Source: Noonsite.com
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Noonsite.com, the global site for cruising sailors, under Topics: Piracy Reports 2012, has posted a piracy report that occurred in Punta Chame in Panama on the 27th November 2012:
Here is the original report:
Panama, Punta Chame:
Yacht boarded and robbed by Armed Men - November 2012
By Val
Ellis — last modified Nov
28, 2012 09:34 AM
Contributors: Arnd & Bente of the SV Narwal
Punta Chame is
about 20nm South West of the Balboa Anchorage.
Published: 2012-11-28 09:34:38
Topics:
Piracy Reports
2012 Countries:
Panama
Posted 27th November 2012
We are a German family cruising with 2 children, 3 and 6 years old
and returned from the Galapagos Islands in July. We don’t own a fancy
boat,
as ours is an old 40 ft steel lady.
It all happened on our lonely anchorage between Punta Chame and
Isla Taborcilla on Nov. 12th 2012, at position 8°39,60N and 079°43,80W.
Around 9pm two launches with powerful outboards (like most fisherman use when
they go fishing in this area), pulled alongside our boat. My
husband was
reading in the front and our children were sleeping in the back cabin, so I went
outside to see what was going on and one of the men asked me for some drinking
water. Not an unusual request from fishermen; sometimes they may ask also for
some fuel or cigarettes, or they just want to trade or sell some fish. Just the
time was unusual. So I agreed and went down to get a bottle of water when I
heard steps on the deck. My husband heard them as well and got up but one man
was already rushing down to the salon, a pistol in his hand, shouting, looking
for drugs. When he arrived at the front cabin the second man with a pistol
pointing at us entered the salon and we were trapped between the two. A third
guy with a pistol in his hand looked down from the companionway and a 4th person
was in the cockpit.
They were screaming around and asked us for money, which we gave
them directly. We acted passively because what can you do, when 3 men
are pointing guns at you? We sat in the salon, observed by one man, watching the
2 others pulling out clothes and other stuff, looking and searching around
for more valuables, which of course they found and took. The financial damage
comes to around 8,000 US$ but they didn't hurt us in any way and didn't disturb
at all the sleeping children in their cabin.
After around 15 minutes they
just left and we called Flamenco Signal who contacted the coast guard for us.
They arrived at early dawn, did
a short investigation and advised us to go to
the local police and to the one in Panama City, which we did one day later. In
Panama they did
a more thorough investigation on our boat, asked a lot of
questions, took many pictures but if they find out anything we'll have
to
see.
We were cruising in Panama for about 10 months on the
Caribbean and Pacific side and never had any security problems, met mostly
nice,
friendly and helpful people, enjoyed many lonely anchorages,
beautiful scenery and remote islands. We will transit the canal in 2 weeks
back to the Caribbean side and this event leaves a bad taste and overshadows a
bit our good experiences these last months.
These 20 to 30-year old,
athletic guys now know what easy targets we cruisers are and what they can earn
in just a few minutes without
taking many risks. We'll have to see what will
happen in Panama in the future. As we were not hurt in any way, we are now able
to move on and deal only with the financial loss. It's like we were watching a
bad film that we now slowly forget about.
Bente & Arnd and the
children Siri & Lars
SV Narwal
Source link:
http://www.noonsite.com/General/Piracy/PiracyReports2012/panama-punta-chame-yacht-boarded-and-robbed-by-two-armed-men-november-2012