This past weekend, the marina managers' daughter's boat was stolen from Marsh Harbour. This was a strange occurrence because normally any boats that are stolen are larger and have twin engines (especially Yamahas), making them good for smuggling drugs and Haitians. Ashley's boat was only 14 feet. Yesterday a huge search ensued but to no avail. How far could a small boat like this go, especially in the windy weather we have been having? Today everyone found out, when she got a phone call saying that the U.S. Coast Guard had found her boat in Ft. Lauderdale with one Bahamian and three Haitians on board! What a trip across the gulf stream it must have had. They apparently had brought their own fuel in jugs, because it was so low when Ashley docked it, she wasn't sure it would make it back to Hope Town....let alone make it to Florida. Now the family will most likely be investigated to make sure they weren't the ones trying to smuggle in Haitians, but there shouldn't be a problem since they reported the theft to the police right away. Then they will have to load the boat on a freighter and have it brought back home, all at their expense of course.
Unfortunately another small skiff was also stolen this weekend from Hope Town, so we now have to take more theft deterring precautions like chaining and locking the steering on our boat. We certainly wouldn't want to lose our 'wheels'. It's sad to see this happen when we never used to take the keys out of anything and never even locked the doors. I guess times are changing.
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