Up Close and Personal with the Colombian Coast Guard
Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Wed 13 Feb 2008 20:21
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02:02.366N 81:04.005W
There are probably some people out there
that think sailing in the middle of the ocean like this would
be humdrum at best and outright boring most of the time. As a matter
of fact, I probably felt that way at one point or another in my past.
However, we are finding that there is a new story to tell every single
day. Not only one story, but many. I'm going to tell the Colombian
Coast Guard story today, but there are several other stories stacked up in our
heads that won't be told - like the blue fin tuna that Don caught yesterday
during our trip through the Doldrums. It was too small to keep (it was
only ~4lbs), but it was one of the most beautiful fish I have ever seen. I
never thought I would describe a fish as beautiful, but this one was a sparkly,
silvery, blue with gold flecks - no hint of bringle blue here. I also
won't tell the story of the rest of our trip through the Doldrums, and how we
got a break around dinner time last night with enough wind to sail quietly while
we ate. And the story about the rain that started at 5am this morning and
continued until 11am (the longest rain we've experienced since arriving in the
Caribbean three months ago), and the wind that came with it - which was enough
to send the fruit basket flying through the air again. This time not
all fruits were recovered and there is still an apple at large somewhere in the
cabin. These stories won't be told, but the one about the coast guard
will.
I was on watch last night from 3 to 6am, and at
4am, I noticed a blip (the proper term is 'target', but blip is more
fun) on the radar about six miles ahead of us. Unlike most blips we
see on the radar during our night watches, this one could not be matched up
with a passing freighter based on the fancy AIS software we have that interfaces
with our electronic chart. (As described in the Night of the Flying Pears
blog entry in November, the AIS software we purchased allows us to 'see' the
name of a freighter, its course, heading and destination superimposed on our
electronic chart. This information can usually be easily cross-checked
with the position of a blip on the radar, and in this way we can identify most
radar blips). I also knew that there were no World ARC rally boats
nearby. So, there we were at four o'clock in the morning, 100 miles off
the coast of Colombia, which of course is known for its occasional piracy
issues, and we have a target on the radar only six miles away that I can't
identify. I should also mention that no lights could be seen either.
Normally, at six miles away, we can see at least one light on a vessel, even if
it is just a small sailboat.
To sum up:
4am in the morning
Pitch black
No moon
No stars
Cloudy sky
Unidentified radar target
6 miles away
No lights
100 miles off the coast of Colombia
Colombian waters are known for occasional
piracy
Thinking calmly, I changed our course radically by
about 25 degrees to the west (which was easy since we were still motoring and
not sailing at the time). Over the next 45 minutes, I watched the radar
and the Unidentified Blip (UB) seemed to stay in one place as we passed it
by two miles to the west. Suddenly at 4:45am, just when I was feeling good
that we had left the UB behind, the UB moved to a position on the radar
within a mile behind us. At this point, my calm demeanor started to
dissipate and I decided that it was time to wake up the captain (which I hate to
do since our sleep time is too short as it is). Just as Don was waking up
and I was standing in the cabin making sure he was going to get up, our entire
boat was lit up by a giant high-power lamp emanating from the UB, which had
crept up closer behind us. Any semblance of calm disappeared, and
I shouted repeatedly at Don, 'Get up! Get up! There's a
boat behind us that didn't use any lights and now they are lighting us up!
Get up! We are still in Colombian waters!'.
Don got up. We went back up into the cockpit and
stared into the blinding light as the UB came even closer behind us and the
light swept up and down the full height of our mast and the width of our
boat. A few minutes more of this blinding scrutiny and the VHF radio came
to life with the sound of a female voice speaking Spanish. Aha! It
can't possibly be a pirate come to rob and murder us. They wouldn't have a
woman call us on the VHF radio before attacking us, would they? We didn't answer
the call since we didn't understand the Spanish. After a few minutes more
of blinding scrutiny, the radio came to life again, this time with a man's voice
speaking very good English. 'Sailing vessel, identify yourself, this is
the Colombian Coast Guard!'. Ok! Now we get it. It wasn't
the bad guys tooling around in a fast boat with no lights because they
wanted to rob and murder innocent people on World ARC rally boats (especially
those with an American flag). It was the good guys tooling around in a
fast boat with no lights because they wanted to catch the bad guys.
What followed was a radio conversation where the
Coast Guard asked us to provide them with various pieces of information (home
port, boat document number, number of persons on board, whether we had any
weapons, etc.). Then we were informed that the Coast Guard vessel was
going to send over a smaller launch boat to board us for a
routine inspection. Routine inspection? At 5 in the morning in
the pitch black on a boat with no lights, 100 miles from the Colombian
coast?? What else could we do, but agree?
After a few more minutes, we saw the smaller launch
boat approaching us. Just at this moment, the wind decided to make an
appearance and it started to rain - we hadn't had rain in days and it had to
rain now? The launch got near enough for us to make out at least 5 or 6
people, all dressed in dark clothing with flak jackets and armed with machine
guns - which happened to be pointed at us, by the way. They circled our
boat, keeping the guns pointed in our general direction and using a search light
to check us out. After a little while, they must have decided we posed no
threat and the launch came alongside our boat. Three machine gun armed
young men (they didn't look a day over 20!) and one with no gun hopped on board
our boat. The three armed men didn't speak to us and the unarmed man spoke
to us in the same very good English that he used on the radio. Essentially he
said they were going to do a routine inspection of our boat, fill out some
paperwork and look over our passports and boat documentation. Two of the
armed men proceeded to enter our cabin, but when Don asked if they would leave
their guns in the cockpit, the English speaking guy asked them to do just that
and although they looked none to happy about it, they complied with Don's
request. After about thirty minutes, the two men finished clomping around
the inside of our boat in their big, black military boots and came back
into the cockpit where the English speaking guy was just finishing up his review
of our documents. Aside from the little bit the English speaking guy said
to us, no one else said a word. The whole episode was like a dream (or
maybe more like a nightmare?) and quite a bit different than the daylight
routine and happy boarding we experienced in Martinique by the
friendly and exceedingly curious customs agents there.
After about 45 minutes they seemed to have finished
their business. The English speaking guy asked us both to sign the
inspection form that he had filled out - which we did even though we
couldn't read the Spanish. Then he told us they were going to take a few
pictures of our cabin - which they attempted to do, but their digital camera
would not cooperate. I wanted to make a joke about the
camera not working, but decided it would be in my best interest to keep quiet
for once. We did explain that we were part of a rally and that about 20
more boats would be coming through the same area after us. They seemed to
take in the information, but didn't comment. The English speaking guy
asked if we had seen any other vessels that night. We can only assume they
were looking for someone, but we were no help as we hadn't seen anything except
for freighters.
The jovial group (not) then re-boarded their
launch, which carried them back to their big Coast Guard vessel (we couldn't
tell how big it was since it was dark and there were no lights, but the
impression was that it was fairly large). We turned out motor back on and
went on our merry way in the wind and rain.
During the radio net discussion with the other
World ARC boats today, we learned that BlueFlyer had a similar experience, with
one big exception. After they flashed their big Irish flag at the giant
search light that was trained on them from behind from what they presumed
to be the Colombian Coast Guard boat, the Coast Guard apparently lost
interest and left BlueFlyer alone. BlueFlyer did not receive a radio
call, so they can only assume that the boat was in fact the Colombian Coast
Guard.
That's our story for today. In the end, not
so bad an experience. The Coast Guard personnel that boarded us were not
talkative, but they were courteous (as much as you can be when armed with
machine guns) and caused no damage to our boat. The whole episode was over
by 6am and we have since crossed into Ecuadorian waters, which we are very happy
about.
I'm sure there will be at least one more story to
tell tomorrow, but hopefully it will be a bit tamer than this
one.
Anne
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