Caribbean island people are stealing dinghies and outboards for sport. The cruising community shames the victims and talks about feelings. And everybody pretends this is normal. Cultural norms all around. My arse!

Yes, my Happy Campers. You with the floppy hats riding your clown bikes. It’s your own fault that somebody you might have seen in the market yesterday now has your new Zodiac with the 9.9.

It seems that you didn’t raise the dinghy out of the water. You didn’t chain it to the boat with a lock from Tractor Supply—and the outboard, too. Shoulda festooned that hypelon harlot with unnecessary patches until she had the all sex appeal of a past-her-prime divorcee smoking a Marlb. Shoulda painted drippy zebra stripes on the motor, too.

Do all that, and you earn the right to crow on Facebook, “And I never hadda problem.” No, not me. Never-hadda being some uninterruptable state of grace.

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Then something happens that makes you realize that lesser theft in the Petty Antilles is a varsity sport. Challenge accepted. Like what happened on Guadelope on October 1, as reported by our good friends at the Caribbean Safety and Security Network:

Overnight while the owner slept onboard, the entire lower unit of the Yamaha outboard was stolen. The dinghy was lifted. The thieves apparently disassembled the lower unit from the locked-to-the dinghy outboard from underneath the raised dinghy. No police report was made.

Ha! No report necessary. By then, the boys at the Saint-Louis cop shop had probably heard and were celebrating cousin Luc’s NASCAR-pit-crew-worthy performance. “Mon Dieu, ce gamin est fort!”

Pity the Never-Haddas the next morning. Maybe, they didn’t notice right away.

Imagine them donning matching Tilleys and plunking their own retired-with-money lower units onto opposing tubes of their relaunched Tender/To. That baguette fresh from the ovens at Victoire & Les Saveurs? They can almost taste it.

Satan has taken a vape break, so the 9.9 starts first pull, but something still ain’t right. Yama Mama’s revving like a banshee. WTF! Give it a minute and she’ll overheat to a standstill, sans lower unit to send cooling water upward. The Never-Haddas have an epiphany: No boulangerie for them. Not today.

Any/Many/Most

Then, there’s that other cruiser crime trope. Forget the nearby presence of homicidal gang warfare and the fact that it translates into thuggery against cruisers on a fairly regular basis. Sooner or later, you will hear some version of I feel safer here than I do in any/many/most places in the United States.

Really? When’s the last time masked men boarded your boat at the Fort Pierce Municipal Marina (See, I even picked the dodgiest waterfront in Florida) and ran away with your precious refuse? Again, from an October 18 CSSN dispatch from Grenada:

The owner and four guests were onboard when three masked men approached from the land-side and boarded a yacht berthed on the T-dock at Le Phare Bleu marina at 2315 hours. A scuffle ensued. One of the intruders jumped in the water, and the two others managed to grab a bag as they rushed away up the dock. It contained trash. Apparently, the intruders had knocked the dock security camera off on their way to the yacht. A report was made to the marina and the police.

Nothing left to say here, Loose Cannon out.