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UPDATE REGARDING THE BOARDING OF S/V DREAM ODYSSEY IN RIO DULCE, GUATEMALA – AUGUST 11, 2008
BY MICHELLE & ROY PARSONS, S/V DREAM ODYSSEY
 s/v Dream Odyssey on the hard at Ram Marine As most of you in the Rio Dulce area know by now, there was a boarding/theft incident aboard s/v Dream Odyssey which occurred on Monday, August 11, 2008, two nights after the boarding & senseless murder of Dan Dryden on S/V Sunday’s Child.
Dan’s wife Nancy was seriously injured during the attack. Our hearts & prayers go out to Nancy & her family as they try to bring some closure to this devastating time in their lives.
After our boarding, a brief report was filed with this news source but unfortunately little information was provided at that time. We were in a state of shock initially, trying to cope with the incident and police, etc. then five days later my husband Roy and I had to return to Panama for business matters. We have only just arrived back in the area.
We were surprised to find that no other details of our boarding, or subsequent information has been provided. We, as follow cruisers, feel that it is important to relay the facts as they happened. We only apologize for the delay in being able to provide this information ourselves.
On that Monday, we arrived at Livingston, Guatemala along with our buddy boats s/v Mima & s/v C-Toy and completed the check in process. The check-in agent, Raul of Servamar, did tell us about s/v Sundays Child’s incident and suggested that we stay close together if we anchored along the river.
We discussed it amongst ourselves and felt that since the previous incident had occurred near the marinas, we would proceed with our plan to anchor about 5 miles upriver near Tatin for a 1-night stop before continuing on.
Also, we could not reach the marinas early enough to get checked in and would then have to anchor in the area we considered to be more unsafe. All of us knew to be extra vigilant and anchored as close as possible, keeping an extra eye on each other, radio contact, etc.
Upon going to bed, we always lock the boat up and lock all hatches. We had interacted with the locals that afternoon and did not feel unsafe.
At around 8:30 p.m., while eating dinner, watching a movie and running the generator, at least 5 men with machetes & a gun, boarded our boat and actually came right into the salon and stood behind me before we even knew they were there!!!! We did not resist.
Before it was all over, they tied us up, gagged us, threatened Roy with a knife for the dinghy keys, took our money/credit cards, two laptops (with all of our charts, navigational guides & travel logs for the past 4 years, plus all of our photographs!!!), printer, watches, cameras, camcorder, DVD player, LCD-TV, phones, various chargers, radio/cassette player, our safe, etc., etc. They tried very hard to steal the dinghy & motor but were unsuccessful.
We estimate at least $17,000.00 worth of equipment was taken!!!! Some equipment was damaged while ripping things out but they did not otherwise trash or damage the boat & THANKFULLY we were not hurt!!! They were on board at least an hour.
We believe they got us to us via a large wooden boat but we never saw it or heard anything. I managed to get untied after they left and they had missed taking the VHF in the cockpit, so we were able to radio our friends who were safe and completely unaware, even though they both said they had made a visual check of our boat during that hour. It was a traumatic experience to say the least & we are doing our best to put it behind us!!!
The next day, we contacted the check-in agent, Raul, notified the Navy & filed a police report. Our boat is currently on the hard at RAM Marina.
We have reported the incident to the American Embassy. The Police, Asistur (Guatemalan Tourist Help), INGUAT (Tourist Commission) & the Ministerio Publico have all been involved & helpful in handling our case.
A police raid was conducted & several of our items have been retrieved, currently in police custody. Two men have been arrested. Two others have been identified as being involved, but are juveniles and cannot be prosecuted.
We will eventually have a court date, before a judge, to hopefully have these two men indicted. The lawyers seem to be quite determined. We have been told that we will eventually get the five items back which were recovered.
Many people have asked us what we would now do differently and that is very hard to say. It is not our intention to cruise and live locked up inside our boat during waking hours, it is bad enough to have to lock up at night.
Resisting was not an option in light of what we knew had already happened. We do feel that perhaps our boat was chosen because we have a lot of ports and windows making it very easy to see what is inside, whereas our friends boats do not. We just have to keep believing that there are more good people than bad, take the best precautions possible to be safe and to never let anyone or anything stop us from living the life we have chosen.
PEACE, Michelle & Roy |
