T&T: Onboard security

[Milt Baker]

Randy is right: Judy and I spent about six months cruising in Venezuela aboard Bluewater and the biggest security
problem we had was a missing dockline I foolishly left attached to a cleat at our marina berth while I was off
cruising for a week.  But as Randy reports, in Venezuela we were very careful about security: no flashy jewelry,
inexpensive "rubber" watches, staying out of questionable places (especially after dark), and never, ever anchoring
off by ourselves along the coast.  We always cruised (and anchored) in company with other cruising yachts.  And we 
locked up the boat, both at anchor and in marinas.   We met others who had been robbed in Venezuela, and stories 
about boardings of anchored boats were circulated regularly enough that we found them credible.  That was in 2005/6.  Those in the know tell me that it's much worse in Venezuela today.

And in summer 2007, anchored off the island of Ibiza in Spain's Balearic Islands, Bluewater was boarded while Judy 
and I (and our Schipperke Katy) were asleep.  The boat was locked up except for an overhead hatch in the pilothouse 
which we apparently forgot to lock, and we suspect the the thief (or thieves) swam out to the boat and entered using 
that hatch.  Although we had a small fan running in the master stateroom which may have masked noise, it was clear 
that this guy had no interest in confronting us.  We're quite certain he never came down to the lower level of the 
boat were we were sleeping and where there was more loot.  Before he departed, he went to the boat deck, removed the 
lifejacket bag from our dinghy stowed there, and used the bag with a couple of life jackets to float loot ashore--we 
found one lifejacket on the swim platform next morning and saw another on the rocks about 150 yards from the boat.  
He got away with three laptops, a camera, a cell phone, a wallet with credit cards and a few hundred euros, a Palm 
Pilot, an iPod (with the music backup on one of the stolen computers).  I suspect the computers got wet and were 
ruined going ashore because nothing from them was ever compromised.  Likewise, the cell phone was never used as far 
as we can determine.  There were a few very small charges on one of the credit cards.  

In addition to the feeling of violation from the boarding and the loss of several thousand dollars worth of stuff, 
the incident turned out lives upside down while we closed bank accounts, cancelled credit cards, adjusted our 
navigation to use a backup computer not taken, and more.  All of this was done using an Iridium satellite phone at 
considerable expense--Judy estimates it took her about 500 minutes of Iridum phone time!  And think about being in a 
foreign country with no usable credit cards to access ATMs.  We were glad we had a few thousand euros hidden safely 
away!

Did we report the incident to the authorities?  We tried to do so by phone, but this was Ibiza and they would not 
accept a phone report nor would they come to us.  Making a full report would have involved leaving the boat (didn't 
want to do THAT!) while we made our way several miles to town, and we felt that would be wasted time and effort 
because we were sure the chances of recovering our stuff were minimal.  In the end we pulled anchor and left Ibiza 
for the island of Mallorca, which we found much more to our liking.  And we did not let this single incident ruin our 
Med cruise, which we enjoyed tremendously--and highly recommend.

Someone commented that our dog had the good sense not to bark at the intruder.  Truth be told, had she heard someone 
aboard the boat she'd have barked.  That may or may not have frightened him away, but probably I've have gone to 
investigate--and the consequences of that are something I don't want to think about.

Lessons learned?  If you don't want to risk the kind of encounter we had (no matter where you are), lock up your boat 
at night when you go to bed.  Or use a foolproof alarm system to frighten off intruders with bright lights and loud 
noise--and set it religiously every night.  Also, be sure to password protect your laptops and Palm Pilots so thieves 
cannot easily access the personal information (and passwords) you have stored there.  And have backups for your 
essential systems--we were very fortunate to have a fourth backup computer hidden away and ready to go for e-mail and 
navigation.

Getting robbed isn't fun, but it was a wakeup call for Judy and me.  I'll bet it doesn't happened to us again!

--Milt Baker, Nordhavn 47 Bluewater, Fort Lauderdale