July, 2004

The water adjacent to the town of Boca del Rio (left) was very rough. We opted for anchoring Ventus near the mangrove in the lee of the reef, (right) instead.

Anthony had sailed the Caribbean for thirty years and had never closed a companionway hatch for the night. However, once our companionway was closed, we felt so secure that it didn’t dawn upon us to discuss what we’d do if we were boarded.

Earlier in the day we had weighed anchor outside the Boca del Rio boat yard and reanchored Ventus, in more sheltered waters, closer to town. We had been told that if we wanted to join an ecotour of the mangroves in this part of Margarita, not to leave the boat unattended, as Venezuela was experiencing increasing problems with theft. However, we were assured, there had been no history of aggression in this part of the economically devastated country.

Having waited till after the siesta, Anthony and I motored the dinghy into town to pick up some groceries, leaving Jacqui, a spry 70-year-old grandmother, to guard the ship.

We locked the dinghy to the main dock under the scrutiny of a dozen curious children. The dock was attached to a beach that was hardly twenty feet wide, littered with fragments of wood, old tires, scrap metal and broken concrete. A solid wall of decrepit row houses blocked our access to the street. We walked along the beach to the right, looking for an opening to the street. To no avail. We turned around and walked the other way for the same purpose, only to come to another dead end.

A thin, barefoot girl of no more than eight had spotted us and asked us where we wanted to go. We wanted to find the supermarket recommended in the Boating Guide, “El supermercado” we told her in our best Spanish. She led us to the open door of one of the homes, said something in Spanish to a woman, and to our dismay she led us through the house to the street.

Walking ahead of us, she led us along the broken sidewalks, past the disintegrating church and bank that were mentioned in the Guide. She walked with assurance, as if she owned the place and as if she guided strange men like us every day. The supermarket had eggs and mostly bare shelves. We bought eggs, but there was no bread. "Una paneteria", we told our diminutive guide and she led us silently through a maze of streets lined with crumbling concrete houses abutting the sidewalk. The bakery offered two kinds of bread and we bought several of each. We still hadn’t found our ice. “¿Adonde podemos comprar hielo?” we asked the little girl. And she confidently led us through more dusty streets to a corner store that carried meat and frozen products across from a row of pinball machines. Anthony bought her an ice cream bar, which she consumed with the panache of a connoisseur. Once we had completed our shopping our little guide led us back to the house that provided our link with the beach and we then broke company.

Meanwhile, as we were to find out, Jacqui noticed two young men in a motorized gondola typical of the tourist boats, doing a complete circle around our Hallberg Rassy 39, while staring intently.

When we returned to Ventus with our purchases we found Jacqui in the cockpit in the company of a young Venezuelan man. We joked that we can’t leave Jacqui for an hour without her seducing some handsome man, humour that struck a sour note.

While she had been resting in the quarter cabin Jacqui heard footsteps on the deck. She bolted for the companionway and saw a young man coming down. She stood on the bottom step to block his way. He was surprised to discover someone on board. When she demanded to know what he was doing there, he signaled he was thirsty and said “Agua, agua!” Without abandoning her vantage point in front of the intruder she reached for the galley faucet and poured the unwanted visitor a glass of water and motioned him back into the cockpit.

He told us his name was Che and that he came from a fishing boat anchored further in the bay. He asked many questions about our origin and destination but offered no explanation for what the heck he was doing on our boat. After a while he left and swam not towards the fishing boat, but towards the distant mangrove, into which he disappeared.

These events left us with a feeling of unease, which prompted us to close the companionway hatch before preparing for bed. As usual for the Caribbean, we had hoisted the dinghy up and locked it to the mast with a wire cable.

Jacqui was in bed in the aft cabin, Anthony was at the chart table writing on his laptop and I was reading in bed, in the fore cabin. Suddenly we heard booming footsteps on the deck, accompanied by loud shouts ordering us to open the door! Dark faces peered through the salon portlights and a pair of feet appeared through the main hatch. Anthony yelled: “Go away, leave us alone!” The man in the hatch grabbed onto Anthony’s T-shirt. A hand brandishing a gun jutted through a portlight, aimed at Anthony, pulled the trigger and the weapon just made a CLICK! At the same time Anthony lost his balance and fell on his back, leaving a chunk of his T-shirt in the hand of the guy in the hatch. Jacqui and I weren’t sure if our captain was had been shot, but he immediately rebounded, roaring orders at the intruders to go away.

I rushed to the fore cabin and closed the hatch and portlights. I then opened the door of the head, which was located immediately aft of the fore cabin. To my surprise, a boy of no more than seventeen was crawling through the hatch headfirst and grabbed me by my pajama top. I attempted to punch him on the nose but he was swifter than I and warded off my offense, but released his grip on me. Then I screamed at him: “Va, va, va, go home!” To my astonishment, the boy heeded my command and backed off, allowing me to reach up over the deck and swing the hatch closed. During this time, a hand grabbed Anthony’s laptop through the portlight above the chart table. Jacqui quickly grabbed the keyboard end and a tug of war ensued. Unfortunately she couldn’t hang on and the computer disappeared into the night. At the same time, we could hear winching sounds resonating from the mast. They were trying to steal the dinghy!

Meanwhile, Anthony managed to close the main hatch, got on the VHF radio and called for help. One of the attackers grabbed a dinghy oar and pounded on the hatch, trying in vain to break the Plexiglas. Anthony got through to the Guarda Nationale. He called out in Spanish: “This is sailing vessel Ventus! We are being attacked by pirates! We need immediate assistance!” He gave our position and waited. We heard an unintelligible response in colloquial Spanish, but later a boater in a nearby location translated for us that the National Guard was coming to our rescue. Meanwhile, I launched a rocket flare through one of the portlights. It made a muffled “woosh”, exuded a stream of warm gas and filled the cabin with smoke. Mercifully, when the aggressors heard the Guarda Nationale respond, they got scared and took off.

After waiting 45 minutes in the smoke-filled cabin for the National Guard to come, we decided to leave Boca del Rio. We had originally planned on sailing a clockwise circumnavigation of the island but we didn’t have the heart for that anymore. Anyhow, we would have to register a police report and it just seemed to make sense to return to the bay we were familiar with at Porlamar. A cursory inspection above decks revealed only a small chip in the hatch Plexiglas and a few scratches on the hull where the thieves had partially lowered the dinghy. We raised the dinghy back to deck level, weighed anchor and motored off. To extricate ourselves from the bay we had to steer around two reefs without the help of the computer charts, eyes glued to the depthsounder. After we had passed the local hazards the National Guard came on the radio. They told us they were on their way, but by road -- as they didn’t have a boat! Once in the village, they would commandeer a boat to come to our rescue, they said. Anthony responded not to bother and that we were leaving Boca del Rio.

At 0430 we lowered anchor in the bay of Porlamar, just near Marina Juan and went to sleep. At 0600 we were wide-awake, our biological clocks having sounded their alarm. Juan, the owner of the marina, pleaded with us to file a police report without which, he said, there would be no chance of nabbing and convicting the bandits. He assured us that the local authorities would be very keen on finding and punishing the guilty.

Thus began a two-day odyssey of depositions, police reports, interrogation and fingerprinting. Anthony hired Juan’s brother, a taxi driver who spoke English, to ferry us around and to act as interpreter. An officer at the police station inputted our story into a computer as our interpreter translated, in turn, each of our versions. At the end, the officer interrogated us and recorded our responses. He printed a hardcopy of the depositions and under our signature, he had us apply our fingerprints!

At Juan’s insistence, we decided to file another report, with the local police in Boca del Rio, located at the other end of Margarita. The desk of the chief of police sat squarely in the main entrance of the police station, in full view of passers-by on the sidewalk. He sat us in front of him and listened to the story as related by our interpreter.

After listening attentively to our tale, the chief asked us if we could wait 20 minutes. Since we had driven an hour and a half to get there, we said “Of course.” He rattled off an order to four of his underlings. The men disappeared briefly and each came back into the office sporting a big gun. A paddy wagon pulled up to the door, the posse climbed aboard and the vehicle sped off in a cloud of dust under the eyes of a gathering crowd. Twenty minutes later the cops returned with two suspects. Neither of them resembled in the least Che and the companion we had described. The police then locked up the two hapless chaps in the slammer and left again. Meanwhile, another officer made us look through a big book of mug shots of shirtless, sweaty, tattooed, mean-looking convicts, all for naught. The paddy wagon returned after a long absence, but this time without suspects. The chief claimed that his men knew who the guilty were but that the boys had gone into hiding. His officers would be mounting an operation during the night. Would we call back tomorrow, as they would have them in custody by then. Two days later there was still no news of the escapees. We weighed anchor, bid farewell to Margarita, and sailed back to Trinidad, Anthony's and Jacqui's home country.

An experience like this is cause for reflection. First and thankfully, we are lucky to have pulled through with only minor bruises, a lost computer and a few scratches on the boat. It’s easy to imagine worse possible outcomes.

What could we have done to prevent this? If we had been anchored in the company of other sailboats the bandits might have been less likely to attack. But isn’t it one of the pleasures of cruising, to seek the peace and quiet of beautiful, isolated anchorages? If we had unceremoniously kicked Che off the boat with a stiff warning he might have perceived us as too tough to risk dealing with. On the other hand, if we had been even “nicer”, and taken a picture of him with Jacquie, such a positive identification might have dissuaded an attack. Had the seas not been so rough outside the reef we could have anchored in full view of the poverty stricken village, which might possibly have discouraged boarding intentions.

On the other hand, our instinctive actions contributed to saving us. Had the companionway been open when the boarding took place, Ventus would have been the scene of a bloody battle between three old sailors and four strong young men in their prime of life. I shudder at the thought. Once we had succeeded in closing all the portlights and hatches we were less accessible and less vulnerable. Surrender would not have been a guarantee of survival, as pirates sometimes don’t leave witnesses. When an older man commands a young, impressionable man in a loud, firm tone of voice, a situation of authority can sometimes be established and the younger man can be intimidated. This might explain why the two who attempted to enter through the hatches aborted their entry. In the end, calling for help on the VHF radio, and doing it loudly, with the volume turned up is what saved us. One might ask, however, if it is desirable to offer resistance when in the sight of a firearm and what would have transpired had the gun been loaded.

As a sailing instructor in Canada, I lead my students to reflect on what actions they could take in the event of an emergency such as dismasting, a broken tiller or running aground. The reasoning behind this is that by rehearsing the different actions mentally one has a better chance of reacting appropriately in a real-life situation.

But what should we advise a new sailor with regards to boarding by pirates? What would be sensible, preventative or mitigating measures? Once boarded, what actions would afford the best chances of survival?

First, some sailors equip their boat to ward off intruders. To restrict entry by intruders who have reached the deck, they install steel bars across the hatch openings. To scare them away they recommend equipping a sailboat with a burglar alarm and powerful deck lights. It is said that Joshua Slocum, the first person to sail around the world solo in 1895, spread thumbtacks on his deck when anchoring in hot spots.

Being aware of and avoiding danger zones is definitely a good strategy, but what if that’s not possible? As Anthony mused in the aftermath, we never go to bed at home without locking the front door. Why forsake this basic precaution on a boat? Turning on all navigation lights might deliver a measure of surprise. One could amplify this effect by taking out the air horn and making a lot of noise. To repel the pirates you might have to muster effective resistance; this might involve using the weapons at hand, such as a monkey wrench or a crowbar. Anything that can inflict a bloodletting injury might be a deterrent by increasing the drama and the fright factor. All boats carry such weapons in the galley cutlery drawer. You might want to supplement these with a spear gun. What about firearms? Had we killed one of the aggressors with a firearm we might still be in Porlamar, behind bars, waiting for Venezuelan justice to take its course…Finally, how does one ward off an attack by an approaching boat while underway? A sailor we met who regularly sails the coast of Venezuela boasted of keeping a couple of Molotov cocktails and a six-shooter flare gun in his cockpit. He claims that in one instance he transformed an approaching armed boat into a blazing pyre by simply throwing a bottle of gasoline into the boat, and igniting it with his flare gun!

There are probably no hard and fast rules for all cases of pirating. Each situation requires a different set of responses. I think the following are some important points to consider: 1) Be aware of the fact that this can happen to YOU, so rehearse in your mind what actions you would take to deter and repel a pirate encounter. 2) Before a passage in unfamiliar waters, inquire as to the danger zones and keep a safe distance from these. Along the coast of Columbia, for instance, sailors keep 100 miles away. 3) Equip your boat with means of being seen and heard in case of attack. 4) Close your companionway at night. 5) Raise and lock your dinghy. 6) Keep a reasonable amount of money “hidden” so you can retrieve it to pay off your attackers if the situation reaches that point. 7) Don’t worry, be happy.

Here are a few Web sites that provide information on pirate hot spots and remedial measures: http://www.yachtpiracy.org

http://www.noonsite.com/

Robert Bériault