The following story are based on a true event that  happened just 12 hours ago at around 6 degrees Longitude West and 111 degrees  Latitude South

Just for a minute let’s think of you as Mr  Park Jong Il. You are the captain of a fishing vessel  (DONGWON PRINCESS) you have been on a fishing campaign for the last 4 months. Life is tough and here you are again and again trawling in the middle of the night and right in the middle of the pacific. You are not expected back home for  another 2months. Your crew is from all over with some Taiwanese, Pilipino and Indians.  But still most of the officers are from the country of the morning calm .

It has been many weeks since you haven’t looked at the radar . There is supposedly no one and nothing that should come your way at this latitude and longitude. As far as listening watch on Channel 16, it has been a while since nothing has come thru the speakers… again you are supposed to be alone here.

What would you write on your log on that night of March 14….

“as we were getting our nets back on the deck for the second time today I saw a tiny green light over the side of the board” … And then 2 and then 3 and finally 4 green lights…

“well maybe I should cut off on Shoju (our national drink)…how can I see some sailing boat navigation lights ..and 4 of them..in such a place”

“and now I can hear some guy speaking on the radio” “What does he say” “Cant he speak Korean like everybody else?”

My crew are getting the same hallucinations (was it something they put in our lunch?).. 4 lights on the side of the boat and some strange voice on the radio…

And suddenly you realize that 4 sailing boats are full speed coming towards you.. You call the other boats in your fleet (Korean fishing vessels hunt in group) … “What s that?. North Korean defectors? Hyundai cars salesmen? ”

Now here we are . On one side, Korean fishing armada…Kim chi ready and on the other Ronja (from Norway), Jeannius (from England), Dreamcatcher (from Switzerland) and the mighty Noeluna (from Singapore) all sailing full speed in the darkest hour of the night.

Mr Park take another glass of Shoju…  World Arc boat skippers take another look in the binoculars..

Here we are globalization… here we are ”village planet”…. Mr Park looks at us, we looked at him… Who will blink first?  None of us should be here. He should back home in Pusan  near his wife and we should be attending real jobs.

And then we are gone.

And then they are gone

It lasted less than 15 minutes. 

Mr Park is back at fishing, we are back at sailing. He wil tell this improbable story over and over with his friends back home, we will relate this encounter also, on blogs and logs.

Sorry to have causing you such a scare Mr Park. For you this is really like a Monday morning. For us this is just “plaisance”.

Hats off to you Mr Park. Don’t over fish please but full respect for what you are doing. You are making a living, we are trying to get some sense to ours in a rather futile way.

But please next time pick up the radio.. I am sure we could discuss a bit.

Matthieu