Is Cruising Safe? Panama Pirate Attack in Guna Yala/San Blas Islands
I just read the news of a family on a cruising boat, a trawler attacked, with resulting death of the husband, Alan Culverware, and injury to his daughter, in a previously considered safe area to cruise in the Guna Yala/San Blas Islands, in Panama. I read this with great sadness. We cruised this area more than a decade ago, as do many cruising sailboats, and like in many anchorages, we “felt” very safe there. I have read many comments from other cruisers that “cruising is safer than living in the US”…
Here is my view on it…12 years in to our circumnavIgation. It’s with mixed feelings I say any of this, because we all like to feel we are living safely out here, or anywhere we choose to live. It’s human nature to argue one’s life choices, and defend where one lives.
Crime happens everywhere for sure. I often meet well travelled people out here, in areas I consider less safe than the US, that refuse to travel to the US…”Too dangerous” they say…”I watch and hear American news, and people are getting killed, bombed, and raped every day there. … I rather stay here and be safe!” This is so very true about the US…but because nobody in my family has ever been affected by this, I feel like the risk is minimized for me personally, when I travel back to my family in the US. I feel like my family lives in a safe area and stays away from the bad areas, that these things happen in other places in the US, not where we lived, and not where my family lives. But I suppose every town and neighborhood is safe until one day, something happens, and it’s not considered as safe as it once was.
I am a bit scared here in South Africa to be honest. It’s a bit like the US in that bad things are in the news each and every day here. We are warned to be careful, and not walk places, and lock up our boat tight. I’m not even entirely sure exactly where here I need to stay away from, and I haven’t come to understand exactly where and who to be afraid of. Not go walking in the beautiful lake side greenbelts? Not walk on busy highways in broad daylight? At home in the USA I would know where not to go, how dark of an alley not to walk down depending what town or city I was in. My senses would be keen, and my intuition would be fairly spot on about where I am safe or not safe, short of an ourright surprise. But in this strange land, my senses are dulled, whether I admit it or not, and I must learn, hopefully not the hard way. Even after 6 months of being in this one spot, my senses and knowledge won’t be as keen as a local who has spent their life here. “Feeling safe” somewhere is just that…a feeling, not necessarily the reality of it. Have we Cruisers left our country because it doesn’t feel safe there, and entered another where our ignorance is bliss, until it’s not so blissful anymore, and someone is attacked in the very neighborhood we all felt safe in before?
It is without doubt, prudent to do our research as we travel around. But As Cruisers, we face this lack of true knowledge, awareness and intuition because we are in a strange area to us, with nuances we can not know in time, or in some cases, ever. Sure, we gain a bit of insight as we go, and traveling in different places we learn things we aren’t even aware of, to keep ourselves safer…but our knowledge of each area we go to can never be quite as sharp as where we spent the first 20, 30, or 40 years of our life honing that sense and knowledge. All we can do as cruisers is stick to where violence and crime against cruisers before us has not happened. Use our dulled intuition and awareness to guide us. Be more cautious than we are at home because we don’t have the “home advantage”. Assess the situation with our own brains and previous experiences and interpretations. Pray that karma and luck is on our side, dress down, act poor, and try not to cause resentment of our “richness” as we go. Don’t hand things out and perpetuate that people on boats have lots of money (and hence possessions) to spare. We are operating a “treasure ship” here. Our predecessors have willingly handed out an abundance of used clothes and household items…it’s no wonder we are viewed as such. An act as simple as hanging our laundry out to dry can display just how many shirts we have compared to the person on shore who feels lucky to have one with holes in it. How unfair that they have worked hard their whole lives, and do not have this abundance to give away, shirts and shoes and sunglasses to choose between, money to spend on meals at resorts, and a nice boat to travel the world on !? Is is any wonder that the very few bad seeds at any one location come to harm us, albeit it rarely?
For sure, We have to madly research, and be aware of where the hot spots are, and give these areas a wide berth. But those hot spots are sure to spread as time goes on, just as crime in the US or other areas previously safe are spreading. The world is NOT getting safer over time, nor are the seas, or anchorages, or marinas.
As Cruisers, the difference between being on land versus on the water, in a foreign country, is that we, with a boat of 40 feet “look” rich and are hence targets. There are only 5, or 10 or 100 of us “rich” targets to choose from in each given area. Back in the US, we blend in more, we are not one of 5, 10 or 100 and don’t look “rich” to the majority of people around us. And in the US, we aren’t in a place where we are alone for miles around, as that “rich” person. Rich people who do live in the boonies, far from anyone in the US have to boost their security measures because they stand out to the more average people. So, as “rich” Cruisers (ie anyone with a boat), the odds are greater, and our TRUE knowledge of our neighbors in any one given anchorage is less known because we are the new guys on the block. We are often “strolling through the ghettos”, which we wouldn’t do at home, but we may not even always be aware of in new locations we visit in the world, because it ALL looks “poor” to us, compared to where we originally lived!
I certainly am feeling more at risk these days than I did in the beginning, 12 years ago, and I seek new ways all the time to TRY to be safer both on the boat and when exploring the beautiful places we go. Nothing I have done hence far truly makes us much safer though, I’m afraid. The fact remains… My risk as a “rich” person out here is 1 in 10,000 … My risk back home is more like 1 in 330,000,000. If the odds for two lotteries were this, which would you play?
Another statistic to consider…in the US, to this day… I know of 1 person, personally, who was attacked in his hotel room, tied up, gagged and lost his hand due to it. I know of not one person, personally, who was killed, murdered, raped, or even held at gunpoint..only strangers on the TV, in the 41 years before we left. I personally knew just 2 people who were robbed in their home, nonviolently, while they were away or slept.
Since cruising, I’ve known 9 people personally who were kidnapped, 5 who were mirdered, 3 that were held at gun or knifepoint on land, and 6 who were attacked violently on their boat. That’s in just 12 years, not the 41 I had on land, in the USA.
We all want to hear that we have a safer lifestyle, living aboard. I think the truth of the matter really,is that the dangers are shifted, and that we should all take measures to secure ourselves, maybe a little more than we currently do, so we can keep being safe. Also, new cruisers should not think that they leave all their worries behind when they leave land. Violent crime still exists out here, and if you stay out here long enough, you WILL know someone who has been violently attacked, and hopefully it’s not you or your family. As the whole world deteriorates and becomes less safe, I think cruising will follow suit. Take care, and stay safe everyone, and enjoy this beautiful life while we have it!
These are the statistics and risk that I choose to live with, for the tradeoff of seeing the world, and living each day fully. Hopefully I can keep my head low, blend in, and stay off the radar of the bad guys. Hopefully I can keep having fun, staying healthy and living my little life unharmed.
Hopefully I die having an adventure rather than in the monotony of the white noise in a house, trapped on land in the monotony. Everything in life is a trade off.
