Salt, Slavery and Thievery

We dove two sites on the south end of the island of Bonaire November 7, Margate Bay and the Salt Pier.  Margate is good for its variety of fish and healthy soft corals and the pilings of the Salt Pier attract swarming schools of grunts and snappers and the occasional marauding barracuda.  On the way to Margate you pass tiny huts, remnants of the Dutch salve operations of the 17th and 18th century and the salt drying pans that have been producing sea salt since the Dutch first dominated the new world salt cod industry of the 17th century. 

Dog house sized slave huts on the way to Margate Bay.

The history of Bonaire is strongly tied to salt and slavery.  Presumably the nearby slave quarters provided the manpower to gather and load the salt production in its day.  Bonaire was also the Caribbean terminus of the Dutch slave route out of Africa.  From Bonaire, slaves were delivered to planters throughout the western hemisphere.

Today the salt is mechanically loaded into ships via an elaborate over water conveyor system, the support structure providing excellent fish habitat.    

We enjoyed the healthy reef on the Margate dive, with abundant fish and large, healthy tree and shrub like soft corals. 

A trumpet fish hunts among the sea rod and wire corals.

Susan didn't know it, but she was being stalked by a two foot barracuda.

   

When we returned to shore we discovered another feature that Bonaire has become synonymous with: thievery.  When diving some of Bonaire's less traveled dive sites, your vehicle is vulnerable to hit and run thieves.  It is widely publicized that you should leave windows down, doors unlocked and absolutely leave nothing of value in your vehicle.  When we surfaced at Margate, a couple in the pick-up truck next to us appeared quite perturbed.  Thinking they were having equipment issues I asked if everything was OK?  "We were robbed..." came the reply as they quickly got out of their wetsuits and drove off in the direction of town, tires squealing once they hit dry pavement.

Vehicles left on isolated beaches during dives are vulnerable to petty thieves.

We were warned before our first trip to Bonaire about leaving valuables in your rental car.  Our friendly local Dive Shop had just returned from a week in Bonaire and the sales staff got to experience just how petty the thieves on Bonaire can be -- they had their cheap sunglasses and well-trod flip-flops pilfered from their vehicle.  They also told us that legend has it that the thieves deposit unwanted booty in a crumbling house at the south end of the island.  There is an entire room in the lighthouse keepers old house full of flip-flops we were told.  After diving Margate Bay we could see the lighthouse and decided to see if the legend of the flip-flop room was true. 



The lighthouse keepers house in ruins, now used for flip-flop storage.

Every conceivable size and shape of flip-flops and water shoes, even tiny kids shoes.  Who would steal a little kids' shoes?

After the amusing interlude with the end results of thievery, we resumed the trail to salt and slavery err...the salt pier.

Susan eyes entry to Salt Pier dive site, a short walk over soft sand and short swim to the pilings of the pier.  Even though we had been told how stunning this dive is, we were not prepared for its incredible beauty.

The pilings overhead leave you with a sense of swimming in a forest, with each piling stratified with a different species of fish at its base alternating every ten feet until near the surface, grunts, snappers, squirrel fish, angel fish on and on.

Squirrel fish hovering in mid-water.  Never saw so many fish, so many varieties on one Bonaire dive site.

All in all, this was a fantastic day, for memorable dive sites, history lessons and freaking flip-flops.