Archiv
CW 34 2003
18.08. - 24.08.2003
Well guys, I had promised a longer log book for this week since we'd planned
a long weekend in Columbia's capital, in Bogota. The tickets were paid for,
the bags were packed and we were ready to leave early on Saturday morning.
But then, on Saturday at 7am, such a horrible surprise: we'd been robbed during
the night!
The content of those bags - packed for a trip to Bogota - is distributed evenly
through the salon and the cockpit. The equivalent of about 300 Euro are missing,
as well as our cell phones, our watches, the digital cameras and a laptop.
You're probably asking yourself how that could happen, since we're still in
the Club Nautico in Cartagena. Well, we're asking ourselves the same question.
Lots of the facts don't seem to fit together and some definitely seem to prove
that a person from the club had to be involved.
Ok, lets take it one step at a time: how was it possible to get inside without
being noticed? Well, as is usually done here for better ventilation, we too
sleep with the salon doors open (and there is a security service here which
apparently doesn't deserve that name … but more about them later) and,
for more circulation, we also have a large fan in our cabin that doesn't exactly
run silently either. The circumstances and the evidence lead to believe that
that person knew his way around SILVER BLUE. While inside all areas that could
have made some noise while walking through were avoided; and one of the digital
cameras was in the starboard hull to be recharged. The scariest thing is,
that they entered while we were sleeping in the ship. That is rather uncommon
since the person consciously took the risk of being discovered and then attacked.
Maybe the person was armed, and maybe it was better for us not to notice anything.
Of course that's only speculation, but it leaves a bitter taste in our mouths
and, sadly but understandably, a lot of fear for Luznela.
Fortunately neither our id documents nor our credit cards were stolen, even
though they were in our wallets, together with the stolen cash. And after
a short while the laptop was found next to the club building.
Which also triggers a few more questions, especially since, in this case,
that person must have walked down the brightly lit landing for at least 100
meters, and then dropped the laptop about 10 meters from the spot where the
security guy usually is.
The police also consider that to be quite strange. Actually getting the police
involved wasn't easy at all.
They only wanted to start moving after we'd officially filed a case, in writing!
(That is the law in Columbia!)
There are special places for that, the "officinas de denuncias",
but on Saturdays there's nobody or hardly anybody there. After 4 hours we
finally managed to officially lodge our complaint and they let us know that
probably not much more would happen today since it was on a weekend and the
colleagues were relaxing.
After a laughing fit from me and the question if there was no police in Columbia
on a Saturday, things happened rather quickly. Within 10 minutes two inspectors
and two forensic guys showed up and a little later two more uniformed policemen
came.
I'm not so sure about their future enthusiasm though, nor their success rate,
but they were also sure that at least one person belonging to the Club Nautico
was involved, and very probably a member of the countless families of marina
workers.
That's why I see this as an internal problem for now and have so far refrained
from placing warnings on those websites frequented by sailors - and this report
should also only be seen as informing.
Whether I stick to that opinion or not mainly depends on the marina management
and the efforts they make in finding and removing that bad egg in their basket.
Maybe there'll be more information on this matter in next weeks log book -
and maybe even with pictures again.
Until then … take care!
TOM
