Sometime in January the single hander "Don North" with his little dog "Kuna" on his sailboat "Windancer was reported missing in the San Blas Island, Panama and a search for him started on the SSB Panama Connection Net which runs daily at 08:30 a.m. on 8107.0 KHz.
Then in February the news hit the sailing community in the San Blas Islands that Don's body was found in Portobello by scuba divers, with a hole in his head and weighted down by rope and anchor chain. No sign of his boat or dog. But this news turned out to be false. The body belonged to another gone missing sailor and single hander, a Frenchman "Jean-Pierre Bouhard" and his boat the "Levante" was missing too!
It darned to us sailors now that we had some serious pirating going on here in Panama. As things evolved daily and many cruisers became curious to find out what happened, the boat "Levante" a 50 foot aluminum catamaran, was found hidden away, but it was now renamed "Twyss"
In the meantime the search for "Windancer" was still active. At the morning Panama Connection Net a cruiser reported a nearby anchored abandoned sailboat in the East Lemmon Cays near Yansaladup. But it carried the name of "Green Twilight" on the transom. This then turned out to be the missing boat "Windancer", but renamed. No sightings on "Don North" and his dog "Kuna"
Further on it was discovered, that a Spaniard with the name of "Javier Martin" had been hired by both skippers "Don North" and "Pierre Bouhard" as crew to help them to sail their boats to Colombia.
Who is "Javier Martin"? In the middle of December, two weeks before Christmas 2010, during the worst storm of the century here in Panama, "Javier Martin" attempted to sail his 44 foot Benetau sailboat "Twyla" with 11 backpackers (hikers) onboard from El Porvenir in the San Blas Islands to Colombia. However, he turned back, tried a night entry, missed the channel in the dark and his boat went aground on a reef and sank shortly after.
A search was now in progress to question "Javier Martin" A few days later the Panama Border Guard caught him on the Pacfic side of Panama having two horses, carrying three firearms, $14,000 in cash and in possession of Don North's passport. Further it was discovered that he had made ATM withdrawals from both "Don North" and "Jean-Pierre Bouhard's" bank accounts after they went missing.
During the investigation it also became known that the sunken boat "Twyla" was not registered to "Javier Martin" but in fact to a sailor in the Virgin Islands who went missing many years before.
To follow up on this and for many more details, look at the famous website of the panama-guide.com of the dedicated writer "Don Winner"
click for an article about Javier Martin here