Rick Briggs robbed in Nica

From Surfline...

http://www.surfline.com/surf-news/trio-of-bandits-ambush-expat-surf-photographer-rick-briggs-at-chacocente-stealing-his-cameras-and-gear-surf-ph_136912/

If you’re a surfer and you’ve never found yourself in a sketchy situation on the road, then you don’t travel enough. And if you’re a surf photographer and you’ve never paid any hefty dues while attempting to capture an interesting angle, then you probably spend more time on Photoshop than in the field.

In other words, **** happens.

And earlier this week, said **** happened to Surfline contributor and Nicaragua’s premier surf photographer, Rick Briggs, while the Florida native was shooting a three-day wave bender in and around the Chacocente zone. Posted up on an empty beachfront, Rick’s attention remained focused on the Lance’s Left lineup when three males — armed with machetes and dressed in camouflage and blaze-orange hunting attire — approached him from behind.

“I was laying prone with my back against the tree-line, trying to get that lean-in foreground for the artistic shot, when three of them came out of nowhere,” explains Rick. “At first I thought it was my buddies playing a joke on me, because they didn’t have a lot of weight and weren’t applying that much pressure. Once I realized what was going on, I dropped my camera, tried to grab one guy’s ankle with that hand while yanking my backpack with the other, and that’s when the third guy jumped on top of me — one machete held to my face and another on my wrist while I was pinned to the ground. Then I just went limp.”

While Rick was relatively unharmed, the bandits made off with most of his camera equipment, effectively stifling his primary source of income, DondeX Photography. “The two guys grabbed my stuff while the third guy kept me down with the machete. Once he ran, I got up and started chasing them. And if not for the thorns and my bare feet, I would’ve caught ‘em. They were running as fast as they could, because they were scared. I mean, if you and two other guys had machetes and a 140 lb. defenseless person came running after you, wouldn’t you just turn around and go, ‘What? I’ve got a machete, come on!’?

Bryan McMandon, who’s owned and operated his NSR surf shop/travel business surfnsr.com for 12 years, has witnessed petty theft and other nonviolent crimes on surfers only a handful of times. He considers this is be an isolated incident, rather than an impending trend of robberies or assaults, in Pacific Nicaragua.

“We were actually surfing this same spot with Rick just a couple of days earlier, and it’s a real bummer to hear this happened,” says Bryan. “While there have been petty thefts, we’ve never had one turn violent in all the 12 years that I’ve been here. Rick has been here a long time and knows this area very well, so it just shows it can happen to anyone. The main thing is just to be smart, know where you are and don’t put yourself in a vulnerable situation. If you do get in trouble, give up the stuff and don’t try to fight guys with machetes.”

Rick did both. He put himself in a vulnerable situation; and he didn’t fight back. After all, he was on his back with a long blade pointed at his face. “I’m sure the thieves were stalking us,” Rick adds. “But they were young, they were scared and they were stupid. They were actually walking the trail through the woods on the way out. We jumped out of the truck and started chasing them, but they ran too fast. Then, the very next day, Chris Connor spotted the three of them from the boat, just walking down the beach.”

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Damn buddy, what's the problem with photogs and surfline?

 

He's been there for a while and this is the first time it's happened. I would say it's only a matter of time, no matter where you are, if you're carrying a few thousand dollars in valuables that something is going to happen. Especially on a remote beach in central america when no one else is around. Hopefully they will catch these thugs.