In this video, Piracy and Theft Today during Covid-19 While Cruising in the Caribbean, We share our experiences and boots on the ground information from cruisers and local people on the current status of real life piracy today under covid-19 here in the Caribbean.
#piracy #piratesofthecaribbean #realpirates
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In August of 2017 we sold everything and moved aboard Balachandra, a 1986 C&C44 sailboat, then sailed it over 300 nautical miles to Halifax Nova Scotia to spend a cold Canadian winter in the frozen waters of the North Atlantic. Sailing Balachandra is our YouTube sailing vlog inspired by other great channels such as Delos and La Vagabonde, which documents the sailing adventures of myself and my partner Nawal as we navigate the globe. We also dive into lots of DIY boat projects both above and below decks, and share with you all of the pros and cons of living aboard full time. Sailing Balachandra is published weekly so please subscribe so you don't miss out on future videos!

Closed Captions (CC):
in this episode we talk about our

experience and what we've learned

about theft and the very serious subject

of modern day piracy

here in the caribbean

last time on sailing ballet chandra we

made a video about what to look for

if you're looking to buy a liveaboard

cruising sailboat capable of crossing an

ocean

hey guys i'm dan and my partner is

noelle and we're sailing bellachandra

we sailed all the way from nova scotia

canada down to the caribbean and we're

sailing all around the caribbean now

making youtube videos some of them like

this one just to help you guys out if

you're planning on cruising one day

if you haven't subscribed to this

channel go below the video look for the

big red subscribe button

press that button almost a year ago at

the start of covid19 noel and i were in

the u.s virgin islands

and the hurricane season was upon us and

we needed to move

south at that time the country of

grenada which is known as a hurricane

shelter

opened its borders to boats that needed

to move south and so we applied and were

able to go

and plan that trip that trip meant that

we had to sail directly from saint croix

to grenada which is about a five-day

passage

our course from saint croix to grenada

would take us south through the middle

of the caribbean ocean

if you go back and watch our video on

that trip we arrived safe and sound

without any issues other than a stitch

that came out in our mainsail you know

otherwise we arrive safe and sound

and no issues that's not entirely

accurate

on the last night we had a little scare

that we didn't include in the video

because it happened at night and we

didn't get any footage

but now after living in the caribbean

for a while we have a better

understanding of what actually happened

that night and we can relate the story

we had a relatively uneventful sail from

saint croix to grenada everything was

going very well we had fair weather and

it was a good trip on the last night

when the sun went down we knew we were

getting close to venezuelan waters we

were aware that

those waters have been known as an

active zone for piracy

and so we took precautions just in case

which included running dark that's

turning off all of your running lights

and cabin lights as they can be visible

through your port lights and making sure

that you don't have

a visible luminescence of any kind it's

a little dangerous because

especially without ais you're basically

invisible to other yachts and other

boats but when you're worried about

piracy

you kind of have to forego some of those

concerns we were checking

the chart plotter off and on but trying

to keep it dark

and we had one other yacht that was

behind us it was

a sailboat and we could see his mass

light and his running lights as he

followed us

sometime after midnight i was looking at

the chart plotter and i noticed some

targets just

showed up on the ais unknown targets

with no

msi number no identification

just their direction and their speed so

they popped up

within what should have been visible

distance for us and i would look off on

the horizon to see these things and

i couldn't see anything there was

nothing out there just flat water and

darkness

one object showed up then a second

object showed up and they were only

moving about one or two knots just kind

of drifting in the ocean which

uh raised a few concerns so we were

wondering what the heck that could be

and then a third object showed up which

was a vessel

and it was located just kind of off of

these other two

and it wasn't moving at all so as we

were moving towards them

we realized that we couldn't go around

these objects without getting too close

to them

and the safest path was probably to go

right in between like straight down the

middle and as we got closer

the object started to actually move

towards us moving at about four knots

that freaked me out because i didn't

expect like why would these two objects

come towards us as we went between them

and uh

the third object which was a vessel

finally popped up

a little bit of information it said it

was a fishing vessel

but i've known from other youtube videos

and from other cruisers that sometimes

pirate vessels are fishing vessels

that are just being used for piracy our

reaction to

that was to increase speed we turned on

the engine

we made sure our seals were out full and

we tried to make our best speed possible

to try to slip through these two objects

and see if we could get away as we were

getting closer to these objects

they started to move towards us even

faster which made us even more nervous

and we kept looking we couldn't see

anything on the horizon but we knew

there was other vessels out there

of some kind and they were running dark

which is

concerning so i had noel go below and

get

our flares out just in case we had to

put up some sort of a defense at some

point these objects

were just a couple hundred yards away

and we still couldn't see them and they

were still moving towards us but we did

speed on through and we

watched behind us to see what was

happening turned out that

it was just a false alarm and we could

you know stand down

and and continue our night without

incident but

it did freak us out quite a bit and it

woke us up to the possibility

of what can be out there and that

what we need to be prepared for

especially sailing in waters

that are known to have active piracy

in this week's video i'd like to talk

about noel and i's take on piracy and

theft here in the caribbean

how we see it what we've heard and the

practices we have here on bella chandra

to keep ourselves safe and secure while

we cruise in the caribbean

there are many forms of piracy we're not

talking about pirates of hollywood fame

or pirates of long ago

privateers turned pirates raiding the

spanish main for precious valuables

today real modern day pirates pose a

very serious threat to cruisers and

boaters

on route to a wayward destination now in

2021

when i talk about pirates of yesterday

i'm thinking back to piracy reports

i read when i first got into sailing

latitudes and attitudes magazine

had a piracy report column that you

could read monthly

in the late 1990s and early 2000s

pirates here active in the caribbean

would approach a yacht in a speedboat in

order to overtake the yacht

do away with the crew and use that

cruising vessel as a method of smuggling

drugs

i have a friend in the nato branch of

the military who told me that over the

years

nato has been diligent in stopping

piracy in the caribbean and piracy was

reduced in the caribbean

and many cruising areas were made safer

however today there's a new upturn in

modern piracy

the threat is the same the motives are

different and with covid19

changing the world there are many

unknowns yet to come

which has most of us cruisers concerned

about safety in some of these waters

in the months and years to come from

what we've gathered here in the

caribbean talking to locals and

fishermen the pirates of today are

primarily concerned with moving drugs

however theft and kidnapping are also on

the menu

here in the caribbean the top piracy hot

spots would be anywhere in the proximity

of coastal venezuela the coastal waters

of haiti

and the coastal waters of nicaragua

however pirates have been reported

outside of these waters well into the

central caribbean sea

when we were in grenada i had a chat

with a local fisherman who was telling

me about his piracy experience and i

wanted to share that with you guys

these local fishermen fish for tuna and

other large fish which means they have

to leave

the local grenade in waters and sail

either out into the atlantic

or well out into the caribbean sea they

sail on larger vessels and they can

cover quite a bit of ground

he was telling me that he and other

fishermen have had several run-ins with

venezuelan pirates

apparently the pirates in venezuela that

they encountered

were mostly doing some kind of drug deal

at sea

they would drop their drugs somewhere

with a flotation device and possibly

an ais or gps transponder attached to it

and that the pirates would go somewhere

just out of range

and sit in the water and wait for those

drugs to be picked up by somebody else

he said that generally anytime they ever

get attacked by these pirates

are when their fishing vessel happens to

go in between

the dropped drugs and the pirate vessel

itself and in which case those pirates

may come over

and mess with them towards our last days

in grenada as we were about to leave and

start sailing up the windward islands

there was two pirate attacks that had

happened

in that area and we had read the reports

both of them were attacked by venezuelan

pirates on fishermen

in one case they approached the fishing

boat and then robbed the fishermen

and tried to take some of them hostage

they did eventually get away

and they did eventually get their boat

back to saint vincent and filed the

report

the second pirate attack was very

similar and it happened closer to st

lucia and this was all during the time

that noel and i were sailing our boat

from grenada back north through the

windward islands so we were a bit

nervous about that

from what we've heard and learned living

here in the caribbean and talking to

other cruisers and the locals

we've been given some advice and i'd

like to share

that advice with you guys you want to

pay attention to any and all reports of

piracy

either through the local news or through

websites that cover piracy here in the

caribbean

and it'll help you know what areas

should be avoided and where piracy might

be taking place

you want to avoid pirate waters that can

be done by giving those areas a wide

berth or choosing

a different course it would be smart to

run dark when sailing at night

in the vicinity of pirate waters we've

done it twice once

when we traveled near the coast of haiti

and the second time when we traveled

near venezuela running dirt can be

dangerous as you're basically invisible

and if other boats are running dark

there is a chance that you could have a

collision

what we've been told is if you are ever

approached by pirates do not reduce

speed

keep your speed full try to go as fast

as you possibly can using either your

sails or engines or both

and just never stop because if you stop

you're giving those pirates a chance to

board you and if they board you

you don't know what's going to happen at

least if you can keep the boat moving

there's very little chance they can

actually get a board

most of the pirate vessels will be

running on gasoline engines and it's

very likely that for the long distances

they need to cover

they'll be carrying a quite a large

reserve of gasoline on board

and very flammable if you were to fire a

flare at a pirate vessel with a surplus

of gasoline on board

it's very likely that gasoline could

ignite

and so flares to pirates would be a very

dangerous thing

so for us having some flares handy while

traveling through pirate waters is a

good idea

we've also heard that sometimes pirates

will ask for things like

food or supplies and that i'm told might

be a tactic to get you to stop the boat

but you should never stop the boat if

there's suspicion of piracy it might be

a good idea

to try to maybe bag something up and

throw it overboard

they may stop and collect that if they

do stop and collect it

it may buy you just enough time to get

away and maybe that's all they're

actually looking for but you know you

don't want to take any chances you

should never stop

moving you want to go as fast as

possible and get away from there

you want to be ready with your epirb or

any emergency beacons that you can

activate

on your vhf radio or even calling it a

mayday if you think that you may be

overtaken by pirates if your epirb is

activated or you can get a mayday out

there may be a vessel in the vicinity

that can reach you

and maybe intervene on that pirate

attack or get the coast guard involved

or something

anything that can help you because once

you're in the clutches of pirates who

knows what can happen

the subject of weapons tends to come up

a lot when talking about

piracy and what weapons we do or do not

carry on board

here on belachandra we don't carry any

weapons on board we don't even have a

machete

i do have an axe as the canadian coast

guard does require you to carry an axon

board

that's just standard ship stores for us

and we have that

next i'd like to talk about theft here

in the caribbean and what we've learned

and what we've learned from other

cruisers

dinghy theft is most common here in the

caribbean we hear

or read about dinghy theft everywhere we

go when we were anchored in samana

dominican republic

friends of ours lost a dinghy one night

after a fun night of drinking on shore

we had all headed back to our boats for

the night in the morning we received a

call

their dinghy was gone i joined a search

party and we looked all through the bay

trying to locate their dinghy

i did actually find their dinghy but we

didn't find the motor

the thieves had taken the motor and left

the dinghy adrift we were told later by

locals that oftentimes the motor would

be used on some sort of vessel to

smuggle people

from the dominican republic to puerto

rico that crime in some areas

is created by desperate people simply

trying to start a new life in a new

place

dingy theft happens all through the

caribbean i think because it's just tied

to the side of your boat

it's very easy for someone to come and

untie it or take it away

in other cases the dinghy is just tied

poorly and drifts away and theft might

be assumed

it sounds like most of the theft here in

the caribbean is not actually done by

the locals

a local person may board your boat with

ill intention

and chances are they will just take

something that's loose on deck or in the

cockpit or they might grab some cash and

that's about it

if it's beyond that like unbolting

things removing hardware or stripping a

boat

that's probably not locals that's

probably other cruisers or people who

understand the value of the items on

their boat and the money they can get

for them

there's one instance when we were

anchored in saint lucia we had a

conversation with a gentleman

from europe who had flown home to have

surgery

and was gone for several months he

actually left his boat at a marina

on a marina mooring ball in a safe place

and had someone looking after the boat

this person who was looking after the

boat was the person who actually

removed the boat from the mooring ball

brought it to another bay

completely stripped the boat of all of

its hardware and left it there basically

there's another more extreme example i

read about on active captain while

cruising in st

lucia where a solo sailor was anchored

and was boarded

tied up and robbed right there on his

vessel the best advice we could give you

against

theft while cruising here in the

caribbean would be to suspend your

dinghy

either with a halyard or on dinghy

davitz off the stern

at night when you're sleeping or if your

boat is unattended

it's generally a good idea to keep your

lazarettes locked

most of the time and lock the main

hatches on your boat when you're not

around

and if you plan to leave the boat for

any extended length of time

make sure your boat's stored in a secure

location whether it's a marina

or a mooring ball that has someone

coming to check on your boat every once

in a while

i think it's when boats are neglected

and left alone that's when a lot of

problems can occur

but most importantly read up on your

location do some research

read the comments on active captain and

know the history of the anchorage you're

in

and if there's been any theft problems

in the past

which will let you know whether or not

you should take these precautions

so that's the end of this week's video

with our take on piracy and theft here

in the caribbean

i hope you enjoyed it and i hope you

found this information helpful thanks

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