Bonaire: The wreck of the Hilma Hooker

Wrecks are fascinating, from a biological point of view, as nature occupies relentlessly the new territory and from an emotional perspective wrecks emanate a dark fascination as all wrecks have a history and often a gruesome one.
As everything interesting of course Hilma has a history and luckily it is not a very dark one – more kind of a green one…

The ship wreck of the Hilma Hooker lying on its starboard side on the reef of the tropical island Bonaire.

Let’s start with the name, Hilma wasn’t her first one, just her last. After being built in the Netherlands in 1951 the first name was Midland, then Mistral (1964), William Express (1967) under that name she even sunk, but was refloated and rebaptised to Anna C. (1975) then she became the Doric Express (1976) and in 1979 she was named Hilma Hooker.

Her new owners wanted to maximize the profit from poor, not very well maintained Hilma so they decided to use her as smuggling vessel.
Due to engine troubles she was towed to Kralendijk harbour were she was searched and 25.000 pound of marihuana were found.
After their owners vanished completly she was towed outside the harbour and moored on sea in sight of the coast. In the morning of September 12, 1984 the Hilma Hooker sank to her last destination on the sandy bottom at the foot of the fringing reef of Bonaire.