DATE: 2015-11-25 02:30
Country Name: Colombia
Location Detail: Santa Marta Taganga Bay
EVENT: Boarding Robbery and Assault
Stolen Items: Robbers grabbed everything they could see of value including all jewellery, tanzanite, pearls, 2 diamond rings, including a Cullinan diamond. Also stolen were outboard motors (both gone), watches, phones, computers, cash, credit cards, fishing rods etc. Fortunately they did not take passports & boat papers, nor did they rip out main navigation equipment (other than hand held vhfs & binoculars) nor ropes. Losses amount to approximately 20, 000 USD, much of it was a collection of years of small items of special jewellery.
SECURED: Locked
DETAILS: We were boarded by armed PROFESSIONAL THIEVES & robbed in Taganga Bay, near Santa Marta, Colombia. The incident took place at around 2.30am and reads almost identical to this one, reported on noonsite in 2012, down to them being high on drugs: There were 5 men, who arrived in a dugout canoe. 4 boarded, at least 2 had guns & 1 had a knife, that we saw. We were both tied up & hit by 4 thieves, at least 2 of the 4 on board had guns & one had a small knife at my husbands throat. The dogs did not bark.
We did have a plan of action if this kind of thing happened, unfortunately, my husband heard something hit the side of the boat & woke up. Instead of turning on the cockpit lights, he unlocked the door & went out to look. We had agreed that we would turn lights on & make noise. If we were locked inside the boat, at least we would have time to make radio & phone calls, but he was sleepy, not thinking straight & went straight out to 4 guys with guns & knives.
I had actually hidden away our tablet, which has a good navigation program & they missed taking the dongle from the computer which had a local sim with airtime, so I was able to get a call out to our agent Dino who raised the alarm with police & coastguard.I could not get anyone on channel 16 or channel 72 for 1/2 hour and it was at least an hour before the coastguard came.
We always read noonsite, Caribbean safety & security network, Facebook cruising group reports prior to going anywhere. We made an informed decision.
Our incident was almost identical to the one reported on noonsite in 2012. I wonder if it was the same ‘gang’? The police didn’t even come on board to check the 100 ‘ s of fingerprints, so the follow up comments from that report that the authorities are taking such incidents seriously is suspect! We really hope that local stakeholders in this area can provide an organised safe haven for cruisers, perhaps something similar to PAYS in Dominica.. We truly hope this never happens again in this bay.
Click here for previous incident reported by CSSN
Click here for Previous incident reported by Noonsite