Hurricane season once againAug 18, 2009
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It's always pleasant when our first mention of hurricane season happens mid-way through the month of August. (Knock on wood) We've had a great season so far. No hurricanes to mention in June, July and here it is half-way through August and we have Ana turning into a tropical depression and heading south and west of us and Bill moving north and east on a course toward Bermuda.
Currently, it appears our local worry is not the weather but whether or not your boat may be robbed next. Yes, it appears we have a thief in the harbor and have had for over a month or so. There have been 5 boats that have had items stolen from them. This includes a filter-boss fuel filtration system, night vision goggles, wood-working tools, binochulars,an SSB(single side band)radio, multiple GPS units, a VHF radio and an EPIRB to name just a few things. Ironically, all of these items were taken from boats that did not have captains living aboard. Whomever is stealing items knows what they want and knows what boats are uninhabited. Yesterday evening we heard news that a young Dominican had been caught stealing a large freezer off a boat docked in Love canal. This same boat was robbed less than a week ago. The Dominican that owns the boat, Don Jose, has it docked down the hill in the canal at the base of his house and apparently he heard something yesterday around 5pm and called the local police and they caught the guy. (He was trying to steal a very large freezer by driving off with it balanced on the back of his motorcycle! The freezer on the moto is not that strange in this country because we've seen guys moving full size refrigerators and washers and dryers down the street on the back of their bikes.)The guy admitted to stealing previous items from Don Jose's boat and said that he was from Santiago, a large city about 2 hours away, and was selling the stolen items to a taxi driver in Santiago. They apparently arrested the taxi driver last night and were bringing the guy back to Luperon today to deal with him in the court system. Hopefully there is only one thief and he has been caught, but we still have lots of unanswered questions regarding all the other items stolen from boats floating in the harbor. Time will tell and justice is pretty swift at times in this country.
