Dec 24 2007

Capt Dan gets nabbed

Published by at 10:15 under Sailing

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Defender RHIB
Twas the day before the night before Xmas. Skies were clear, wind was up, temp was down and we were heading to Santa Cruz for an overnighter.

As we passed the Coast Guard dock in Channel Islands Harbor, we heard one long blast, signifying (a number of things, but most likely) that a CG vessel was getting underway. And so it was.

Normally, these boats turn on their blue lights and head to sea at the speed of heat. They respond to many emergencies, but on this day, they headed out at the harbor speed limit of 5 m.p.h.

Just like having a CHP cruiser locked at your 6, it was a bit disconcerting. As we crossed the line where International Rules of the Road come into effect, they switched on their blue flasher and came along side.

“Captain,” they called from a few feet away, “do you mind if we board you?”

What are your choices?

I responded that I was heading to Santa Cruz and as soon as we steadied up on course they were more than welcome to come aboard. We were out of milk, but had a few dozen cookies.

I steadied up and they came along side. A petty officer third and PO-2 jumped aboard, introduced themselves and, sort of apologetically, said they were there to do a safety inspection.

They checked our flares, our fire extinguishers, our documentation, position of our MSD valves, saw that we were all wearing our life jackets, filled out some paperwork, smiled, said thanks and jumped back on their boat.

Altogether, pretty painless.

We felt fairly brilliant as we’d just replaced our flares (even though the ones aboard still had a few months to run) that very day.

Now we have a form that we were told to “wave at the next guys who ask if they can board.”

Though the machine gun was not mounted on board, the boarders themselves were heavily armed. They were polite in the extreme and, though they were wearing GI boots, didn’t leave a mark on our gelcoat.

3 responses so far

3 Responses to “Capt Dan gets nabbed”

  1. # Chrison 24 Dec 2007 at 12:40

    As reported recently in Latitude 38, the Coast Guard is mandated as part of homeland security to board more recreational boats more often to stop the threat of terrorism in our pleasure harbors. Apparently it is happening all the time in San Diego and San Francisco Bays now, so no wonder they’ve come to the hotbed of CI Harbor. You see harbor patrol conducting boardings all the time in the harbor but very little fed work just outside the breakwall…

  2. # Woodsundergroundon 29 Feb 2008 at 06:51

    For the record: where those chocolate chip cookies or snicker doodles?

  3. # Woodsundergroundon 29 Feb 2008 at 06:53

    For the record: were those chocolate chip cookies or snicker doodles?

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