Bonaire – The Island of Good Air

 

“When you leave a beautiful place, you carry it with you wherever you go.”

Alexandra Stoddard

Bonaire is a lovely island located in the Leeward Antilles and is a part of the ABC islands. Bonaire derived its name from its Spanish name, “buen aire” meaning good air. It is located only 50 miles from the Venezuela coast in the southern Caribbean Sea and is a small island. Bonaire is only 111 square miles and is 24 miles long from north and south, and only 3 – 5 miles wide from east to west.

Our ship docked at the cruise port in the city of Kralendijk, which translates to “coral reef”. It is the capital of Bonaire and is the largest town on the island with only 3000 residents. Kralendijk’s Main Street is a lovely place to stroll and enjoy window shopping and looking at all the charming colorful Dutch Colonial Buildings. There are many interesting and touristy shops to explore while walking around this charming town.

Our host from the excursion we scheduled, taught us a lot about the history of the island. He told us this island was first called Brazil when the Europeans first arrived. While Curacao emerged as the slave trade center for the Caribbean, Bonaire became known as the plantation for the Dutch West India Company. African slaves were brought here and put to work alongside Indians and convicts to prepare and farm dye wood, maize, and to harvest solar salt around Blue Pan till the slaves were freed in 1862 under the Emancipation Regulation.

At that point in time, there were 607 government slaves and 151 private slaves that were freed. There are some preserved slave quarters, built in 1850 still standing near the salt mines. We stopped to see these huts which were very small and not built tall enough to stand up. This is where the slaves stayed during the week. Every weekend, they were allowed to go home but had to walk a good distance to get to the town of Rincon to see their families. Rincon was the oldest settlement in the Dutch Caribbean. It was the perfect settlement during the pirate days since it couldn’t be seen from the ocean or their ships because of the hills surrounding the town actually hiding it.

We got to stop and look out over the Salt pans which are lakes or inlets that are closed off from the sea by a dead coral dyke on the southern half of the island. The dyke worked perfectly as it helped ensure the collection of filtered of rain water and prevents nutrients and soil particles from getting to the reefs protecting damage to the corals. The salt pans are also a great feeding grounds for many water birds. As these large ponds and pools evaporate, they make salt. After the salt is gathered, the salt gets washed and stored in impressive pyramid-shaped piles some up to 50’ high. Our host, passed around a huge piece of salt for us to look at and then gave us each a small piece to take home. We were surprised by what the salt rock looked like.

Cargill Solar Salt Works produces over 400,000 tons of salt each year. Bonaire’s salt is used for industrial purposes. The salt pans have their own piers making it easy for ships to load up the salt and ship it out to North America, Europe, and some western Pacific markets. The salt pans are a gorgeous site with the white salt piled high and accented with the unique pink colored ponds. The pink color of the ponds is caused by a microorganism called halophilic bacteria, which does well in a high salinity brine. It actually is not a bacteria but rather a single cell life-form. The cells contain carotenoid pigments giving the crystallizers the pink-red color. It makes a beautiful and interesting site to see and photograph.

The climate on Bonaire is semi-arid making desert plants and cacti thrive. There are gorgeous desert areas with beautiful plants to see and cacti that reach high into the sky. This wonderful island is sunny near all the time and has a great climate.

At one point on our excursion, we passed Pekel Lake where the flamingo reserve is located on the south-west point of the island. This is one of only four nesting areas for the Caribbean flamingo. Depending on the time of year, there could be between 2000 – 7000 flamingos that come to this area. This reserve is off limits to people so you can only see the flamingos from a distance. They are drawn to the brackish water since the islands lagoons harbor shrimp making it the perfect place for them. It was amazing seeing them in the wild even with most being quite a distance from us.

Another stop was at the Museum Chichitan. This small museum that seems to be away from everything and was a great example of how the Bonaireans lived during the past 130 years. Our bus driver let us each get a taste the Cadushy Cactus Liqueur which is very popular on the island. We were not fans of the taste but if we had been, we could have bought the liqueur from the small store attached to the museum.

This is the perfect island for scuba diving and snorkeling since the water is so clear and beautiful. The water is clearer here than the other two islands in the ABC islands. Their is a small island just off the coast of Bonaire near Kralendijk called Klein Bonaire. It is an undeveloped island and has a pristine reef circling the entire island that has many wonderful dive sites. That is definitely the place to go is you wish to snorkel or scuba dive.

This is a great place to visit especially if you are into scuba and snorkeling. We found the salt pans fascinating as well as how the different the middle of the island looks from the coast. There are some nice beaches to visit but we were beached out by then. Many of the beaches have crushed coral that has washed up so they are not great for walking. The views along the coast are spectacular. This island should be put on your list of places you must see.

Till next time. Bye for now.