Bonaire is an island in the southern Caribbean sea. It is part of the Netherland Antilles and is a scuba diving and wind surfing mecca. Upon arriving, you will notice at least one thing unique about the island. There are yellow rocks all over the place! Before you ask, I am going to tell you what the yellow rocks in Bonaire are.
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If you are new to Bonaire, you will likely wonder why you see rocks painted yellow all over. If you look closely, you may notice that many of them also have white writing on them as well. These are markers put out for direction and identification of dive sites, instructions, warnings, and other things that the public may want to know.
For example, this rock says “Oil Slick.” Oil Slick is a dive site about 10 minutes north of Kralendijk. All of the dive sites are label this way. Bonaire is basically one great big reef system and while there are some boat dives almost all of the diving is from shore. The rocks are simply a way to help people find the sites. You can dive almost anywhere in Bonaire, but the marked sites will have a (usually) easy entry into the water with your gear and will have some parking.
On the east side of the island, there are several areas of interest to tourists. These are also marked with yellow rocks in the the same way. Just west of the big bay on the eastern side is a an area that can have quick sand. These yellow rocks line the road warning not to exit the road. I have also seen people label their house, and businesses put address, social sites, and other labels on them too.
The yellow rocks in Bonaire remind me a lot of the white corals that are used on the lava flows in Hawaii. One big difference is that the white corals are usually more graffiti like and don’t always give directions or mark something important whereas there have not been (yet) a lot of people scattering the yellow rocks around just to spell names and send messages.
