Okay. As I stated before, my diving friends made a mistake on the first boat dive, got separated from the group, went past the boat, and had to be rescued by another near by dive boat. Well, I knew one of them is not a very good swimmer and she was going to be tired. I elected to pass on the second dive, and I was correct, she passed also. She was traumatized and pissed at the whole operation. I told her I would stay back and just shore dive with her. No big deal. So for two days we took a couple shore dives, drove around the island sight-seeing, and snorkeled with the guys. So here's what I got of the island. It is a dessert island. We never heard of such a thing, but boy, do we know what it is now. Miserably hot! It is a dutch island, but Cargill has the salt mining operation.
In a nutshell, the history goes that the Caiquetios sailed from Venezuela over 1,000 years ago. In 1499, the Spaniards landed and claimed the island. Finding it of little use, they enslaved all of the inhabitants and moved them to the island of Hispaniola to work on the plantations. In 1526, cattle was brought to the island and some of the Caiquetios were brought back as laborers. A few years later other animals like sheep, pigs, donkeys, goats, and horses were brought in. They were pretty much left to roam because they were being raised for their hides and not meat. The animals outnumbered the people. To this day there are donkeys and goats roaming around. There's even a donkey sanctuary that we did not get to go through. Convicts from other Spanish colonies were sent to live there. Sound familiar?
In 1633, The Dutch took possession of the ABC islands, Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao. The latter island became the center of the slave trade. African slaves were brought to Bonaire to work. One major thing was making the salt pans and harvesting solar salt. More on this later.
Let's see if I can get these pics to load now.
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