Bonaire Burglar Stopped

[tuner fish]

Dare I bring this up...??? Burgler did have a knife. He never used it as we were always face to face/fist to fist. The first time I saw the knife was while he was being cuffed and frisked.

 

[socaldiver]

I have been to Bonaire a few times and I would go back in a heartbeat but I want to discover other places also.

It is irritatng to see posts from people who have never been there but yet are quick to judge. And for some it appears to be common practice to bash other parts of the world's crime and newspapers and dive ops when in reality you haven't been out of the state you reside in or have only ventured to Coz. Maybe you should get out and travel and do some real diving instead of spending your entire day as a cyber diver who doesn't really know as much as you think.

Have you been to Maui? We have crime here. People leave their windows down, doors unlocked for the same reasons as in Bonare. They don't want their vehicles vandalized. But wait, burglaries and vandalism are common no matter where you live.

 

[DandyDon]

Dare I bring this up...??? Burgler did have a knife. He never used it as we were always face to face/fist to fist. The first time I saw the knife was while he was being cuffed and frisked.

Uh, maybe this is an example of why police departments encourage home owners to call them rather then entering their homes when they suspect they've been burgled? It's natural to run in yourself, but risky. Walmart.com has some 2# bats on clearance...

I have been to Bonaire a few times and I would go back in a heartbeat but I want to discover other places also.

It is irritatng to see posts from people who have never been there but yet are quick to judge. And for some it appears to be common practice to bash other parts of the world's crime and newspapers and dive ops when in reality you haven't been out of the state you reside in or have only ventured to Coz. Maybe you should get out and travel and do some real diving instead of spending your entire day as a cyber diver who doesn't really know as much as you think.

Have you been to Maui? We have crime here. People leave their windows down, doors unlocked for the same reasons as in Bonare. They don't want their vehicles vandalized. But wait, burglaries and vandalism are common no matter where you live.

I lived 25 years in a old farm house that didn't have locks. Left it like that when I went to Maui and Ireland the same month. Once I thot I someone had been inside and left the lights on and I waited on the sheriff to come check the house but nothing missing. In recent years we started locking the barn and gas tank and pulling some truck keys and I did move to a home with locks. Sometimes I forget to close the garage door or lock that door, but I'm getting better. But enough background; maybe I'm not giving a typical reaction. I have been further than Coz, tho, i.e.

For the record, I've been to Central American countries, several Antilles, several other states other than Texas, but I have to wonder why Bonaire gets the most warnings.

 

[deeper thoughts]

I have been to Bonaire a few times and I would go back in a heartbeat but I want to discover other places also.

It is irritatng to see posts from people who have never been there but yet are quick to judge. And for some it appears to be common practice to bash other parts of the world's crime and newspapers and dive ops when in reality you haven't been out of the state you reside in or have only ventured to Coz. Maybe you should get out and travel and do some real diving instead of spending your entire day as a cyber diver who doesn't really know as much as you think.

Have you been to Maui? We have crime here. People leave their windows down, doors unlocked for the same reasons as in Bonare. They don't want their vehicles vandalized. But wait, burglaries and vandalism are common no matter where you live.

Are cars vandalized that much that you have to leave your windows open?

 

[dukeh20]

At this point I almost feel like this is beating a dead horse, but oh well. We got back from Bonaire last Sunday (just ahead of Omar) after another enjoyable week.

We live in a town of 5000 people in central Illinois. There is little crime in our town, but from time to time there is the odd burglary. More times then not, it is because someone didn't lock their car or left a side door to their house open when they went to visit a neighbor. The harder you make it for the criminal, the less likely it is you will become their victim, whether at home or in Bonaire.

For what it's worth, we take our laptop to Bonaire along with a cable lock we bought at Best Buy. I find a solid piece of furniture or other item to lock it to. In Bonaire, we dont lock the truck and never leave anything of value in it.

It would be "nice" if places like Bonaire didn't have the same social problems (like crime) that so many of us go on vacation to get away from, but they do. I guess it leaves us with three choices as far as Bonaire: go somewhere else, stay home or go back again and dive our brains out. I choose door number 3.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[socaldiver]

You will have some level of crime.

"Are cars vandalized that much that you have to leave your windows open? "

You really don't read about it in the local papers, but you do here things in your social circles or from associates at work. Is it as rabid as Bonaire or other places, don't know. I do know that when I go diving or snorkeling to where I will not have a visual on my vehicle I not only have the windows open but the doors are not locked.

I grew up in a small town (we called it a village) of 472 people. We never locked doors, lwe left windows open, front door open when we went to bed for the nice. Can you do that now? No. Society has changed and unfortunately crime are being committed everywhere at a larger scale. Percentage wise I would almost bet it is the same asback 40 years ago.

It's nice to be cautious, but not paranoid to where you don't want to go some where and experience the good qualities an area has to offer.

 

[Draq]

I, for one, am not trying to bash Bonaire; as I said, I enjoy it and will go back. I do not feel unsafe there and simply adapt to the idea that I have to leave nothing in the truck and make sure the condo is locked. I would do that last bit anywhere.

I have also traveled a lot and have been in plenty of places with more and worse crime than Bonaire. The thing about Bonaire is that it is small enough and has a low enough overall crime problem that the petty crimes perpetrated on tourists would be relatively easy to deal with if anyone cared much. It would be cheap and easy to set up bait vehicles at dive sites and in the "downtown" area, or setup surveillance at condo and restaurant parking lots. It wouldn't take too many arrests followed by prosecution and jail time for the situation to improve.

The annoyance is not so much the crime as the lack of interest in it by local authorities.

And, FWIW, I don't have to leave my car windows down and car unlocked when I park my car where I live, and I don't live in a small town. And, If I caught a burglar in my home, he would would not be held overnight and released with his belongings the next morning. He would be prosecuted.

At one time when I lived in Miami, certain criminals began targeting foreign tourists, in the belief that if caught, the victims would be long gone before any trial so no convictions could occur. The State began aggressively paying to bring victims back from the UK and other places and that crime pattern subsided.

Anyway, this has all been said before and it's probably time to let the thread die. I am glad the bad guy didn't hurt anyone.

 

[DeltaWardog]

When my wife and I went to Bonaire I took security alarms for the doors of the hotel, a motion detector for the window, and everything went into the safe whenever we were out of the room. Pretty ridiculous but it let me sleep at night.

We didn't have any problems but we did see locals driving back and forth on the roads when we were out at the dive sites. Got to ask why they would be doing that, gas ain't exactly cheap there. Our stuff was rifled through in the truck once when we were diving south. Nothing was taken because we didn't leave any valuables.

When we were gearing up to dive the site just north of Thousand Steps (I forget the name at the moment) we saw a car of 4 local teenage boys drive past us three times within 10 minutes. On the third time I took their picture as they were going by. I think they got the message and none of our stuff was missing when we got back.

But there was definitely a feeling of unease at times. I had to wonder more than once if our truck would still be unmolested when we got back from a dive. I don't believe the Bonaire authorities really care about cleaning up the crime against tourists there. They will only pay attention when/if it turns violent. Even then I would question their competence. The Natalie Holloway incident was right next door and we all saw how that turned out. Plus they still haven't found the poor girl that was taken recently.

We'll definitely go back someday, but will always take precautions. I will admit that I do feel much safer on Cozumel but maybe that's a false sense of security, who can say.

 

[Martha]

Plus they still haven't found the poor girl that was taken recently.

We'll definitely go back someday, but will always take precautions. I will admit that I do feel much safer on Cozumel but maybe that's a false sense of security, who can say.

Sadly, her body has been found.

As far as the safety concerns on Bonaire, we take precautions anywhere we go. I also take precautions at home. As far as I can tell, crime can happen anywhere.

 

[DiveMaven]

They actually did find the Dutch girl that was missing....unfortunately it was her body in a shallow grave.

I have to agree that it doesn't seem like the police or locals care much about the petty crime...heck, it's not like you even SEE police when you're there (we saw them twice in 2 weeks). On the other hand, we were glad to know the "rules" prior to arriving about leaving the truck windows down and doors unlocked at dive sites, and since we already never leave anything of value in vehicles, it worked well for us.

One reason we chose to stay at Den Laman was because the condos are on the 2nd and 3rd floors and you need a card key to access the stairwell. Although we're not silly enough to think the stairwell couldn't be easily accessed by someone not staying there, at least we didn't have to think about someone crawling through an open window or prying a sliding glass door since we weren't on ground level. But again, we typically request 2nd floor and above accomodations when traveling anywhere anyway...so not much of a difference for Bonaire.

I still think there isn't any more crime on Bonaire than other places, the difference is that the rental car companies tell you to leave the windows down, nothing of value in the vehicle, and the car unlocked.