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Subject: [worldcruising] A disturbing tale
From: Rick Kennerly (nh2f@XXX.XXX)
Date: Fri May 17 2002 - 17:59:01 EDT
A cautionary tale if there ever was one...
Good day all,
Life has really thrown me for a spin lately. I sailed from Cuba a
couple of weeks ago for the Cayman Islands. Taking advantage of the cheap
rum and cigars in Cuba, I provisioned the boat accordingly. It was a
beautiful sail almost due South on a beam reach to the trades with small
seas. Quite possibly my best sail ever. Arriving in Georgetown at 8:00 am to
begin the clearing in procedure. Customs boarded the boat and went through
the normal round of questions such as did I want to declare any thing.
During my stay in Cuba, the boat was searched roughly a dozen times but
never very extensively. For that matter, no one has ever searched the boat
very thoroughly. You can see where this is going... I chose not to declare
the rum and cigars I had onboard and signed the ships report to this.
Without even going below, the customs officers cleared me in and left. As I
was getting ready to move the boat from the clearing in dock to another
location, a Customs K9 unit stopped me a!
and said they wanted a word. They came aboard w/doggie and proceeded to go
through the boat with a fine tooth comb. Spending about an hour on one
locker alone. This locker was full of different types of sugar, coffee,
flour, and other dry goods but not a very big locker really. They instructed
me to cut open blocks of baking chocolate so they could see if anything was
molded inside. Even though their dog didn't take notice of anything, these
guys were determined to spend as long as it took, they were determined to
find something. Not finding anything, they brought in a remote camera and
started sticking it's fiber optic extension, back behind cabinetry, all the
while, threatening to start cutting open the boat and it's woodwork, to do a
thorough search. Feeling very privileged at this point and wondering if the
Caymans treat all their guests this way, I was beginning to loose my
patients. This is about the time that they discovered my rum stores. Never
mind the fact that I bou!
ght the rum in Cuba for my personal consumption aboard my private boat. The
Camanians felt that they were due 100% duty on almost three times the retail
value of the rum. At this point, things were getting out of hand so I
decided to declare the cigars as well. They promptly arrested me, seized the
boat, and denied me right to an attorney. My first three days in the Caymans
were spent in jail as the first time I have arrested or incarcerated.
Luckily, some friends of mine that live here were able to bail me out but
one of the bail conditions was that I couldn't or can't go within a half
mile of Margarita. Thankfully, some other friends have allowed me to stay in
their house while this develops.
I have been charged with Evading Customs Duty, Smuggling, and Engaging
in Smuggling. I am scheduled to have a court hearing this coming Tuesday to
determine sentencing. For the evasion charges, they now want three times the
duty of the grossly inflated prices. (The rum buy almost three times and the
cigars by 19 times the retail value.) This adds up to $17,640 for the duty
alone.
See part two
Continued from part 1
To add to my misery, they want 50% of the value of the boat for the
smuggling charges, just to get my boat back. As you can see, we are talking
a pretty hefty amount of money here.
At this point, it doesn't look like I have a solid defense against any
of the charges. My only hope is to fight the values of both my ships stores
and the boat as well, in the attempt to reduce the fines. Yes, I broke the
law, and maybe the way to handle this is to fine me but the punishment needs
to fit the crime. What the Cayman government is attempting to do to me is
nothing short of criminal while they hide behind recently enacted
legislation. The government is broke and consequently, they are eager to
fine me to the full extent of the law as a source of revenue.
If things proceed as it looks like they will, I will soon be so far
into debt that I will have little choice but to return to Annapolis to sell
the boat.
I love this boat. Lisa and I spent many years saving to buy it. We both
poured our heart and soul into rebuilding it. I had plans of keeping it for
many more years to come with no interest in another boat. Now to loose it
over a stupid mistake of my own and the criminal actions of the Caymanian
government, is heart breaking. Never the less, I am keeping my chin up and
determined not to let it destroy my life.
Although obviously biased, the Cayman Islands are not a place I would
recommend for my worst enemy to visit. A very expensive destination as the
CI$ trades at the laughable price of $0.80 to the US dollar. How this
overgrown coral head of an island can think they have a stronger economy
than the US is beyond me but I never was very good at business. A friend of
mine aptly described the Caymans as being the Disneyland of the Caribbean
with no culture of their own. There are some 13,000 native Camanians out of
a population of around 35,000 total. Jamaicans make up most of the
difference with quite a few Hondurans and Cubans in the mix. Although the
economy here is totally dependent upon these foreign workers, there is a lot
of animosity between the Caymanians and the foreign workers. Georgetown is a
major cruise ship stop in the Caribbean which has turned the whole country
into a tourist trap. Although the snorkeling is moderate and the scuba
diving is reported to be good!
d, spear fishing is totally prohibited. There is little else of attraction
and the club life is very expensive. A beer is usually over $4 US and a
mixed drink approaches $10 US.
The two biggest national products are shady banking and tourism. The
rest of the World is looking at their banking practices very closely and
recently black listed the country for some of it's ways. Consequently, they
have enacted some new legislation and have just begun the biggest court case
in Camanian history. It's a case involving Eurobank and money laundering.
Much of the Western World is watching closely.
From Georgetown, CI,
Tim S/V Margarita
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Rick
Rick Kennerly, NH2F
Westsail 32, Xapic
Cabo San Juan, Puerto Rico
Visit the Xapic homepage at www.mouseherder.com/xapic
Visit the Westsail Owners Association at www.westsail.org
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