaire is a small island, the locals are not rich folk. Rich folk come to their island with lots of nice pretty expensive gadgets. computers, cell phones, ipods, cameras, money, passports, etc. They leave their vehicle at a remote site (we dive another site if there is more than one vehicle there), and the "theif" knows that the divers will be in the water for at least 45 minutes and cannot see their vehicle. This situation ANYWHERE on earth would have the same problems.

Rant off again...geez, I hope this is not how my days gonna go again

Grasshopper....ooooommmmmmmmmmmm

I do believe that petty crime is less than most tourist destinations, but I do know it does happen on Bonaire. I look at it this way...if I feel safe as a single woman going out on the economy it is all good! I've been to a few places (one resort had armed guards in the trees on the perimeter) that terrified me to leave the property. NOT Bonaire! Bonaire is all good.

Anyway...I wanted to comment on Gibi. I saw him at Taste of Bonaire and he said he IS still doing dinners and that someone had posted incorrectly on BT about him stopping. All you have to do is give him a call and let him know how many. He is still doing them on Tuesdays at his place, 6:30. (I love his goat stew!)

Trib...thanks for the heads-up on Gibi, thinking about his goat stew makes me warm all over.

I'm not gonna rant...except Cynde ("theif?")
"i" before "e" except after Easter....ALWAYS

I been quite a few places, many of which rely on all-inclusive tourist stalags to play on our fears of "difference in culture" (Dominican Republic...a place I love, how many people ever leave their resorts?). To go to a place where you walk to eat, drive to dive, and quite possibly remember faces and names in under a week is a pretty darn amazing thing and I feel lucky to have been part of it.

Will it change....uh huh
Am I growing horizontally....uh huh
Has anybody ever seen Elvis and Dick Cheney in the same place....WHUT?

Should I complain about the change and forget the inherent goodness of what we've experienced (and in some ways helped make)or should I make a promise to myself to do my best to try to influence that change in the most positive manner possible. I'm gonna choose option two and as my first step ..I"M NOT GONNA BRING CYNDE'S SHORTS BACK TO BONAIRE....they stanky.

We all need to care about Bonaire in our own ways, attempt to influence change in our own ways, and save all our extra cash for the "joe's capable of talking serious stuff" foundation and travel fund.

Stuff happens...my insurance coverage doesn't always cooperate with reality (the open windows conundrum)...Bonaire grows because it's a cool place to go and thus becames maybe a little less cool place to go because it's growing. I've read some of the recent postings by some Bonaire pioneers (the sewage situation) and I applaud their willingness to take a stand but would also ask that we all remember that everybody shares some responsibility for "doing the right thang".

"cue steely dan music and recorded sounds of money fluttering into the offering plate"

endofsermon

The QUESONATOR

Joe..daum...that whole spelling cooorect thing...i do it for a living, so when i post...THWI

put the shorts in the mail...heck, CIA will think they are "a bomb"....wait...is it i before c after a...or is it a before c after i???? i'm cornfused...

glad to have you back buddy....seriously You are a breathe of fresh air