The story of a man we met here in Luperon and trying to get back....
Tale of piracy unfolds on Facebook
Key West man related ordeal off Hispanola to friends via online posts
Anchored off the Haitian coast the night of July 31 under a first-quarter moon, Key West resident Tad Wootton
heard strange footfalls and murmurings on the deck of the sailboat within which he slept.
Seconds later there were glistening machetes and shouts in Haitian Creole and English, as the 42-foot Morgan, anchor still being weighed, lurched toward open sea with the hands of a pirate on her wheel.
The self-described world traveler, whose dream trip to the Caribbean morphed into a nightmare, endured
a humiliating capture and a frightful escape in waters off the Dominican Republic.
Friends who followed Wootton’s initial light-hearted ramblings of the trip on Facebook read his first mention
of the ordeal Feb. 1, posted after he was safe in a hospital, with shock and initial disbelief.
“Ten Haitian PIRATES, armed with guns, machetes, knives and one jackass with a corkscrew, boarded our vessel last night near Fort Liberte, Haiti,” he posted from a hospital in the Dominican Republic. “My crew and I were tied up on thetop deck. I assume they were planning to steal the boat to Cape Haitian and/or keep us
hostage, or maybe kill us.”
Safe in Santiago
Now safe in Santiago, D.R., and hoping to return soon to the Turks and Caicos Islands, where he had found work that placed him on the ill-fated sailboat, Wootton shared his story with The Citizen though a series
of interviews via text messages, emails, Facebook messages and telephone conversations, answering detailed questions about what he said took place. Most of the elements of his account could not be independently verified, but a spokeswoman at the U.S. Department of State, whose staff had contacted Wootton’s family, verified that the agency is aware of the report he made to authorities in the Dominican Republic. Inspector Calvin Chase of the Royal Turks and Caicos Islands Police verified that there is an investigation that continues, and that his agency’s marine patrol was assisted by the U.S. Coast Guard. Such an incident is rare for
the region, but not unheard of, according to experts on Caribbean crime. Acts of piracy on small vessels, some said, can occur but are in no way commensurate to the major pirate activity seen near Somalia or
Malaysia. The suggestion that a Haitian immigration official or someone working for him was involved did not come as a surprise to Patrice Morris, a criminal justice professor at East Carolina University who specializes in crime on the island nations. “While it is not common, Haiti is a vulnerable place at this point in time,” he said after being told details of Wootton’s ordeal. “You are going to find tourists and even Haitians themselves vulnerable to people attacking them or wanting to get things from them.”
Fact or fiction
When Key West acquaintances first learned of the incident on Facebook, they had trouble determining if it was fact or fiction. “At first I thought he was kidding,” said Phil Schaeffer, who has socialized casually with
Wootton and was reading his Facebook posts. “He had just embarked on this grand adventure and then there was this shocking thing about pirates in the Caribbean. I know they make movies like that. Then I thought, this sounds real, like something that could easily happen in those waters.” The Caribbean trek was to be a milestone for Wootton, who came to Key West about three years ago after running a private business and working
as an efficiency expert for the state of Arizona, and some overwhelming personal twists of fate. He had broken up with his girlfriend, his mom died and a week later he learned that he was losing his job. An offer of
a property manager position arose in Key West, and Wootton moved here. He held that position briefly, and then worked at Key West High School as a substitute teacher and at the Fixed Gears professional bicycle
repair shop on Simonton Street. He was drawn to the water, and became a member of the Key West Sailing Club.
A life in Key West
Life in Key West was memorialized on Facebook, from the joy of jumping off the Sugarloaf Bridge — the water was cold but the sun was warm — to the delight he took in eating frogs’ legs in wine at Santiago’s Bodega. In January, he sold his Harley-Davidson and prepared for a trip to the Turks and Caicos. He arrived there on Jan. 22. In less than a week, he was working for a businessman named Jeffrey Pinder, he said. Pinder had purchased the blue-and-white sailboat, and Wootton agreed to travel on it with two Dominican crewmen to Puerto Plata to pick up supplies and a friend of Pinder’s, and then return. The trip was to have taken about a week. Wootton hoped time on the vessel would help give him experience and sea time toward his goal of a captain’s license. His crew members were Hilo, 24, and Chino, 37; Wootton doesn’t know their last names.
There were weather and equipment problems, Wootton said, and on the morning of Jan. 29 they limped into the Haitian port of Fort Liberte. Once there, he said, a Haitian immigration official took their passports and would not give them back, issuing temporary replacement documents. On the night of Jan. 31, anchored outside Fort Liberte, Wootton prepared for a morning sail with stops in Puerto Plata and Manzinilla in the Dominican Republic. But Hilo did not return to
the vessel from a Fort Liberte trip ashore.
A bump in the night
About 11:30 p.m., Wootton heard the thump of another boat against the sailing yacht, and presumed it was Hilo, perhaps returning after hitching a ride with fishermen or some other boaters. He heard whispering in Haitian and called out Hilo’s name, but no answer came. “Then I heard footsteps on the top deck, then more footsteps. In a matter of moments it sounded like a dozen people were on the top deck. I woke up Chino (and) started to crawl up the hatch when Chino, who also sensed danger, pulled me down. He then started to crawl up the hatch himself when I saw several sets of arms reach down the hatch and pull him up and out of
the boat and began to beat him. I could hear a wrestling match ensuing. I could see some of the machetes glistening in the moonlight. They had apparently already pulled up the anchor because the boat was started,
and immediately the boat was roaring at full throttle,” Wootton said. “I started to feverishly search for a weapon. I knew we had a flare gun ... somewhere, but had no idea where it was at. I retreated to my cabin and locked the door and continued to search for a weapon. I heard them like a herd of elephants. They were pounding on the cabin above. I knew the immigration officer was involved because his translator was one
of the hijackers. He was screaming my name and demanding I come out while the rest of them were pounding on the top of my cabin with their feet. I could see through the top deck window that they had machetes, knives, a pistol and one jackass actually had a corkscrew. They slammed it full throttle and the boat is in
motion.”
A state of panic
A pirate with a flare gun came down to Wootton’s cabin and broke the door in, as Wootton tried fighting him off with a short pipe he found near his bunk. But Wootton was overwhelmed and forced to the deck. “I was in a state of panic.” he said. “I remember shaking, trembling and having that moment, like, if they kill me I hope it’s with a gun and not getting hacked up into pieces with a machete.” As his wrists were tied, Wootton turned them at an angle, so that they were wider. As they tightened the bonds Wootton let out “this dramatic howl.”
The vessel was heading at a rapid clip away from land, and as he sat bound, Wootton said, the pirates terrorized him with taunts and feigned violence. “They were coming at me with a machete, acting like they are about to cut me up, holding knives against my back, partly entertaining themselves and partly putting the fear of God into me,” he said. “I thought, there is a very real chance I am going to die.”
Taking the plunge
The ordeal had lasted about 45 minutes when Wootton began working on loosening the rope and considering jumping overboard. “I thought, will I risk dying from swimming to land or will I have a better chance if I stay on
this boat and put myself at their mercy?” he said, relating how when his guard was distracted,he grabbed the bar he was tied to, unbound himself and made a run for the side. “As I was mid-air and about to dive into the water I could already hear the hoots, howls of the pirates. When I jumped off the boat I made a concerted effort to dive away from the direction they were moving,” he said. “Upon hitting the water, I dove down and swam as deep as I could, releasing all of the air out of my lungs so I could sink. As I sunk deeper and deeper
in the water, it felt like I was suspended in time. The deeper I plummeted beneath the surface the safer I felt. … I am sinking, I am thinking when I come up they will be shooting at me.” Wootton exploded to the surface and as he gasped for air saw that the Morgan was traveling away from him, estimating the speed at about 10
knots. Wootton dove again, and when he surfaced the boat was nowhere in sight.
A long midnight swim
With one potential disaster seemingly averted, there was another to face. Wootton admits that he is not anything near an Olympic swimmer, but forced himself toward land that could be seen in the distance, estimating the time at around midnight. “I realized that getting to land was not such a victory if I came into Haitian territory,” Wootton said, concerned because of the potential involvement of the Haitian official in his plight. “Pleading for mercy from any Haitian authority would probably be useless.” Reckoning his position as best he cold, Wootton headed toward lights that he hoped were those of Manzinilla in the Dominican Republic, reasoning “I had little choice but to try or drown. My thoughts were firing at 100 mph and I could feel the adrenalin keeping me motivated even though I felt some fatigue. I will never forget the feeling of seeing land in the dark of night in what seemed an approachable distance. I felt encouraged and swam harder till I finally felt the rocky bottom of land not far from Fort Liberte, a dilapidated Frenchbuilt fort recongnizable even at night. My feet began to get cut as I tried to balance myself on the shards of rocks that led to land.” There were thoughts of God, fate and of regret for abandoning the hapless Chino, who was still tied up. Hobbling on cut-up feet over sharp rocks, Wootton realized he could not climb the fort’s walls. The coastline of the fortress island was littered with thorny branches. He ripped his shirt in half and tied the scraps of thin cloth to his bleeding feet. In searing pain Wootton hobbled around the island, then crawled to the bay that separates Haiti from the Dominican Republic, hands
then bloodied as well.
Bait for sharks
As the saltwater burned his wounds, Wootton swam again, toward the soft glow of lights that he hoped signaled Manzanilla. “I am feverishly flapping through the water, in the middle of the night with blood pouring out of me,” he said. “I could not have planned to have been better shark bait than I was at that moment.” Struggling, doubting himself and his future, Wootton found himself singing, softly, the Bob Marley tune “Three Little Birds,” with its theme of how every little thing is going to be all right. He sang it over and over again, later determining that “in a sense, Bob Marley saved my life.” Floating and swimming, Wootton finally made it ashore,
while still in darkness, crawling on through light brush. He heard a dog and saw lights from a village, then heard a rooster crow. “As I crawled up a bank and on to the edge of a shallow cliff, I could see a road. It was paved, good sign that I might be in the Dominican Republic,” he said. “I began to walk upright on land for the first time in hours. My arms were throbbing and the open wounds on my feet stung with each step. I walked in the shadows and avoided the main street. I then saw a street sign. As I approached I could see it was written in Spanish.
A Dominican village
He was overjoyed to realize that he had indeed reached the Domincan Republic. Upon reaching the village,
he walked through deserted streets and then found a man who regarded him strangely. Communicating as best he could, Wootton conveyed his need for the police and the man took him to a station. As they interviewed him through language difficulties, the Dominican authorities supplied Wootton with a blanket. “I was safe. The sun was coming up and the nightmare was almost over for me,” said Wootton, who was brought by
authorities to a Manzanilla hospital where he was treated for his wounds, dehydration and exposure. In the days that followed, Wootton said, he learned that the pirates had been apprehended and that two of them had escaped in 2009 from a Haitian prison where they were being held for murder. Hilo, the missing crewman,
had been taken by the pirates before they reached the sailboat, and was jailed briefly in Haiti. A reunion in the Dominican Republic was joyful, especially since Hilo had been told that the American had jumped into
the ocean and drowned. Chino was rescued, and spent time briefly in a Turks and Caicos jail, but was released. As of Friday, Wootton was awaiting a boat trip back to the Turks and Caicos. He had posted to his Facebook friends that “for the first time in years, the idea of working in the USA in a safe and pleasant office environment in my own cubicle sounds strangely appealing,” he wrote. “Realistically, I think I’ll be sailing again in another couple weeks. Lol.”
jdesantis@keysnews.com
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