Netherlands Antilles no more
10 October 2010 | Curacao
Devi
Today was a big day for a few islands in the Caribbean. Bonaire, Sint Eustasius and Saba (BES Islands) will become municipalities of Netherlands with special status within the Dutch Kingdom. Curacao and Sint Maarten become independent states within the Dutch Kingdom with the same status that Aruba attained in 1986.
What does this mean to cruisers? The biggest change for most of us is that we will have to retire our well worn Netherlands Antilles courtesy flags and adopt the flag of each island. The flags of Bonaire, Saba and Sint Eustatius will become Dutch municipality flags and should be flown as the courtesy flag for the island.
On 1 January 2011 the US dollar will become the legal tender on the islands of Bonaire, St Eustatius and Saba. Guilders will continue to be accepted for cash payments until 1 February 2011. That means we will not see prices in guilders. The Guilder will continue to be legal tender on CuraƧao and Sint Maarten.
We joined Liz and Tom from Feel Free and walked into town to see if there were festivities to observe. We watched a break dance demonstration (of all things) and traditional dance with women and man dressed in traditional dance garb and listened to a band. People were flying the new national falg with much pride,