S/V Mojombo: Bonaire

Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao are three tiny Dutch affiliated islands all in a row, collectively known as the ABCs and part of the larger island chain called the Leeward Antilles. Traveling east from Grenada the first to rise up is Bonaire. It is hard to imagine an island less like Grenada. It’s flat, dry and well ... Dutch – it is officially a ‘special municipality’ of that country. Bonaire’s four economic pillars seem to be tourism, a salt works, a deep water export terminal for Venezuelan oil, and real estate speculation.

Tourism
Tourism is big – the economic mainstay. Close to half a million cruise passengers are expected to pass through the island this next season, but the fly-ins are more important. They come mainly for the diving – regarded as some of the world’s best - the waters around the island are crystal clear, the fish life is prolific and the coral is in pretty good condition. A marine park protects much of this precious habitat and it seems to be actively managed.

Designated dive sites are scattered around the lee side of the island – as you can see the reef drops off dramatically just off-shore. Divers hire utes to get around. We snorkeled just about every day – and saw many fish we had not previously seen.

Salt Works
The salt works is an old industry recently revitalized and is surprisingly picturesque. Salt water pumped into vast shallow lagoons warms up under the scorching sun causing a population explosion of tiny krill so prolific they turn the water pink. Flamingoes, filter feeders with specially adapted beaks, work the krill while humans and their machines work the salt into export mountains.

A spectacle of pink, white and blue.

These are Greater Flamingoes, they are much more pink than the Lesser Flamingoes we saw in Namibia.

The salt works are old and weren’t always worked by machines – for many years it was a slave industry. Some of their housing survives. It is said as many as six people were accommodated in each tiny hut.

Oil Terminal
Venezuela is oil rich, but its waters are shallow. Bonaire is surrounded by deep water, incredibly close inshore – it’s an anchoring nightmare. Venezuelan crude, refined into fuel oil, is shipped in small tankers to a depot on Bonaire where it is transferred to large tankers and exported to China. A recent spill and a significant fire in 2010 highlights the difficulty of maintaining the terminal and a delicate marine reserve side by side.

The oil terminal abuts the island’s surprisingly large Washington Slagbaai National Park.

Real Estate Speculation
Bonaire is officially part of Holland and it has become quite popular as a holiday home/retirement home location for the wealthier Dutch. New residential development has sent the capital sprawling across the landscape – not that it perhaps matters, the landscape is in such wretched condition anyway.

Wanna buy a bit of paradise?

Around the Island
Together with Brian and Dorothy we made a ‘golf cart’ tour of the island.

Consulting the mud map!

The island’s vegetation is low and shrubby with lots of cacti. It’s hard to imagine, because everything looks so dry, but prior to the arrival of European’s apparently much of the island was forested.