Item one: Jean-Pierre Bouhard’s former catamaran, unmistakeable for its yellow-painted rails and mast, anchored nearby yesterday. ow in other and presumably non-bloodstained hands, the boat is a grim reminder of the terrible Javier Martín saga that unfolded a year ago. Martín, a Spaniard with a shadowy and suspect past, killed two cruisers, including Bouhard, and was using Bouhard’s cat to ferry backpackers back and forth in the Panama-Cartagena run, with much chaos and uproar.
Ferrying backpackers is a cottage industry in this area. The one-way price runs around $450 and includes food and a few days of cruising in the San Blas en route between Portobelo and Cartagena. The alternative is to fly, which costs about $350 (and is the usual disagreeable hassle that flying has become). So for only a hundred bucks more the adventurous traveler gets a few days of cruising in an exotic corner of the world.
I’ve talked with a few travelers who said they had excellent experiences: clean and professionally operated boat, gourmet cuisine, etc. I’ve also talked with one or two who said their boats were filthy, the food was basic if not primitive, living conditions were extremely cramped and uncomfortable. I know of two instances when boats very nearly came to grief on reefs because of incompetent hands at the wheel. In one of those cases a backpacker was driving the boat because the captain was too drunk or stoned.
Javier Martín was reportedly usually wacked on one substance or another. Martín was apprehended (can’t remember where, Colombia or the Darién) with a lot of cash and some documents belonging to Don North, the first cruiser he murdered. Don Winner, writing for the English-language on-line newspaper Panama Reports (get URL; verify title) has documented the case extensively.
Item two: Two Frenchmen who arrived in Cartagena the day before I left Manzanillo reported having been boarded and attacked and robbed while anchored in the Rosarios.
Item three: A report on the radio this morning from a cruiser involved in assisting the victim indicate that a singlehanding Frenchman anchored at Narganá was boarded by two men in a canoe yesterday evening, attacked with a knife and a machete, bound, and robbed. The victim said he has many years of sailing experience in the area and had anchored at Narganá perhaps a dozen times previously. Fortunately he was not seriously injured in last night’s attack. The thieves stole his wallet and a cheap cell phone but overlooked an iPod and a computer. The Frenchman worked himself free of his bindings after the attackers had left and set off a flare; other cruisers responded immediately. Police are involved, and they and the victim are attempting to identify the attackers, one of whom was apparently also cut during the attack and robbery.
The Rosario assault, while probably a rare event, doesn’t surprise me all that much – Colombia, for all its many really friendly and good people, has a much more ragged and lawless edge than the country’s marketing would have you believe.
The Narganá assault is disturbing, not only by its very nature but also because Kuna Yala (the comarca of San Blas, the territory of the Kuna people) is a tranquil area with very little crime. The Kuna people in general are gentle, even retiring people. So what could have happened?
The attackers could have been atypical Kunas, corrupted by Western civilization and as prone to crime and violence as anyone else. Or they could have been Spanish-speaking outsiders from anywhere else. It’s well known that as pure and perfect as Kuna Yala, with its turquoise waters, white-sand beaches, and coconut palm trees appears to be (in fact, of course, it is neither pure nor perfect), it is one route the narco-traffickers use to move drugs northward from Colombia. Also, Colombian tramp steamers ply these waters continually, trading in food and gasoline in exchange for coconuts. Either case presents the possibility of outsiders, possibly very unsavory ones, being in the area.
Further, it’s a rule of thumb that as Christmas approaches, muggings and assaults and robberies increase. It seems paradoxical or at least ironic that people stoop to violent crime for last-minute Christmas income enhancement, but that’s what happens. Like it or not, we live in a materialist, mass-consumption society. And to most of the local folks, we cruisers, even those of us with the most modest resources, are rich beyond anything they can imagine.