Boat Thieves in Caya de Agua

A friend recently regaled me with his experience of a piracy attack, I do not like to refer to these people as pirates, that would give them some sort of romantic dignity, these people were quite obviously nothing more than common thieves.

To protect the privacy of the person involved, I have changed both the name of the person and the boat.

While sailing through the islands of Los Roques, off the coast of Venezuela, in his sail boat Whisper, Charlie had dropped anchor for an evening in the beautiful bay off Caya de Agua, there were no other boats within sight when he arrived.

Caya de Agua is a small isolated island, the furthest island west of the Los Roques chain. 

Bob and I have visited this island several times with both Daniela and Edward.  It is remote, but it’s far enough away from the Venezuelan coast that one feels safe, at least we did, but having heard this story I would think twice about going there again without at least one other boat to accompany us.

Edi walking between the two islands of Caya de Agua

Charlie was relaxing on board, when he spotted a small fishing boat with two men coming in his direction, they pulled alongside Whisper and the man at the front held up his bow line and spoke to Charlie in Spanish, it was a dialect Charlie was unfamiliar with and couldn’t understand what the man wanted.  Before he could do anything to stop him the man leapt up onto the deck and pushed past Charlie, the other man also leapt out of the fishing boat up onto Whisper’s deck and pushed roughly past Charlie almost knocking him over.  The second man disappeared below decks and came back a moment later carrying a television.  Within minutes another couple of fishing boats appeared, each with three or four men aboard.  They all came alongside and boarded Whisper, Charlie helpless to stop them and in fear for his own safety abandoned Whisper and motored across to the island in his dinghy.

Powerless to do anything to stop them he could only watch as they ransacked his boat taking everything they could carry.

Charlie stayed on the island until he eventually spotted another sail boat approaching, he waved frantically at them from the shore.  The people on the sailboat were kind enough to pick Charlie up and take him to Grand Roques where he reported the incident to the imparques and the local coast guard who said there was nothing they could do. 

Whisper was no longer at Caya de Agua, she had vanished from sight.  Charlie flew home and a few days later received a call from a friend to say that he though he had seen Whisper abandoned at Grand Roques.

Charlie immediately flew back to the island, not an easy trip involving many flights and lay-over’s, he arrived back at Los Roques two days later.

He was so excited to see Whisper, although she was in a sorry state, she had been totally stripped bare, nothing was left except the shell.

Unfortunately the Coast Guard could not release the boat to Charlie without him first seeing a person of authority (who shall remain nameless), they combed every bar on the island before they eventually found him, Charlie showed his ships papers proving ownership, and the person said he would release Whisper if Charlie would pay for their out of pocket expenses.  Naturally Charlie agreed, but it really stung when they demanded $50,000.  If he wanted Whisper back he had no choice, so he arranged payment and immediately set about getting Whisper ready to leave.  The sooner he was away from there the better.

A year later and Charlie is still working on the refit of Whisper, but at least he and the boat are now in a safe location.

I was so shocked to hear this story, both Bob and I felt Los Roques was a safe anchorage, it just goes to show, thieves can attack anywhere anytime.  What would you do in that situation, when you’re outnumbered, and approached at anchor?  It scares me to think just how vulnerable you are when alone on a boat.  I suppose the lesson is to always try and sail with another boat, and not anchor where you are alone.  Otherwise it’s all in the hands of the God’s.