I’ve just had a GOOD experience with eZone and I thought I’d write to tell you about it.

My wife and I have been in the Eastern Caribbean for nearly 3 years and just arrived in Bonaire a month ago. We’ve seen advertisements for eZone throughout the Caribbean but never looked deeper. Here in Bonaire, I was having difficulty finding the right diving camera (only 17,000 inhabitants so the shopping choices are limited), so I went into the DHL office to inquire about shipping — and it happened to be co-located with the eZone office.

I signed up for an eZone account (free) and then “went Internet shopping”. I bought my camera on eBay and had it shipped to the Miami “freight-forwarding” address. From there, eZone shipped it to Bonaire by plane. The flights from Miami leave Mondays and Fridays to Bonaire. My costs were $ 279.99 (for the GoPro camera), $ 10 (eZone shipping charge, Miami to Bonaire), $ 7.50 (insurance), $ 23.80 (8% sales tax for Bonaire). There were no other charges, particularly none for duty. Note there is no 8% sales tax if the item is under $ 100.

By the way, the Bonaire Customs Officer told me that Bonaire does indeed respect “yacht in transit”, but if there are any duties applicable, the agent pays them up front and then recovers the money after the yacht leaves the island. Sales tax is another issue, and apparently unavoidable.

In any event, our experience with eZone was very good, and we’ll use it again.

Wade Alarie / SV Joana / www.joana.ca

http://www.getezone.com/