Bonaire -- Spare Tire Stolen From Truck at Something Special

[nippurmagnum]

Try doing a shore dive in Rockaway (NYC)! Scuba Shore Diving Site Page for: Beach 8th Street, Queens of New York, USA East
Bonaire is perfectly safe. Use common sense and don't leave anything valuable in your truck. Something Special is on essentially a dead end with a ramshackle house right there and is also a beach area where people often hang out right near the street. If you park in the lot about 100 feet away you have a busy street, but the lot is a a dozen yards off the main road and there is some foliage there as well. A spare tire is a bit unusual, probably means that there was nothing else worth taking! I was there a couple of weeks ago and kept looking under my truck when I got out of the water because of this - LOL.
I have NEVER felt unsafe anywhere in Bonaire and I would expect petty theft exists everywhere people leave their valuables unsupervised for a while - solution is to leave nothing of value around. Spare tire? I've got no solution for that!!

One solution to having a spare tire stolen is to remove it yourself, store it at your Airbnb, hope it doesn't get stolen from the Airbnb, and then replace it at the end of the trip before returning the vehicle. And hope, of course, that you don't have a flat in the meantime.

During my first trip to Bonaire, I stayed at an Airbnb that was directly in front of Something Special, so that was my house reef for a whole week. It's a fantastic site for muck diving. I would get up in the morning when the roosters started doing their thing, and do a dawn dive, and it was also a great spot for night dives. On subsequent trips, I've stayed elsewhere and driven to the site, and parked in the lot you mentioned, right under the foliage. I always assumed that the busyness of the street would protect me. Clearly I was wrong.

 

[mbs]

I'm just impressed that they could get the damn spare off! Usually they weld themselves to the bottom!

 

[Lorenzoid]

I'm just impressed that they could get the damn spare off! Usually they weld themselves to the bottom!

Exactly! The one time we had a flat tire on Bonaire, we found the tools were rusty, and we couldn't remove the tire.

 

[Shasta_man]

I note the "corruption" metric is ticking up!

 

[woodcarver]

Interesting crime report. I agree that Bonaire feels generally safe but i didn’t see much of a police presence at all. I doubt property crimes get investigated beyond the taking of a report. And of course how many people bother reporting thefts to the police while on vacation? I imagine there is vast underreporting of thefts at dive sites. I certainly didn’t report my stolen tire ...

Last August we commented on seeing police or Stinapa trucks at quite a few sites. They never stopped to talk to us, but we were not driving a rental and that is probably why.

 

[gert7to3]

For less than $150 bucks you could probably find a "replacement" spare. Especially from one of the brand X rental companies or a garage. Maybe even an unmounted tire from the side of the road. You know, just enough tire showing that it looks like the spare is there?

Went with a low ball car rental once in Bonaire. The tail gate fell off the truck. Took it back, they gave us a car which had an interesting suspension. It didn't seem to be fully attached. Returned that the next day. The rental company said they hadn't gotten around to welding the tail gate back on yet. I pointed out that it wouldn't work out anyway, since you can't weld rust. I borrowed some planks which wedged into the end of the truck bed. This kept everything on board, we just didn't have the tail gate to sit on.

 

[nippurmagnum]

For less than $150 bucks you could probably find a "replacement" spare. Especially from one of the brand X rental companies or a garage. Maybe even an unmounted tire from the side of the road. You know, just enough tire showing that it looks like the spare is there?

Went with a low ball car rental once in Bonaire. The tail gate fell off the truck. Took it back, they gave us a car which had an interesting suspension. It didn't seem to be fully attached. Returned that the next day. The rental company said they hadn't gotten around to welding the tail gate back on yet. I pointed out that it wouldn't work out anyway, since you can't weld rust. I borrowed some planks which wedged into the end of the truck bed. This kept everything on board, we just didn't have the tail gate to sit on.

The thought occurred to me at the time, but it wasn't practicable and it would have been right. I only realized my spare had been stolen as I was returning the truck, a couple hours before my flight. So no time to go look for another spare. And I wouldn't have put in an unsafe tire from the side of the road, that could have really put the next renter in a bind if they got a flat at the national park or something.

And anyway, as I mentioned above, in the end Budget eventually reversed the charge for the $150, so it was all good. I will definitely rent from them again when the zombie apocalypse ends and we can travel again.