Karelmakov
Registered
Hey everyone,
This is long winded: bear with me
We got back from Bonaire last weekend and wanted to share our experience. My buddy/girlfriend and I are both new divers with only 6 non-class-related dives heading into Bonaire. We had done a lot of research on this site and kept hearing how great Bonaire was. We decided to give it a shot. We had a lovely week diving, but on the morning we were set to leave, there was an incident which soured the trip and we felt that sharing our experience would be helpful to others who plan on visiting the island.
We were staying at Golden Reef Inn, which came highly recommended by the users on Scubaboard. We were happy with our stay, and the staff was very friendly. After a week of diving, we were set to take the Sunday morning Continental flight at 6am to Newark. At 3 am I was awoken by a sound in our bedroom, and I quickly realized it was an intruder. I yelled and leapt to my feet, chasing the guy out of the back door of the apartment, where I lost sight of him. Upon returning to the bedroom, I noticed that the stuff on my nightstand was missing. These items were my cell phone, ipod, wallet, and passport.
Let me tell you, being woken by a burglar in your bedroom is scary enough, but the realization that your passport has been stolen hours before your international flight is a truly horrible feeling. He had also taken our only phone, so we had no way of calling the police. We hopped in the truck and rode off to the police station. After talking to the cops, we returned to the hotel and talked to the patrolmen who were sent there. As it turned out, another room besides ours had been broken into as well.
The burglar had actually picked the locks on both our front and back doors, but the (sliding) front door was kept shut by a wooden board which was used as a door-jam. The back door had just the regular handle lock, and that was his point of entry. The patrolmen told us that it was uncommon for thieves in Bonaire to take ID documents like passports and that it was common for wallets to turn up in the surrounding area with only the cash missing. This turned out to be the case, the wallet (minus the cash-obviously) was found later that day and the passport turned up a couple days after that. As for the phone and ipod, I've said my goodbyes and expect to never see them again.
The police were very helpful as we were scrambling to see if we could still get on our 6am flight. Fortunately, my gf had made photocopies of our passports. The police made a few calls to the immigrations people at the airport, and we were able to board the plane with my photocopy and the police report which said that my passport was stolen. We got to the airport at 5:30, made it on the plane, and made it to the US.
I wanted to share all this not to complain, but to raise awareness and share some insight. You hear a lot about truck break-ins and how to prevent them, but room break-ins can happen too, which we learned the hard way. Our lessons:
1) Make sure all the doors to your room have non-pickable locks along with handle locks. A deadbolt, latch, wooden door jam, anything. The guy tried our front door first and was thwarted, but he was successful around back. 2) Keep your valuables in the room safe at all times, no matter what. The sad part of our story is that we had kept the phone, wallets, passports, ipods, etc in the safe every day except the last one. We did this because we were out and about all week, and figured that on the last night, since we wouldn't be leaving the room, my stuff would be safe on the nightstand a foot from my head. It was not. 3) Make photocopies of all your documents. They may come in handy. According to the US Customs official, the immigrations people in Bonaire should not have let me on the plane with only a photocopy. But they did, so it worked out for us. This is especially helpful because the US Consulate is on Curacao, not Bonaire. So in order to get a new passport, you'd have to get to Curacao first, miss your flight, and pay a small fortune to book a last minute flight home. So we were really glad they bent the rules for us. 4) Make sure you have a way to contact the police. We only had one cell phone with us, and once it went missing, we were sorta screwed. 5) Make sure you only have stuff in your wallet that is necessary to your trip. I had both my credit and debit card with me when I only needed one. So when I got back to America, I had no way to get money. If my wallet hadn't have been returned, I'd also need to get new insurance cards, a new Metro card, everything. I shouldn't have brought that stuff in the first place. 6) Buy trip insurance. It would have cost us a ton if we had missed our flight.
We talked to Liz, who owns the hotel, when we got home. She was very helpful. She assured me that they were taking several measures to make the inn safer, including installing new locks with non-pickable failsafes, putting in surveillance cameras on the premises, and cell phones to stay in each room safe. (In other instances of break-ins on the island, the land-lines had been cut). I'm sure she can comment further on these improvements, but it was good to hear that immediate action is being taken.
The thing is, we had a great time on the island for 98% of our time there; it's just too bad that the last couple hours were so miserable. I was looking forward to posting our diving report and I still plan on doing that once I finish color correcting my pictures. I promise my next post will be more uplifting. I'm looking forward to writing it much more than this one. Be safe.
-Darren
This is long winded: bear with me
We got back from Bonaire last weekend and wanted to share our experience. My buddy/girlfriend and I are both new divers with only 6 non-class-related dives heading into Bonaire. We had done a lot of research on this site and kept hearing how great Bonaire was. We decided to give it a shot. We had a lovely week diving, but on the morning we were set to leave, there was an incident which soured the trip and we felt that sharing our experience would be helpful to others who plan on visiting the island.
We were staying at Golden Reef Inn, which came highly recommended by the users on Scubaboard. We were happy with our stay, and the staff was very friendly. After a week of diving, we were set to take the Sunday morning Continental flight at 6am to Newark. At 3 am I was awoken by a sound in our bedroom, and I quickly realized it was an intruder. I yelled and leapt to my feet, chasing the guy out of the back door of the apartment, where I lost sight of him. Upon returning to the bedroom, I noticed that the stuff on my nightstand was missing. These items were my cell phone, ipod, wallet, and passport.
Let me tell you, being woken by a burglar in your bedroom is scary enough, but the realization that your passport has been stolen hours before your international flight is a truly horrible feeling. He had also taken our only phone, so we had no way of calling the police. We hopped in the truck and rode off to the police station. After talking to the cops, we returned to the hotel and talked to the patrolmen who were sent there. As it turned out, another room besides ours had been broken into as well.
The burglar had actually picked the locks on both our front and back doors, but the (sliding) front door was kept shut by a wooden board which was used as a door-jam. The back door had just the regular handle lock, and that was his point of entry. The patrolmen told us that it was uncommon for thieves in Bonaire to take ID documents like passports and that it was common for wallets to turn up in the surrounding area with only the cash missing. This turned out to be the case, the wallet (minus the cash-obviously) was found later that day and the passport turned up a couple days after that. As for the phone and ipod, I've said my goodbyes and expect to never see them again.
The police were very helpful as we were scrambling to see if we could still get on our 6am flight. Fortunately, my gf had made photocopies of our passports. The police made a few calls to the immigrations people at the airport, and we were able to board the plane with my photocopy and the police report which said that my passport was stolen. We got to the airport at 5:30, made it on the plane, and made it to the US.
I wanted to share all this not to complain, but to raise awareness and share some insight. You hear a lot about truck break-ins and how to prevent them, but room break-ins can happen too, which we learned the hard way. Our lessons:
1) Make sure all the doors to your room have non-pickable locks along with handle locks. A deadbolt, latch, wooden door jam, anything. The guy tried our front door first and was thwarted, but he was successful around back. 2) Keep your valuables in the room safe at all times, no matter what. The sad part of our story is that we had kept the phone, wallets, passports, ipods, etc in the safe every day except the last one. We did this because we were out and about all week, and figured that on the last night, since we wouldn't be leaving the room, my stuff would be safe on the nightstand a foot from my head. It was not. 3) Make photocopies of all your documents. They may come in handy. According to the US Customs official, the immigrations people in Bonaire should not have let me on the plane with only a photocopy. But they did, so it worked out for us. This is especially helpful because the US Consulate is on Curacao, not Bonaire. So in order to get a new passport, you'd have to get to Curacao first, miss your flight, and pay a small fortune to book a last minute flight home. So we were really glad they bent the rules for us. 4) Make sure you have a way to contact the police. We only had one cell phone with us, and once it went missing, we were sorta screwed. 5) Make sure you only have stuff in your wallet that is necessary to your trip. I had both my credit and debit card with me when I only needed one. So when I got back to America, I had no way to get money. If my wallet hadn't have been returned, I'd also need to get new insurance cards, a new Metro card, everything. I shouldn't have brought that stuff in the first place. 6) Buy trip insurance. It would have cost us a ton if we had missed our flight.
We talked to Liz, who owns the hotel, when we got home. She was very helpful. She assured me that they were taking several measures to make the inn safer, including installing new locks with non-pickable failsafes, putting in surveillance cameras on the premises, and cell phones to stay in each room safe. (In other instances of break-ins on the island, the land-lines had been cut). I'm sure she can comment further on these improvements, but it was good to hear that immediate action is being taken.
The thing is, we had a great time on the island for 98% of our time there; it's just too bad that the last couple hours were so miserable. I was looking forward to posting our diving report and I still plan on doing that once I finish color correcting my pictures. I promise my next post will be more uplifting. I'm looking forward to writing it much more than this one. Be safe.
-Darren
