New assault in St Lucia

[Shrubb]

It happened on october 25th :
https://safetyandsecuritynet.org/dat...event-assault/
It is not the first attack against sailors in St Lucia but one detail is highly questioning : "The police took NO forensic evidence and told the victims and the charter company that they did “not want any media involved as it might scare tourists”."
This failed...

[leboyd]

Sad state of affairs in the Caribbean. Hopefully, the police on all the islands will figure out that safety of tourist is paramount and begin to crack down on known thieves and areas.

Since we were unable to do our charter from St. Martin we did a land trip on Curacao. We were told when we visited some tourist locations to take everything from the rental car, open all the windows and compartments and leave the doors unlocked so the thieves could see that there was nothing of value in the car and would leave I‎t alone. Even the scuba company did this at two locations.

Of course, problems like this and worse are around in I suppose ever country now. Residence not directly tied to the tourism business don’t understand and therefore don’t want to pay for the cost to protect tourists.

[denverd0n]

I keep hearing more and more of these stories out of St. Lucia, and not just against sailors. Crime in general seems to be a growing problem there. If they don't get their act together pretty soon, they are going to kill the tourism trade, which is their bread and butter.

[svHyLyte]

We were anchored in Castries on 10/31 and made a trip up to Rodney Bay to take an Offroad Segway Tour up the mountain. The island seems to be in much worse shape than we observed on our prior visit and at least some of the locals much more hostile and aggressive. Save for the marina at Rodney Bay, we would be disinclined to visit the island again unless with several other boats in a group.

FWIW...

[Shrew]

Originally Posted by leboyd

Sad state of affairs in the Caribbean. Hopefully, the police on all the islands will figure out that safety of tourist is paramount and begin to crack down on known thieves and areas.

LOL!!! Ya, because its all about us.

[denverd0n]

Originally Posted by Shrew

LOL!!! Ya, because its all about us.

No, it's all about THEM! Their economies depend almost entirely on tourism. If they don't keep the place friendly and attractive to tourist, then it is going to cost them BIG TIME!

[Nicholson58]

St Lucia and St Vincent are perpetual bad news. They are absolutely off our list and have been since we arrived in the Caribbean. Poor security and no rule of law. Check out Noonsite.

There is no point visiting places that do not want us. We passed both islands twice last season and found no AIS signals from any of the harbors.

Dominica finally got this message a few years ago and turned their yacht economy around. We lived in Portsmouth harbor for several weeks last year. It was our favorite place.

[Shrubb]

The point is not so much the attack, which could occur in many countries including North America or Europe, but the local police's passiveness, if not collusion, with the criminals. This is to be considered as the real risk factor with sailing in these areas.