Casa de Tortugas - Stories
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Our boat was stolen!
Every morning we wake up early to watch the sun come up. Part of our routine is to switch on the TV and watch each of the security cameras switch from night mode to full color day mode. But on this day, we stared at a dock camera that had no boat...
At first, we weren't sure what we were seeing. Did we somehow leave the system in "review" mode? The boat couldn't possibly be missing...
It seemed like minutes, but it was likely only a few seconds when reality punched us in the face. Our boat was gone!
We keep the boat secured with 4 ropes and a strong chain. We have motion detectors. Could we have slept through an alarm?
We pulled up the night video to see what happened to the boat. On May 14th 2025, at 10:58pm, we found our answer. Two figures walked in the water from the open ocean side where they must have parked their boat. The water at this time of night is only 3 feet deep yet these figures were up to their chins in the water so they knew to stay low. At first, we couldn't see them at all but we did see one of our marker poles start to shake. Then a moment later we could see shadows moving. After a moment longer we watched the back of the boat start to drift away from the dock as the figures became more visible. Still staying low in the water and having their faces mostly covered, all we could see on the camera were their eyes. They were smart and likely scoped out our area days before to know how to stay hidden. They mostly worked from under the dock to cut the remaining ropes and to cut our chain. Then they simply walked away with the boat.
We were devastated. Completely in shock.
Tina immediately reached out on Facebook to the local groups to let them know what happened and also contacted the police. By 8:45am, the police were at our home taking our statement and reviewing our video. The next day we went into town and filed a more complete report with the officials. The two reports are used together by different agencies. Many people have gotten their boats back within a few days, but few ever see their motors again.
As of the writing of this story, it's been a week and we haven't heard any news about our boat. Our hopes of even getting the hull back is fading fast.
The cost involved in replacing the boat and motor is staggering. Imagine if your year old car that you purchased brand new was stolen and you had to pay out of pocket to replace it. Yes, there is boat insurance here, but the price is very high and getting them to pay out for theft is very hard. Like any insurance company, in a theft situation they want to wait a long time just in case the boat show up. In the mean time, we are stuck on our remote island, forced to rely on the good will of our neighbors to take us into town.
Although the money situation is quite extreme for us, the sense of violation is also quite hard to deal with. We are good people, we are active in the local community to some degree. People know us and our boat is very recognizable. Why has this happened to us? Are they coming back? Are we still safe here? Everyone is reassuring us that they will not come back to harm us or take other things from us. Boat theft is the most common crime here because it is so easy to slip in and do this sort of thing. Even people with boat lifts have had their boats stolen because the slings can be cut. But all the reassuring in the world doesn't bring back our piece of mind, at least not at this moment.
As we try to figure out how we will recover from this, are working hard to improve security near our dock. It will take the remainder of our safety net to replace our boat, but we can't afford for this to ever happen again.
Lessons we learned: Chaining the boat is of little value. Motion sensors are of little use because if they are sensitive enough to go off when there is only a head poking out of the water, they will sound off constantly as they get tricked by waves and other false readings.
Possible solutions: Enclose the boat completely behind a gate system. This will make it much harder to get the boat out even if the ropes are cut and will likely force them out of the water and trigger the alarms. Add more alarm sensors including one specifically under the dock. The sensors still can't be set too sensitive, but having more of them and in better locations will improve our odds of catching them. Limit their ability to even get under the dock.
Our level of sadness is high right now. But we still believe this is a very safe and friendly place to live. People have cars broken into and stolen all the time back in the US and every other country. Theft is everywhere and all people can do is be smart about protecting their property.
We will recover. We will be happy again. We have each other and that is what matters the most.
| Yeah! We have rain! Published 24-May-2025 | Shrimp at our dock Published 08-May-2025 |
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