In 1957, there have been no Rolex retailers on Bonaire, so Karel’s great-grandfather, a fisherman born in Holland, purchased the Submariner at Spritzer & Fuhrmann, a well-known jeweler in neighboring Curaçao, for 800 Dutch gilders, the equal then of 4 folks’s common salaries. “My grandfather was a spoiled youngster,” Karel Visser laughs.
Kees was beginning his profession as a boatbuilder and spent most of his time within the components, in and across the turquoise waters surrounding his dwelling island. So a Rolex Submariner would have been the right alternative – rugged and waterproof, on the time assured to a depth of 100 meters.
