When ever we're in an anchorage we feel even a little bit uncomfortable in we lock the companionway from the inside as I don't want to be woken up with someone at the foot of our bed. It occured to me that I could install a pepper spray system in the cockpit at the companionway slide. If someone would try to open the door the spray would go off, I'd sound the horn and shoot off a flare from below the forward hatch. All it would take would be a canister on each side of the slide and a pull wire on the inside to set it off flooding the cockpit full of blinding spray.

I would think that a thief getting hit with pepper spray followed by loud noise noise and lights would really freak them out. I always thought attention getting devices work for anyone trying to be stealthy. The fact that they couldn't see as well would probably put them in the water.

I can't believe that people on this board are so proud to tell you that they never had any problems. My thought is that so far they were lucky. If it's so safe out there then why does Melodye on Second Millennium spend so much time working on the 'Caribbean Safety and Security Net'?

If you think it's safe out there you either don't go out or so far you've just been lucky.

Check out and explore this link. There are hundreds of attacks, thefts and shootings involving cruisers in the Caribbean the past few years. It will never stop. http://www.safetyandsecuritynet.com/