Wewak, CATASTROPHE

Dawnbreaker
Lars Alfredson
Thu 3 Dec 2015 07:28

Tuesday evening, anchored in Wewak.

After we returned on board, we packed all our purchases away before we enjoyed a nice sundowner and later a nice dinner.
I was working with preparing several blogs with pictures from our first 3 weeks of cruising.
About 22.00 we were visted by three of the militaries that was patroling around the boats. We invited them on board and shared a few beers together.
When they left half an hour later, we started to get ready for bed.
Jonathan was working on the computer transferring pictures from his camera.
Darryl put up his hammock and went to bed.
SUDDENLY the boat is swarmed by approx. 10 guys, some wearing masks, some not.
I hear Kenneth screaming NO NO NO and he tries to block the entrance from the stern. I see him pushed away and gays with big machetes climbing on board.
We were quickly overrun with lots of men with machetes, knives and two pistols that we could see. They proceeded with threatening my crew and tying them up. I was in the Pilot House and managed to run down to my cabin and lock myself in. I keep a second flare gun there and frantically tried to figure out how to load and set it off while they tried to break in through the door. After a couple of minutes I had worked it out. I then sent up a flare through one of the overhead hatches. After a second flare they left the boat with all the loot. They raced off in their "banana boat".
Meeting up on deck again we are lucky that nobody was hurt. We are all in chock and I continue to shoot up flares to try and alert some help.
The military showed up about 45 mins. after the attack. The police did not respond. We lernt later that several calls were maid to them.
When they finally arrived the military were nice and left two armed men on board so we could get some rest, now it was about 4.00 am.

The next morning we discovered that our dinghy was slashed on about 10 places and the petrol tank was stolen. We estimated that the attack did not last more than 3-5 min. Those minutes feels like an eternity when you are under duress.
The list of things stolen was long, among other things:
2 laptop computers, 2 tablets, 2 Binoculars, 2 Cameras with lenses+ 1 GoPro Camera, 1 Hard drive, 2 VHF handheld radios, 3 Wallets with cash and credit cards and driving licences etc. The complete list is a lot longer. Estimated value in excess of 10000 Euros.

Continues in part 3.

Lars and crew.

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