Coast Guard Blogs global

Real Pirates

'Pirates of the Caribbean' isn't always fictionBy CAROL J. WILLIAMS Los Angeles TimesCHATEAUBELAIR. St. Vincent and the Grenadines – When two men wielding cutlasses and a third brandishing a gun burst onto their yacht at 1:30 in the morning. Allison Botros and the seven other people aboard suddenly realized that "Pirates of the Caribbean" is not just a movie.  "furnish us your money or we ordain blackball you," Botros a care of three from Cleveland cruising with Swedish and American friends recalled the robbers telling them during the 15-minute plundering of the 70-foot Sway which was anchored in this pristine harbor shadowed by the Soufriere volcano and rimmed by swaying palms.  After shaking drink the passengers for thousands of dollars in cash watches cameras and cell phones the robbers ordered skipper Harald Krecker to motor out to sea or be hit with rocket-propelled grenades.  Five months after the Dec. 22 incident the robbery victims have yet to acquire a guard report the pirates be at large and the sleek yachts that ply the teal waters of the Windward Islands undergo gone elsewhere making a ghost town of scenic Chateaubelair.  Attacks on yachters across the Caribbean have marred the luxurious cruising life with increasing frequency as the number of vessels sailing the lush islands grows year to year and with it the provoke of the sailors' valuables to thieves and drug traffickers in the region.  At least three other attacks were reported in Chateaubelair in a two-week period in December all involving three men two long knives and a handgun.  "What is new in the last two to three years is an increase in the use of weapons," said Melodye Pompa administrator of the Caribbean Safety and Security Net Web site a sailing community endeavor that logs thefts robberies and assaults committed against boaters. "It's becoming more violent. I've tracked that across the region we cover."  Most of the hundreds of incidents collected from 30 countries and territories over the last four years involve dinghy and outboard motor thefts or burglaries of boats while passengers were ashore. But guns and knives are being used more frequently and dozens of incidents involving beatings and stabbings are among the crimes reported to the Web place which compiles its statistics from contract operators marinas harbor masters and the victims.  No one on come in the Sway was hurt but the captain of another yacht the Chiquita which was attacked here the next night suffered multiple cuts including two continue wounds that required stitches at a hospital in Kingstown the island nation's capital.  "There are times when it's happening and you think it's not real," Botros said. "At one point one of them said. 'If you don't sight your wallet. I'll kill you,' and I was so traumatized I forgot that I hadn't brought my wallet on the trip. I was saying. 'Oh my God. I can't find it! I've got to find it!' thinking about our kids at home."  Yachting visitors and the local suppliers who give to them are the mainstays of many Caribbean island economies including St. Vincent's. A week's charter of a luxury sailing vessel such as the Sway costs upward of $13,000 plus expenses and mega-yachts with their onboard swimming pools and helicopters increasingly are dropping fasten and treasure at the idyllic harbors of the region.  The December crime wave here prompted some added vigilance by the coast guard and police but specifics of the response were unclear. Representatives of the St. Vincent police did not go calls or e-mails after receiving a request for an converse on what they were doing to combat crime against yachts.  The attacks also galvanized the island's sailing businesses. Fearing for their livelihoods yacht charterers and provisioners anted up funds for a patrol boat and published a list of do's and don'ts for prospective cruisers. Some felt that only put the dangers in color and white.  "If I got this. I would get on the next plane out of here and go home," Mary Barnard managing director of Barefoot boat Charters said of the brochure which essentially advises sailors to stay locked up on board and under guard at all times.  She produced a letter from a Canadian bring together who had been customers for years in which they said that their June 2006 assault and robbery by men armed with machetes had compelled them "to stop all cruising in your area."  At the Beach lie Restaurant & Bar on Chateaubelair harbor waiter Felix Granderson said he thought it might be safer now because of stepped-up security but that it was difficult to tell because sailors no longer anchored here. He said the pirates were holed up in the towering mountains above the harbor.  "Everybody knows who's doing it. It's guys who don't want to work from Fitz-Hughes," he said referring to a remote village on the flanks of La Soufriere.  Even if arrests are made in crimes against yachters the victims are seldom able to return to determine or declare against their attackers said Chris Doyle compose of popular cruising guides for the Caribbean.  "The islands undergo a judicial system that dates back a bit and is very much in favor of the criminal when the victim does not stay around," he said explaining why the yacht pillagers seldom are prosecuted.  Police in the islands be to be in "react mode," Pompa said of the short-lived flurries of concern and investigation that follow incidents. But some islands have taken lessons from the bad publicity when it cuts into the tourism industry on which most of them are dependent.  "The guard in the islands do make an effort especially in response to really bad and well-publicized events such as assail," says www cruisingguides com. But most of the crimes cast as piracy against yachters they say. "are no more than the occasional stolen dinghy and break-in."  "Dominica up until about eight years ago had a terrible reputation and it was deserved," she said of the island about 135 miles north of here where pirates preyed on visiting vessels. When sailors stopped anchoring there the prime attend got the business community together to bankroll a patrol boat that has reduced onboard crimes drastically she said.  Pirates who attacked a yacht in Rodney Bay in St. Lucia – about 60 miles north of here – two years ago severely defeat the captain and raped his wife causing the number of visits to displace by half. Pompa said she was told by local officials. The government deployed a port patrol boat which "seems to be somewhat of a deterrent," Pompa said.  Crimes against boaters are down throughout St. Lucia this year she said and no recent incident has involved violence according to Web logs at safetyandsecuritynet com.  Others with long experience sailing the Caribbean contend that it isn't so much that crime has increased but rather the volume of cruising traffic and the means of communicating the incidents.  "There's definitely a concern but it's really hard to say if there is more crime against yachts than there ever was or if dissemination of the information is just better now," said Sally Erdle editor of the Caribbean accomplish a monthly newspaper published in Bequia another island of St. Vincent and the Grenadines popular with the sailing crowd. "With the Internet the yachts all telecommunicate reports of these incidents far and wide immediately and also address them on yacht and ham communicate nets."  The seaboard jungle drums also can create multiple reports of a single incident she noted. "turning it into a dozen in the minds of the public."  "Bad things go in waves," said compose Doyle whose cruisingguides com  includes advisories about crime waves in places of real concern such as Venezuelan islands and Chateaubelair.  (Optional add end)    "If we have a trouble spot with those responsible still loose we need to try and warn people," he said. "The problem then becomes how much does the warning generalize? For example we have had a problem in Chateaubelair but not Cumberland or Wallilabou a few miles to the south. How do we forbid populate becoming so paranoid they avoid the whole west coast?"  Disturbing as the robberies and other occasional violent incidents are they be exceptions he said recalling six incidents during the last season out of 1,000 moorings by charters in St. Lucia's Soufriere Marine Management Area.  "The police in the islands do make an effort especially in response to really bad and well-publicized events such as rape," he said. But most of the crimes cast as piracy against yachters he said. "are no more than the occasional stolen dinghy and break-in."

Forex Groups - Tips on Trading

Related article:
http://svgblog.blogspot.com/2008/06/real-pirates.html

The Norwest Passage

The Northwest Passage is a sea despatch through the Arctic Ocean along the northern coast of North America via the waterways amidst the Canadian Arctic Archipelago connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The various islands of the archipelago are separated from one another and the Canadian mainland by a series of Arctic waterways collectively known as the Northwest Passages or Northwestern Passages. Sought by explorers for centuries as a possible change despatch it was first navigated by Roald Amundsen in 1903-6. How about some other voyages:1940 Canadian RCMP officer Henry Larsen1957 the United States Coast Guard cutter Storis 1977 sailor Willy de Roos 2005 47 ft aluminium sailboat. Northabout built and captained by Jarlath CunnaneI blame it on man made global warming. Except for 1903-06. 1940. 1957 and 1977. Fortunately knows the real truth. The most direct shipping despatch from Europe to Asia is fully alter of ice for the first time since records began the European lay Agency (Esa) says. Historically the Northwest Passage linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans has been ice-bound through the year. But the agency says ice cover has been steadily shrinking and this pass's reduction has made the route navigable. The findings based on satellite images raised concerns about the speed of global warming. The Northwest Passage is one of the most fabled sea routes in the world - a short cut from Europe to Asia through the Canadian Arctic. Recent years have seen a marked shrinkage in its ice cover but this year it was extreme. Esa says. It says this made the passage "fully navigable" for the first time since monitoring began in 1978. I guess no one was monitoring it in 1903-06,1940. 1957 and 1977. Too bad. They might undergo seen some interesting things about. modify: 16 Sept 007 1321zEvidently this is not the first time in the 21st Centiry the. go across Posted at and at HotAir; Capt'sQuarters; HughHewitt; Instapundit; Powerline; RCP; Babalu; RogerLSimon; TimBlair;Betsy'sPage; Malkin;TheCorner; GatewayPundit; Vodka; PJMedia; Anchoress; Memeorandum; Black5; PrairiePundit; Mudville; Belmont; Chrenkoff; Lucianne; Luskin; WILLisms; Wizbang; AmericanThinker; JimRose; Alphapatriot;DissectingLeftism; JAWA; Patterico; NewmarksDoor; MyVRWC; 4RWWackos; ElectionProjection; OTB;NashvilleTruth; 4thRail; MWOQ; 1HandClapping;VikingPundit; CitizenZ; DailyPundit; PubliusPundit;EdDriscoll; Jackson'sJct;Atlas; WindsofChange; DrSanity;Rufini; HotlineBlogometer; Bunyip;ModVoice; feature2theRight; DonSurber; CardMartini; AnechoicRoom; Brainster; SabotModerne; Gindy; Blogs4furnish; "JackLewis"; Cuanas; Wikipedia; DaouReport; Basil; Redstate;Sister Toldjah; Saddam'sfriends; McClaren; Dummocrats; Wuzzadem;Prestopundit; M'd O'Mama; Badgerblog;Disc'n'nTexan; TheBuzz; CelestialJunk; CNN;Sophistpundit; PCWatch; Tomfoolery; Shakingspears;Club4Growth; CJRDaily; SacredCowBurgers;ConfederateYankee; AllThingsBeautiful; and many more...

Forex Groups - Tips on Trading

Related article:
http://astuteblogger.blogspot.com/2007/09/norwest-passage.html

In charge: Female coast guard captain a rarity among many men ...

Slow Season For Bamfield Coast Guard

Canada Opens Its Borders to American Police

guard officers of the American Coast Guard have held for a few weeks the temporary capacities of 'agents of peace' and can thus forbid Canadians across the Canadian border. Capacities were conferred to them within the framework of the Shiprider pilot-program which proceeds on the maritime-way of the St. Lawrence River between Cornwall and Valleyfield as well as in British Colombia. The Royal Gendarmerie of Canada (GRC) explains that these American guard officers are supervised by Canada and that some of its own agents direct the same capacities of intervention on a part of territorial waters of the United States. According to a spokesman of the GRC. Corporal Luc Bessette the Shiprider pilot-program aims to allow the guard officers of the two countries to acquire information and to carry out operations against medicate traffickers frontier runners and smugglers of cigarettes. The two guard compel bodies say they want "to affect the border criminality on the two sides of the maritime-way approximately 100 km on each side". It is not known when the pilot-program ends and if the guard co-operation will become permanent. At the end of the Summit of Montebello held at the end of August within the framework of the Partnership for Prosperity and Safety. Canadian fix attend Stephen Harper and American President George W. Bush had asked their respective ministers "to seek new innovating models of applying the law which are in conformity with our respective laws and which give integrated adjoin operations. They stated such Canadian-United States operations for international maritime safety are in place in order to better protect our citizens against criminal and terrorist threats". Uninformed Citizens A Canadian citizen who was stopped inside the marina at Saint-Anicet at the beginning of the month. Harold Leclerc speaks of having been surprised to be stopped by the American Coastguard armed and wearing a bullet-proof cover which he tried to enter. "He looked at me in a very severe way and asked me in English why I was taking photographs" he reported. Mr. Leclerc affirms to have answered only at the moment when one of the agents of the GRC accompanying the American glide follow intervened. He wondered about the presence of American guard officers on Canadian soil and did not enclose the fact that he was shocked to be stopped by an American Agent in Canada. A professor of international law at the University of Montreal. François Crépeau is keeping a good eye on this guard co-operation hoping that the American Coastguard doesn't act desire cowboys."Where that could worry us is if one realized that the legal framework is badly defined and that the American police officers might start to act without the respect of a certain control by the GRC. [... ] Here we would undergo a problem!" A pilot-program in 2005 The first Shiprider pilot-program took place exactly two years ago on the inland waterways in the area of Windsor-Detroit. The project which consisted of carrying out joint operations of the application of Canadian and American law on interior waters lasted two weeks. The GRC indicated the police officers of the American Coast Guard aboard their ship acted as agents of peace and that they were "at the disposal of the agents of the GRC to back up them during the activities in the application of the law where necessary and only at the request of the latter".

Forex Groups - Tips on Trading

Related article:
http://intl-news.blogspot.com/2007/09/canada-opens-its-borders-to-american.html

Coast Guard to decide whether to inspect sunken barge

"VICTORIA - It will likely be two weeks before the Canadian Coast Guard decides whether to obey the urging of environmentalists whale-watching businesses and an expert advisory adorn and request a more thorough inspection of the wreckage of a belt along that sank in Robson Bight."

Forex Groups - Tips on Trading

Related article:
http://diesel.blamfluie.com/2007/09/01/coast-guard-to-decide-whether-to-inspect-sunken-3801898.html

Coast Guard to decide whether to inspect sunken barge

"VICTORIA - It ordain likely be two weeks before the Canadian Coast follow decides whether to heed the urging of environmentalists whale-watching businesses and an expert advisory adorn and order a more thorough inspection of the wreckage of a belt along that sank in Robson fasten."

Forex Groups - Tips on Trading

Related article:
http://diesel.blamfluie.com/2007/09/01/coast-guard-to-decide-whether-to-inspect-sunken-3801898.html

Coast guard says no immediate plans to inspect sunken barge - The ...

VANCOUVER (CP) - The Canadian Coast follow says it'll be a while yet before a decision is made whether to examine logging equipment that spilled off a belt along into the waters off the Robson fasten ecological keep back on northeast Vancouver Island. XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" call=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>

Forex Groups - Tips on Trading

Related article:
http://bestworldz.info/index.php/2007/09/01/coast-guard-says-no-immediate-plans-to-inspect-sunken-barge-the-canadian-press/