My family and I were the victims of a crime in St. Lucia, committed in the early morning of January 26, 2020. Rather than internalizing the experience or moving on in silence, I would like to share our story to raise awareness about the challenges we and many others face as victims, and to empower people to speak up for justice.

It is well understood that crimes committed anywhere are underreported for many reasons. Cruisers in particular have added hurdles due to the transient nature of their lifestyle and the uphill battle of navigating a foreign country’s legal system. When a crime is committed, it doesn’t matter what you did or did not do. You were not “asking for it.” You did not commit the crime, the criminal commits the crime.  When you become a victim, emotions run high, from fear to anger to sadness to shame and more. The important thing is not to succumb to this single event, the immediate emotions, or these barriers, but to find a rational direction and to speak out. 

Several things occur by speaking out and sharing information. First, you are educating others in your community about what happened, how it happened, and possible ways to prevent it. You are also expressing the human nature of victimization. This prevents you and others from feeling alone and internalizing the experience, and instead gives more people strength. Lastly, you are creating a movement for the way things should be, to make your world a better place. This is not a childish dream, but something that has been demonstrated throughout history. As more firsthand reports surface, with real data, facts and growing evidence, change will come. Change is not easy nor quickly seen, but by the power of knowledge, you and others can make more informed decisions. 

A History of Crime

We’re full-time cruisers with an 11-year-old boy and have been exploring the Caribbean for two years. We cruised our first year and a half on a catamaran, Space Between, before moving to the trawler Gray Matter in the fall of 2019. We’re proactive cruisers that research routes, weather, and each island’s activities and safety before our arrival. Like many others, we use social media, forums, other cruiser recommendations, and websites such as Caribbean Safety and Security Net and Noonsite.

This is the second time we’ve been to the beautiful, friendly island of St. Lucia, but we are not naive people. We knew that St. Lucia is a renewing member of the top islands for reported crimes, with an upward trend in the number of crimes reported. There were 19 crimes reported in 2018 on the Safety and Security net, and  “Fifteen (15) of the reported...concentrated in the Rodney Bay area...dinghies/outboards and their contents were the primary target of the often well prepared thieves,” an obvious problem area needing policing. (CSSN Annual Report, 2018)

Following a particularly brutal burglary and rape in 2006, it appeared that there were growing efforts to increase safety. Soundings Online reported that the “St. Lucia Air and Seaports Authority [was given] an 18-foot Boston Whaler to patrol Rodney Bay from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m.” (Soundings Online, 2007), yet I am unable to determine what happened to this boat or planned safety patrol. That same article reported a “HELP” emergency number that I could not locate anywhere online. Caribbean Compass reported in October, 2006 that there were several movements to try to protect cruisers. The St. Lucia Hospitality and Tourism Association was formed in part to create “an influential lobby on tourism development issues”. The Marine Industries Association of St. Lucia, MIASL, was a government recognized organization, formed to help protect and develop the yachting industry. Saint Lucia NATIONWIDE published an article in 2006 which describes precise recommendations made by MIASL to the government on how to curb and prevent crime on cruisers, even suggesting that the police repurpose commandeered vessels as safety patrol boats to be used along the shoreline (Saint Lucia NATIONWIDE, 2006). Knowing this, we would have willingly donated our stolen dinghy to the police if it ever went into practice. However, this much needed organization has seemingly been lost in time upon review of their website. There seems to be a lack of movement or progression of vigilance since this time period.  

In 2019, the Saint Lucia Air and Sea Ports Authority first quarter report for 2019 states a total of 3,338 yachts clearing customs, and a total of 25,523 people on those boats clearing immigration (SLASPA, 2019). It is a significant amount of visitors supporting the island’s tourism revenue, a population that deserves protection in order to preserve interest in coming to beautiful St. Lucia.  

In my search for more specific island crime statistics, I found The Central Statistical Office of Saint Lucia, an agency which collects census data, including crime. According to their most recent data, 569 persons were committed to prison in 2016, as reported by St. Lucia’s only prison, the Bordelais Correctional Facility. (Persons_committed_to_prison..., 2018).  Under another excel spreadsheet titled “Crime statistics by type and outcome, 2018”, 694 thefts were reported, 693 were “accepted” with 283 having “Crimes Detected”, which means “matters...are investigated and person/s are arrested and charged or a warning given” (Crime Statistics by Type and Outcome, 2018). That spreadsheet shows 41% of “Theft” crimes being “Cleared up”, referring “to matter[s] that have been settled whether by the court or between parties.”  That year, 42 males were “Arrested” for theft, and zero were “Summoned”. Some of these data points and other columns are unclear in their specific meaning, or the population or regions being included. On January 27, 2020, I sent an information request to the email provided on the website, including what populations are included/excluded in the data (St. Lucia residents, visitors, immigrants, etc.); and if their data can be evaluated by location/geographical regions. As of the date of this publication, I have received no response.  

Our Crime

JANUARY 25, 2020

On Saturday evening, we arrived in Rodney Bay. Our nightly habit was to lift our tender out of the water alongside our boat, locking it there with a wire or stainless steel chain. There had been a wicked flu going around the group of boats we were traveling with, lasting weeks and causing significant respiratory issues, with some cruisers requiring antibiotics. My son and I were recovering, but John-Michael (JM), my husband was basically bedridden for several days. The night of our arrival, I was unable to lift the tender alone, so I locked it with a cable to the transom. Lifting our 500 lb dinghy requires one person on the top deck to work crane controls, and a second person in the cockpit to use the dinghy painters to bring it from the stern around to the starboard side and keep it aligned to prevent smashing against the boat. I was aware of the risk locking our dinghy to the stern, with some relief that we have a security system. 

JANUARY 26, 2020

Sunday night, I had recovered enough to venture out for the first time in a while to visit friends. I returned to the boat about 10 p.m., and locked the dinghy to the transom. I went to bed at 1 a.m.

JANUARY 27, 2020: The Morning

Monday morning, we realized at 8 a.m. that the dinghy was gone. Our security alarm was not triggered because the culprits never came on deck. We reviewed the video footage, but it was at night and not close enough for good detail. However, it was obvious that at 2:05 a.m., two men in light-colored t-shirts floated up to our transom in an approximately 10-foot-long inflatable dinghy with an outboard. 

One of them got into our dinghy and within one minute, the footage shows that the dinghy was cut from our boat. The man in our dinghy held onto the other man’s dinghy while that man started his motor. The joined boats did a tight 180-degree turn and headed out of view in the direction of Sandals beach.

I announced it on the cruiser net, a local radio channel, so that people were aware and could keep an eye out for our dinghy. Immediately, we received information from multiple cruisers regarding what to do and how to contact the police. JM downloaded the footage we had, along with a photo of our dinghy, to take to the police.

We have a small emergency inflatable dinghy that took us some time to set up. Once it was ready, JM, still feverish and suffering from illness, took the information to the Gros Islet police station. I remained on the boat to keep a lookout for the marine police boat and start an online campaign. I posted the dinghy photo on multiple island/country websites in the event that it turned up. I had friends and strangers contact us in different ways (by visiting our boat, VHF radio, email, Facebook, etc.) with recommendations on what to do, ideas of who the culprits might be, doubts about local police efforts, and personal experiences. In that time, there were firsthand and secondhand descriptions of similar looking culprits repeated to me from different people. There were three different cruisers who told me about catching criminals “red-handed” in Rodney Bay. One was a thief attempting to cut a suspended dinghy from the davits, another was a fellow cruiser who saw two thieves steal a dinghy from a boat near by, and another who caught the thief with the stolen dinghy. However, the police had given various reasons in each of those situations as to why they couldn’t arrest the positively ID’d person(s). I had read about many of these incidents on the Safety and Security Net website as well, now hearing them from the victims firsthand. The real tragedy is that not all of the St. Lucia crimes being described to me were reported on CSSN and/or reported to police. 

Meanwhile, at the police station, JM spoke with police officials, but failed to record their names. He approached the police receptionist window at approximately 11:30 a.m. to file his report. The young woman in civilian clothes at the window wrote down his contact information, some details about the theft, and the dinghy description, including hull number and engine serial number. He showed her our dinghy photo and the security video that he had downloaded to a tablet, although the police did not take a copy of either. She told JM to wait for an officer to come speak with him. 

He waited outside for about 30 minutes before a female police officer met him outside. She did not have any papers and did not take any notes or additional information. She did look at the dinghy photo and video, but did not take a copy. She spoke with JM for a total of five minutes. JM requested a copy of the police report from her, and she disclosed that someone would have to come out to our boat at anchor to “inspect the scene” and take a statement, in order for us to get an official report. She said that they would send someone to our anchored boat that day and then disappeared into the police station. But no one ever came to our boat. 

Before JM arrived and after he left the police station that day, there was another sailor waiting hours to speak with the police. He reported to JM in broken english that his dinghy was also stolen that same night. He said that another person had found his dinghy on the beach without the outboard. Unfortunately, JM did not get any more information from him, and the cruiser has not made a report on CSSN as of the time of this article. The secondhand report that is posted on CSSN was generated by us.

As JM made his way to our boat, he talked to many locals, cruisers and passersby, showing them photos and providing various ways for them to contact us. Once he was back on board, we continued to stop any boats that came by, local or cruisers, seeking help or information.  

JANUARY 27, 2020: The Evening

By that evening, we were not nearly as mad about our stolen dinghy as we were about the authorities not responding to our crime. We were even more upset by the reports of other victims or witnesses. They seemed to support the general mood that the police were indifferent to crimes, with some people insinuating that the police may be complicit due to the lack of prevention and enforcement. This seemed to come from the fact that similar descriptions of the criminals were being echoed in peoples’ reports, yet the police did not seem to be searching for or able to find the criminals. Another reason for suspicion, was that the crimes were happening in predictable places and times. On the Caribbean Safety and Security Net (CSSN) website, 25 crimes were reported for St. Lucia in 2018 & 2019 combined, 20 of those occurred in the Rodney Bay area, with 18 occurring between the hours of 11:00 pm and 3:00 am. A fellow cruiser blatantly asked police why they don’t set up surveillance on a “dummy” dinghy in an attempt to catch the criminals in the act, to which the officer had no response. Adding to suspicion was the statements made by people identifying the criminals and catching the crimes in progress, however, it has not been reported that police had made any arrests. Finally, the knowledge that the reports the police are receiving are not being used to pursue criminals. A simple web search does not yield any results for criminals being arrested or prosecuted regarding these crimes, nor have I heard from any victims of suspects being found. Our personal experience proved that no data or evidence is being collected, and no searches are being performed. 

As you can imagine, sleep is disrupted when your understanding of security and knowledge of justice are disrupted. I decided to investigate further to determine if reports people were telling me about their experience with the authorities were exaggerated or untrue. I began searching for officials I could contact to get more information, or have them direct me to the person that could help me. I was looking for information on what office or person was responsible for recording and investigating our crime report (i.e. the local police or the marine police/coast guard). At the time, it appeared that the marine police have jurisdiction for crimes occurring in the anchorage, but the land-based police are still supposed to write down any reports of crime in the bays and pass it along to the marine police. I also wanted to understand the chain of command from the local police to the prime minister. I specifically wanted to know if there were any concerns from people in power about complaints from visitors/citizens, or anything being done to change the problems being reported.  

I started with the list of cabinet members and representatives on the Government of St. Lucia website. Contact information for various offices/officials is sparse and not easily found. Some had email, some had Facebook accounts, and some had no contact information, including the Office of the Prime Minister, whose website is still under construction as of the date of this article. I did manage to send emails or messages to:

  1. Dominic Fedee: parliamentary representative elected in 2016, possibly affiliated with the Ministry of Tourism, Information and Broadcasting

  2. Lenard Montoute: parliamentary representative elected in 2016 for Gros Islet

  3. Fortuna Belrose: as far as I could tell, she is the Minister of Tourism, Information, Broadcasting, Culture and Creative Industries (The Voice, 2018)

  4. Royal Saint Lucia Police Force Special Reserve: command the island’s police force with this mission, per their webpage: "To provide a professional policing service and in partnership with all communities to create a safer environment for all people in St. Lucia."

To be clear, I am not sure if any of these specific offices knew the answers to my questions, but I asked if they could connect me with anyone who could provide the information I was looking for or help answer my questions. Eleven days later, as of the time of this article publication, I have received no responses at all.

JANUARY 28, 2020

On Tuesday, an employee of the IGY Rodney Bay Marina came out to our anchored boat in a dinghy to offer assistance in any way he could, including driving me to the marine police station in Castries. He did not know us, but was very kind and upset that we had this happen to us. While I talked with him, the marine police rode right past our boat, and left to chase them down and ask them to come to our boat. It was at this point the three officers then came to our boat to take a report. The officer that took our report was respectful and friendly. We started by telling him that we filed a report with the Gros Islet police and never received a response or report. He explained that the local police were to notify the marine police so his office would know to come out to our boat, and claimed he did not receive any notice. At this point he appeared to telephone his commander at the Marine Police station in Castries to tell him this, and also to request that a form required for the official report be delivered to him since they had not planned on coming to our boat for this incident. As I began retelling our story and describing our dinghy to the officer, he seemed surprised and showed me a photo on his cellphone. It was a screenshot of my Facebook post to the St. Lucia Cruisers group with the photo of our dinghy. It is unclear how my post was brought to his attention. 

Over the course of almost two hours, he filled out two handwritten forms: one was a form with the crime details (serial numbers, boat information, etc), and the second was a yellow “Witness Statement” form required by many people’s insurance in order to process a claim. Luckily, we had the capability to take a photo of the form and turn it into an electronic PDF file that we could print, because the police do not have copies to provide. The police took no photos of evidence left on our boat, nor did they request copies of our surveillance video or dinghy photo. It is very likely that the criminals left fingerprints during the crime, yet no effort was made to check. I am unsure if St. Lucia has a fingerprint database, but collecting fingerprints from various crime scenes becomes solid evidence when an eyewitness identifies a suspect whose fingerprints match. 

During my discussion with the officer, I directly addressed the ongoing concern that the police are not helpful, and are either ignoring the crime, or even worse, potentially helping to cover it up. I asked him that his search for our tender include a small river that many people reported as the place the criminals strip the stolen dinghies. He was surprised to learn this, and I explained that I should not have to tell him this. He should know this from investigative work or from involvement of the community, as many openly shared this information with me. 

I also explained that there was another cruiser whose dinghy was also stolen that night, and who also reported it to the Gros Islet police. He asked me for more information on the cruiser, but I had none. I explained that it was not my responsibility to track crimes, and that the local police should have that information for him. He was happy to state that there were no crimes committed during the recent Arc Rally, which brought hundreds of sailors crossing the Atlantic to a finish in St. Lucia  He stated that the marine police were patrolling Rodney Bay the entire time. I replied that it was obvious that there needs to be more police involvement and patrols, rather than just when specific events are taking place.

At the least, the officer and I could both agree that there are not enough marine police to protect the cruisers. Decisions to remedy that must be made by those with the power and the means to move funding. He did tell me that the marine police have unclaimed dinghies in their possession. I told him to post them online or even send photos of them to me, and I would post them in order to find their owners. He provided me with the phone number for the marine police office in Castries +1 (758) 456-3870) and I found +1 (758) 456-3871 listed online as another phone number. As of the time of this post, I have not received any additional correspondence from the local or marine police. 

How It Ends

On Wednesday, two and a half days after the theft, we passed a sailboat anchored near us that had our dinghy chained to it. We came to learn that the boat belonged to a cruiser who has spent a significant amount of time on St Lucia and has personally experienced theft in Rodney Bay. He found our dinghy adrift in the bay around 6:30 a.m. that Monday morning, about 4 hours after it was stolen. Around 9 a.m., he went to the local police to report that he had found a dinghy, since he did not know who it belonged to and kept it locked to the side of his boat. Two and a half hours later, JM would show up to the same police station to report a lost dinghy. For whatever reason, the police never made the connection. We humbly thanked the cruisers who helped retrieve our dinghy, and we dragged what was left of it home. 

The partially deflated dinghy had two holes midline in the rear starboard pontoon, likely from the removal of the engine. The ends of the connection/wiring harness were roughly chopped from where the engine would be, and the steering cable ripped out. The lock attached to the dinghy had bolt cutter marks on it, however, the criminals were unable to cut through it. It appears that they attempted to cut the lock, then decided to just hacksaw through the wire and go. They stole our Mantus dinghy anchor and its yellow nylon rode, our flare box, first aid kit, one of two emergency oars, and the dinghy lifting harness we made, as well as its connection shackles. 

They did leave a few items behind: a navigation light post for the dinghy, our three watersport life vests, a fire extinguisher, a removable fuel tank full of fuel, and a disconnected starter battery. If anyone knows the culprits, let them know that they left behind their full-size oar and rusted channel locks. They can send us a message if they would like to retrieve them.

Moving Forward

Crime happens everywhere; no one is immune. You take steps to ensure your safety so that you can continue to live your life, go to work, travel, drive a car, etc. Yet, security is not something one individual can create. It’s a community effort. It should not be your role as the victim to investigate crimes committed against you.  Security and fair justice are so important to everyone that it is a requirement for every government entrusted to help protect its people. And this is reciprocal, in that the people must also participate in creating security. This is why we are sharing our experience, with an effort to create security that failed partly due to our choices, but was predestined to fail due to the permissive nature within the community. That community includes locals and visitors. It includes people who say, “That’s just how it is.” It includes victims who don’t report crimes, police who don’t pursue justice, and the elected leaders with a forgotten responsibility to their people. 

The reason for this article is not to retrieve our stolen property. It is to add a clear, firsthand report and a voice to the increasing murmurs of a concerned community. Saint Lucia is a beautiful country that deserves more respect from those that are its keepers. I feel a deep sorrow for the majority of St. Lucians that are honest and hard-working, that are direct victims of crime themselves, or indirectly affected by visitors avoiding the island due to unchecked crime. What is most upsetting to know is the fact that the authorities responsible for reducing crime and enforcing the law have been unresponsive despite direct questions by myself and others, and despite data that is showing increasing reports of crime. 

We would love to return to St. Lucia, and will not let this paralyze us out of fear. However, my concern would be how to protect ourselves, now knowing there is not much support from authorities. I would be willing to return because most of the crime is non-violent theft, but I fear it is only a matter of time before unchecked crime worsens in frequency and severity. How is it possible to protect yourself and property when there are reports of chain link and locks being cut, reports of dinghies being stolen while suspended from the sides of boats and davits, reports of theft regardless of outboard horsepower or dingy size? 

Without regard for costs, the purchase of dinghy security wires that alarm when cut, or boat security systems that sound off, merely interrupt crimes. There has been more than one report on CSSN of eye witnesses and victims catching the criminal(s) committing the crime, yet I have not found one instance of a criminal arrested, charged, or prosecuted. At what point does the burden of security fall on the agencies in charge of enforcing the law and preventing it from happening? There is no clear line here; it is everyone’s responsibility. But what is clear to us is that the victims are the only ones making some type of effort. 

While we did record a lot of names of the police and civilians that we interacted with, I chose to omit specific names of cruisers, police, or locals because it is not needed for the purpose of this story, and I am not looking to put a target on any one specific person. We chose to wait to publish this article until after we left St. Lucia, to avoid the possibility of retaliation if we were still at anchor. To be clear, we never got that impression from anyone we talked to, but a lack of trust in policing efforts would make it easy. I can only hope that at some point, St. Lucians come together to make a change for themselves and ensure the police and politicians do their job to protect their people. I hope that victims, both visitors and locals, report every crime and continue to insist police find the perpetrators in order to prevent more.

People should be able to explore the world and meet other cultures, even though not all experiences are positive. Don’t be paralyzed by fear. If you are a cruiser or traveler, educate yourself about the areas you are visiting, and report any crimes. You can do this on the Caribbean Safety and Security Net and on Noonsite. And never underestimate the reach of the “coconut telegraph”, or the power of a community. 

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