As we explored the island we kept seeing a lot of stores, signs, and shirts with “dushi” on it – “Dushi Dive” “Dushi Bonaire” and all sorts of other “Dushi” things. How weird. In America, “Dush” is a derogatory word. So, I had to ask the lady a local what “dushi” meant and to my surprise she said it was a term of endearment, meaning “sweet/sweetheart.” Well now that makes a lot more sense! Still, I do not think I can bring myself to buying a shirt, hat or trinket with “dushi” written on it – or can I?
Bonaire is a quiet, charming, and pretty clean island with about 19,000 inhabitants. The government has determined that they will only grow to the size of 30-35k inhabitants. Bonaire is part of the Netherland’s Antilles, with its sister Islands, Curacao and Aruba. Other Antillean islands include St. Maarten, Saba, and Statia. They capital Kralendijk (pronounced crawlen dike) which is the main port and the only mooring area. The entire island is only 12 square miles and the inhabitants only occupy about 5% of the island. Another 25% of the island is the National Park. The two main industries are salt and tourism even though they do not really cater to boaters.
Being the third best dive spot in the world makes diving a huge part of their tourism business, but they also have a booming business in snorkeling, windsurfing, and bird watching. In addition, you can enjoy parrot, donkey, and flamingo sanctuaries. Windsurfing takes place on Lac Bay, a large lagoon on the windward side of the island which is protected from seas by a low lying reef. The depth is only about 1 meter and it is 2 miles from shore to the reef which makes a large protected area for beginners to learn how to windsurf. Professional windsurfers run the windsurfing school called Jibe City. Bonaire is home to the top 4 windsurfers in the world so you can learn from the best!.
Jibe City Windsurfing School
There is only one stop light on island and it is not used for traffic. It actually says STOP FOR PIZZA. Love it.
Stop For Pizza
There are 12 massive windmills on the North Eastern side of the island and they each provide 1 megawatt of energy. The island however, uses about 22 megawatts of energy so they built a plant which can generate up to 24 megawatts of energy during the time the windmills cease to provide their share (September-October).
A tour is definitely in order to help us get the lay of the land so to speak. It appears that most of the site seeing places require a car so we might have to look into that as well. Places of interest include Washington Slagbaai National Park, parrot sanctuary, donkey sanctuary, Rincon, Salt Flats, Cave tour, Cadushi Factory, Blow Hole, Salt Flats, Famingo Sanctuary, Slave Houses, Seru Largu, Lighthouse and ruin and the dive sites including 1,000 steps, pink beach, Klein Bonaire, and more.
Currency is the U.S. dollar even though it is a Dutch island. I believe some places still take the guilder (sometimes called the florin) which is about 1.78N to the $1. We used guilder while we were in St. Maarten a few times.
The main languages in Bonaire are Dutch, English, Spanish, and Papiamentu which is a mix of languages that started with the slaves who did not understand, Dutch, English, or Spanish. A small glossary of words can be found here.
Bonaire is really flat, dry and full of cactus which is very different from the Caribbean islands we are used to which are filled with mountains and lush terrain. Most people think that Bonaire is a volcanic island but we learned it is really a tectonic island (meaning the plates in the ocean push up the island over time). But to me, when you look at the island it looks like a choral island as it is filled with choral everywhere.
