Kari tells the story:

We left Cubagua a small island between the mainland of Venezuela and Isla Margarita on Friday morning (November 10th 2006) in fair weather around 10am and were happy to be able to sail until we reached the west end on Isla Margarita/Venezuela where the wind died down on us before changing to north-easterly, then we had to turn on the engine in order to get to the anchorage at Poca de Pozo where we intended to stay over night before we’d head to Tortuga.

According to our book (Cruising Guide To Venezuela and Bonaire by Chris Doyle and Jeff Fisher 2002 edition) this is a good place to stay over night on this journey and apparently there were no reports of incidents on records as of late – or as they state ´´So far we have had no reports of security problems´.
The anchorage was not comfortable at all due to a northerly swell, hence we moved the boat about 2NM to the anchorage just outside of the small village of Robledal (11°01,5N 64°22.7 W (Isla Margarita/Venezuela)) where we put down anchor about six hundred meters off the pier. Around us were no sailboats, but quite a few local looking fishing boats anchored in front of us.
We were secure at anchor there about 5pm and enjoyed a quiet evening aboard before going early to bed, because we had a long day of sailing ahead – we intended to leave just before first light in the morning.
After unsuccessfully trying to fall a sleep, I got out of bed around midnight and opened the boat (which normally is locked and secured very well) in order to change the configuration of the anchoring so that the boat would turn into the waves that were keeping me awake.
I’d only just reached the bow when three men appeared out of the darkness rowing a very small boat silently up to Lady Ann and before I knew what was happening I had three guns pointing at me and two of the guys whipped them self’s aboard in seconds.
I knew that my wife was fast asleep inside and did not want to live with the consequence of them finding her there defenseless. Hence I called out for her to wake up and told her about the situation. Since I was speaking in Icelandic the guys didn’t understand what orders I was giving and who was taking the orders inside. This got them very agitated and they pushed me hard towards the cockpit with the guns pinned to my head.

Aslaug’s version:

´´We’ve been boarded by three men, which are all pointing a gun to my head´! We were the only boat anchored just out of the small village Robledal and as I awoke from that bad dream I felt for my husband in the dark, but to my dismay that was to no avail.

He was not in our bed. This got me out of bed in such a haste that I was in the galley stark naked (it’s way to hot here to sleep in anything), as I looked out I saw that there were indeed men (with their faces covered) in the cockpit pointing guns at my husbands head.
I ran to the bedroom and gathered a bed sheet to cover me with and then ran to the VHF where I managed to make two or three distress calls before one of the guys had a gun pointed at my head and told me firmly (in Spanish) to go out to my husband.
I did still not quite comprehend the danger and instead of obeying the order I walked straight to the head (toilet) where I looked the door and in my innocence thought I would get some time there in peace to adjust.
The door on the head did not stop the beast from coming in there after me and now he was getting too frustrated for me to dare disobey again.

I humbly got out to the cockpit to where he steered me by pushing the gun to my head.

There my husband and I were tied together back to back and one of the thugs waited there with us, pointing a gun at us for over two hours while the other two completely trashed our boat and cleaned it of practically all electronic equipment.
They had boarded us around midnight and by two thirty one of them came out, threw a bed sheet over our heads and started bringing out the loot:

My mouth went absolutely dry when they put the blanket over our heads, for I was sure that now we’d either be shot or at least knocked unconscious so we’d not make a noise while they were getting away with their catch – can you imagine being tied by a gunman and then have your vision covered?
Thankfully they were not as violent as I dreaded and when they were satisfied that we owned absolutely nothing of value anymore they put everything in the little boat and left.
Getting our self’s untied after the most horrifying three hours in our lives we went into the boat where we faced the devastation people like that leave behind.
We didn’t know the village Robledal at all and for all we knew we might be asking the villains direction to the police station if we tried to get ashore by rowing our dinghy which they thankfully left behind (they took our dinghy motor and petrol tank of course), thus we decided to head straight to Porlamar on Lady Ann where we reckoned we’d get help from good people who speak better Spanish than we do and report this attack to the Coast Guard there.
We are happy to confirm that we found a lot of caring boaters that were willing to do all in their power to help us as soon as we came to Porlamar – we will name those people later, if they give us permission and thank them properly for the amazingly good deeds they did for us.
The Coast Guard in Porlamar wrote down a report (12 hours after the attackers left our boat) and asked us to come back on Sunday morning to sign the report.
As it turned out the authorities here seemed very interested in solving this crime and we spent all Sunday (with many friends) driving around the island and involving staff at both Coast Guard Stations and the National Guard, two of whom actually rode with us to Robledal where we drove around in case we might see any men that might be the criminals or associates - maybe someone wearing some of the clothing that was stolen from us.
An official that is apparently in a high position over this region stated that he was set on finding who were behind this rude attack and made an appointment with us to come to yet another Coast Guard station on Monday morning for further information and authority involvement.
As we were leaving the boat on Monday morning a boater came by to give us his condolences and as he did that he told us that he had actually stayed over night in this same anchorage only the night before we were there and had no problems.

Apparently his friends had previously spent two nights there and even visited the small village of Robledal where they spent a nice time with some locals.
This is written on Tuesday morning (Nov. 14th) and we are keeping our fingers crossed that we may actually see some if not all of our belongings again and in fair condition – but honestly we will be very surprised and happy if that will happen.
A few points about the guys:

One left his sweater behind when he put on my New York Marathon windbreaker, the sweater was not taken into evident by the authorities and as soon as we get the chance (have a camera again) we’ll put a picture of that on our website.

The guys hardly spoke any English at all, but still enough to repeatedly pinning the gun on us and ask (in broken English) if we really didn’t have any more money (dollar or euro) than they’d found.
They kept telling us that we’d better not contact the police, and Kari bravely stated that if they only took our money we’d not talk to the police.

The guns they had were two revolvers and one automatic.

November 19th. Today we have gone through many emotions through the week since we were boarded. Kári got angry immediately the day after, but all I felt for four days was sadness.

The boater community here has been extremely supportive and some people have gone out of their way to help us in any way they could.

To mention few, there is Robert (The WiFi guy) on S/V Freya who answered our call immediately when we arrived here in Porlamar and upon hearing about our distress he repeatedly went out of his way to help us. Wayne on S/V Dances with Dragons, the couple on S/V Morgi, Ulf and Christina on S/V Roxy offered to lend us a motor for our dinghy as soon as they heard about our trouble and I honestly do not know what we would have done without our friends Bob and Jeannie on Island Dreamin’ the waterline on their boat has risen considerably during last week because they have brought practically everything they can do without over to our boat, as well as fed us, talked to us driven around with us and allowed us to use everything aboard their boat when ever we needed.

Bob and Jeannie introduced us to Ludmila who as soon as last Sunday started working on our behalf as both taxi driver and translator. Ludmila is a native here and knows some people in authority and also how things work here.

But even though we’ve got Ludmila on our side there does not seem to be much happening and since Robledal is such a small village we would have thought that if the crime was to be solved it would be soon or not.

We therefore doubt seriously now that we will get anything of value back.

Some people suggested that we offered a price for anything returned, but to me that sounded just too much like a kidnap and I will rather work for a year to replace my belongings than make the locals of small villages take values from people and then sell them back to them. He, he, now as you see – I’m at the anger stage!

We heard on the grapevine two or three days ago that a couple went through similar experience as we did at the same place only about ten days before we did. If this is true and they failed to report the crime I honestly feel that they are in part reliable for our misery. To allow the villains to scare them from reporting such crime they are giving the villains permit to “keep up the good work”.

I cannot stress the importance of reporting crimes and where they were committed. We have wonderful sites that boaters all over the world use to find out where they are likely to be safe – sites like http://www.noonsite.com/, - http://www.bluewater.de/ - and many more.

We have seen our website counter that is used by considerably more boaters than just Kari and I.

When the armed men took our satellite phone they accidentally phoned Kari’s mother. She is almost eighty years old and got a phone call from our number at 5am. This of course distressed her and she repeatedly tried unsuccessfully to reach us.

I reckon some if not all of those guys do have mothers and I sincerely hope that they will learn one day how we felt when they ruthlessly came and took things that took us years to work for and as if that was not enough the also terrorized our family – when Kari’s mother didn’t reach us, she called other family members and asked them to try to reach us.

To leave you with a smile - maybe: We were joking yesterday that now we’ve for once in our live played Santa Claus – we sure came bringing gifts to the small village of Robledal!

Today is November 22nd and we have sadly lost faith in the authorities here.

The straw that broke the Camels back was when we had to travel across Isla Margarita (from Porlamar to Juangriego) with a translator at considerable expense to a coast guard station that we’d already visited and give the same statement as we gave a week ago – some of the information required didn’t make any sense, such as what had been our occupation before we started sailing.

When they gave us a pen and a paper, we refused to repeat the time-consuming handwriting performance and simply went to an Internet cafe where we printed out the statement, upon receiving the papers they put the printed version in the book right beside the handwritten statement that was taken a week ago.

We felt like pawns being played as we were being robbed again.

It would seem fair that the authorities supplied us with a translator and it would also make sense that they took one statement from us, which they then distributed as they saw fit.

Robledal is such a small village and since nothing has been turned up yet, I am not going to play on my emotions expecting to see any of my rightful belongings again – it is a shame that many of the things taken from us were taken apart and half of them are still with us, making the products unusable by everyone.

Yesterday we met people who told us that the way we are treated is apparently a common game the authorities play here.

I.e. they seem to be interested, but do not really try to solve the crime at all – and we have yet to hear about a crime of this nature having been solved here, not to mention people getting their belongings back.
We will be very happy to write about the good job they did and advertise it in every way we can, if our belongings are returned to us but as things stand today we will probably leave this country by the end of this month and start rebuilding our faith in that most people are generally good.

That is a thing we simply have to do, if we are going to keep traveling the world.

Today is Friday November 24th and we have not heard anything from the authorities since we visited them last Monday, when at long last they decided to keep the gray sweater left by the perpetrators aboard our boat.

We had carried it along and tried to offer this garment as evident since we first contacted the authorities, but it took them over a week to accept it.

We also kept telling them that there were bound to be ample fingerprints aboard our boat, but that didn’t seem to interest them either, so after a week we cleaned our boat thoroughly and wiped all surfaces in order to put this bad experience behind us – the authorities claim that all fingerprints are ruined immediately by the sea air.

Kari got a fairly good look at one of the guys who is about 55 kg, dark haired and with a scruffy beard.

One of them had a really bad cold and kept sniffling and couching and the man who kept us in tact while they were taking our belongings apart is about 80 kg a medium height, had a crew cut and was very relaxed in every way – one could easily believe that he was a man used to be in authority. We think the guys are about 20 to 30 years old

All the clothing they took from us is very recognizable. For example my foul weather gear which was bought in London/Europe (Red, Blue and Yellow) and there are quite a few pictures of us on the net wearing those clothes - Picture taken of me taking a walk in Iceland.

There are pictures of me wearing some of the running gear as recently as when we visited Blanquilla.

As things stand now, we expect to leave Venezuela by the end of this month and start finding necessary things to go on.

We gather above information may be of interest to anyone who goes through a similar experience here.

Hopefully you will read more optimistic lines from us next time and details of a better time experienced already. Best wishes to you all for a lovely weekend and thank you all so very much for your great support.

I reckon that experiences like this happens for a reason and I really like to think that we had to go through this (maybe because we have advertised the incident as much as possible) in order to keep a family with children save from this kind of ordeal in their boat.