A Warning When Traveling to Honduras | Pirates Kill Canadian

[Concerned]

Bizarre.

Pirates kill Canadian man in Honduras, daughter survives

Amy Minsky, Postmedia News · Saturday, Dec. 4, 2010

A yachting vacation has turned into a nightmare for a young Canadian woman whose father was shot to death by pirates in Honduras.

Myda Egrmajer managed to fend off the armed robbers, but was forced to remain aboard the boat with her father’s body for hours this past week until she was rescued, relatives of the woman said Saturday as they recounted the disturbing tale.

The Ottawa woman is now safe in Belize.

“She survived. We don’t know how or why,” her aunt, Merrillynn Wilson, told Postmedia News.

“It’s very sketchy; none of this makes sense to us. But we know she’s OK, at least physically.”

The woman in her mid-20s was cruising the Caribbean Sea with her father, Milan Egrmajer, 58, who was 2 1/2 years into a voyage along the eastern coast of North America aboard his sailboat, Adena.

She had been aboard a few weeks when bad weather on Thursday forced them to dock in a sheltered area, her aunt said.

“What we’re being told is they docked very close to shore, and pirates just came on board,” her aunt said, speaking from Mahone Bay, N.S. “I’m told she set off a flare and scared the pirates off.”

A spokesman for the Honduran Security Ministry said Saturday that Milan was shot because he apparently resisted a robbery.

“Another boat pulled up and several men tried to rob them. It appears the man resisted and they shot him,” Leonel Sauceda said.

No arrests have been made, he added.

The vessel was docked near Tela in northern Honduras, where Myda stayed alone for several hours with her father’s dead body while Honduran officials searched for her through the bad weather.

By the time weather cleared Friday, Myda had been picked up by a private vessel operated by Australians and was en route to Belize, said Ms. Wilson’s husband, Kelly.

“She should be on her way home soon,” he said.

The Wilsons said they heard the news from Myda’s mother, Willa Wilson, who lives in Manitou Islands, Ont.

Initial reports out of Honduras had incorrectly said Myda was a teenager.

“She’s a real sweetheart,” Merrillynn said of her niece. “She spent the whole summer working and living on the Manitou Island with her mom, and she just got her degree, so she wanted to [go] with her father before coming back and applying for a full-time job.”

Myda, who speaks fluent Spanish, earned an undergraduate degree from Trent University, Merrillynn said. She moved to Peterborough, Ont., for university after living in Ottawa her entire life.

On her Facebook page, Myda said she graduated from Colonel By Secondary School in 2004.

The father, who lived in Ottawa for 20 years before moving to St. Catharines, Ont., three years ago, had an engineering background and ran his own business.

Milan’s voyage on Adena, his 1977 Ericson 35 Mark II sailboat, began on Lake Ontario in July 2008, according to a website he ran.

As far back as he could remember, he was attracted to water and he had flirted with the idea of sailing ever since he joined the Canadian navy and spent a month aboard HMCS Oriole, he wrote.

“To me, water is a magnet. From the time I took my first steps, these steps were towards the nearest puddle,” he wrote on adena.ca, which was last updated April 15.

“As I reflect, the greatest moments and memories include water — watching the coloured Niagara waterfalls, cooling off in the hot summer rain, staring into the watery depths while paddling canoes, watching romantic sunsets across an orange lake and just gazing past the horizon wondering what was out there that I could not see and only imagine. It is this magnetism that has spurned this sailing adventure.”

In 2005, he decided to fulfil his dream, and started his search for the perfect boat.

The voyage was open-ended, with no set end date, no specific ports planned and an open invitation for crew members to join him on board.

His business, Egrmajer Consulting Inc., was based on the Adena, the website said.

Canadian Foreign Affairs warns that people travelling to Honduras should be very cautious in light of an increase in violent crime, and never display signs of affluence.

“Canadians are advised to exercise a high degree of caution at all times, including in the vicinity of hotels, in airports, bus terminals, shopping malls and other public places,” the government website says.

“Serious crime including armed robbery, kidnapping, carjacking and sexual assault, is also common.”

The website lists Tela, along with a handful of other areas, as an area where foreign tourists are often targeted, and also warns Canadians that incidents of sexual assault sometimes involve the use of sedative drugs.

A spokeswoman with the Department of Foreign Affairs said Canadian officials are aware of an incident involving two Canadians citizens in Honduras, and said Canadian representatives on the ground have confirmed that the surviving citizen has been located and is safe.

Due to privacy issues, the government would not offer any further information.

“Canadian officials are following up with local officials providing consular assistance on the ground, as well as to the family in Canada,” Laura Markle said.

- With files from Reuters and the Ottawa Citizen

http://www.nationalpost.com/Canadian+killed+female+relative+missing+Honduras+reports/3928911/story.html

[SAP]

Anywhere in the Caribbean is dangerous for small boats. Most of those places demand that people stay in their resort at all times where they have security around the clock. Some even tell you, once off the resort area, you are really on your own and in danger.
I would have the patience of only a few days to stay confined, as I always love to explore, so those places are definitely "out" for me.
I think as far as Islands are concerned, the Polynesian (some) are still the safest. Especially those that are run primarily by the native people there. Places like Auitutaki and Rora Tonga.