Day 16 Mustang position 34°15.15 S 172°34.05E
Mark_needler
Professional Skipper
Wed 23 Feb 2011 23:55
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1200 NZT ~ Maritime
Radios ineptitude beyond belief!! Customs attitude
unexpected Well we had an interesting day yesterday
cruising along nicely just about the the edge of NW NZ and the wind crapped out
so there we were all planning on the time and where about of our next beer and
bang we stopped dead right by the Three Kings group of islands. By this time all
the modifications we had made in order to make the essentials work on the boat
i.e. electronics, Nav gear etc. were running out of battery life.
So we put a call into a friend of ours in
order to jack us up some diesel so that we may continue on our way, well I canât
believe the shit fight that caused, initially on paper there did not seem to be
much of a problem, then Customs got involved and things just too complicated,
firstly because we hadnât cleared customs we couldnât receive any diesel from
anyone apart from themselves and the coastguard which again doesnât seem too
much of biggy until we found out that neither of them would come out the
coastguard stating it wasnât an emergency and the custom just said you need to
come to us! So we just soldered on. Then the Maritime radio station got involved
and we were just going through the motions when I stopped a Cruise liner and
mentioned this to the Maritime safety officer and he said he would give us a
shout out and the cruise liner responded only to have the customs intervened and
say no they couldnât deliver diesel! bloody jobs
worth. So we spent the whole of last night
drifting around in a current that was basically taking us round in circles very
slowly till the wind kicked in earlier this morning, our discussions to the
?Maritime radio station consisted of position course and speed information. All
well and good but we have no power which means no water no toilet as they are
all electric or gas to cook of (if we had any food) to cook on. So you
can imagine that my state of mind isnât a happy one towards Customs at this
point!! Then the Maritime radio station call the
asked to speak to me and then preceded to tell my that our yacht is taking part
in a yacht race and we had injured crew, all this time he kept me waiting
using up valuable battery power, I tried three time to tell him he had the wrong
yacht but he wasnât listening and I repeated my told him but he seemed to ignore
and still tried to organize a helicopter to pick up my crew member. I guess some
people canât admit when they are
wrong!! This whole saga could have
been avoided if the Customs guys were to have exercised a little excessive
happiness!!
So I'm really tired now and
Iâm going to get some sleep today!
Regards
from Mark, Raj and
Chris Rajâs foot note the black
current is still floating!
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