Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Nightime Shakedown


Picture this. We are about 30 miles offshore from the Guatemalan Cost. It is about 11pm. It is our second night out at sea since leaving Mexico. I am alone on watch. It is dark, but the moon is bright. I have checked the horizon- no lights in sight. So I settle to read a few pages of my book with a head torch on. Scarlett O’Hara is being ridiculous. A few minutes pass and I get up to check things out. No lights. I sit down again about to get comfortable when I notice a dark shadow resembling a small boat a few hundred meters away. I watch it. My mouth is open. It is a boat. It has no lights on. It is following us. My conclusion: Guatemalan pirates!

I wake Dan up who comes up sporting nothing but his undies and we watch the boat- nervously. All of a sudden we hear then see this boat coming straight us at full throttle. We are quietly panicking – starring. As the boat approaches (still no lights on), Dan beams our flashlight directly at them. They respond with turning their polices lights on. Turns out, they weren’t pirates at all and they weren’t after our booty. It was the US Coast Guard (a boat full of bored & cold young Americans) patrolling the waterways for suspicious activities.  After bobbing beside us for about 10 minutes asking us questions like: do you have any weapons on board, they were off to scare other unsuspecting boats.

Still shaken up by the surprise visit, Dan tried unsuccessfully to go back to sleep and I ignored Scarlett O’Hara for the rest of the night looking much more intensely into the dark horizon.

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