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Is Cruising Safe? Panama Pirate Attack in Guna Yala/San Blas Islands

Is this a ghetto, or a simple country home? How are we really to know?

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.

Security Cameras New this year on Brick House..

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.

Indian Ocean Emergency Contacts for Sat Phone

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Zanzibar Marina, East Africa, Tanzania, a month at the new marina! It’s the only marina in East Africa, and is barely open. It is also known as Azam Watersports Marina, or Verde Hotel Marina, and is located a couple of miles north of Stonetown. It is a safe haven for sailboats. It’s brand new, and barely open, but when we heard the price, we almost decided NOT to come….$50 per night!!! But then we found out if you stay for a month or more, the prices come down to less than half. So we decided to time our arrival to Zanzibar for the Sauti Za Busara Music Festival in early February.

It was to be a safe place to leave our home at a dock, with guards, while we spent until the wee hours of the morning, in town, listening to the great lineup of African musicians, for 4+ days. It was a great 4 days, and we never feared for our boat, our dinghy, our outboard or our possessions the entire time we were away. Guards quizzed us each night upon return until they got to know exactly who we were and where we were going. I would wish them a “Lala salama”, and they would assure me that only I would have a good nights sleep…not them…they would be awake all night to guard the premises!

For a month, we did laundry on the dock, took endless showers, and walked on and off the boat any time we wanted to, together or by ourselves. I sat in a free massage chair for an hour a day getting a luxurious foot massage some days, and total body massage other days, after having a cappucino on fine china. Patrick went to the gym twice a day and got in a good routine, enjoying the air conditioning, nearly as much as the workout itself.

Every once in a while someone would turn off a motor that needs to run for the RO water to come from our hose on the dock, and we would have to wait until the next morning for dock water. But with a quick call to the manager, it would all come back on again. We were there for the hottest part of the year…February…and an AC unit would have made things better during the day, especially since electricity is included. Free WiFi is available in the restaurant and the lounge upstairs with the great coffee bar. The manager told me they are in the process now of trying to include more for visiting yachts including some Watersports…kayaks for example, and Showers, toilets, and laundry. Right now, if you want laundry done it it some outrageous amount per item, at the hotel. We never once used this expensive system. We hunted for showers to sneak in to, but alas, there were none. They did finally offer some outdoor, unisex showers that are used for the ocean part of the water park, but warned us to keep our clothes on 😉

With a nice restaurant at the head of the dock (which does not serve alcohol) , we splurged and ate dinner here every 4th or 5th night. Other times we ate on the boat running to town every few days for cheap fresh veggies and expensive boneless chicken breasts. Luckily we still had lots of food in the freezer not only from Dar, but from Mayotte and even ReUnion, so we never went hungry!

The dala dala or a taxi can be caught right outside the gate of the hotel, and though they always asked for more, you could generally get a taxi in for 5000 Tanzania Shillings, a little over $2 usd. If you came back late late at night, it could be as much as double that, and again, they start at 3x the price they are willing to go for. The Dala dala (a small bus or pickup truck with seats) costs about 12 cents, so when we could, we would catch the dala dala and be crammed in to a small pickup truck with seats in the back. There are also a few tuk tuks though most rare.