While in no way similar to this situation (middle of nowhere), I did have
something vaguely simlar happen while in Belize. We pulled into a very small
cove anchorage. After sitting at anchor for 1/2 day or so, a local fishing
boat sailed in and dropped the hook about 100 yard from us. There must have
been at least a dozen young black men on the boat. Almost immediately, a few
of them got into their skiff, fired up a rather large outboard and slowly
motored over to us. I guess my and other's first reaction was a bit of
paranoia, although we had not heard of any problems with tourists being
assaulted. Having lived in a couple of major US cities, I don't think our
thoughts were that strange. However, we just waited for them to come over.
Not much we could do either way, so we figured that we'd just be polite and
go with the flow so to speak.

So, they finally get over to us.. sure did take their time about it.. we
wave, but they don't wave back and they're not smiling. Anyway, as they pull
up next to the cat, I ask them how they're doing, and one of the younger
ones says fine, but can they ask us a favor. I say sure. They really want to
know if we have any spare books and/or cans of soda. Turns out one of the
women has one of those romance bodice-ripper novels. She hands it over, and
we give them a couple of six packs of soda, since we're fully into drinking
only beer at this point (and can feel the urge for stronger drink overtaking
us).

About an hour after they get back to their boat, we can hear one of them
reading the book aloud to the others.
The next day they came back to say thank you. We gave them some candy, and
they offered to take us to watch them pull their traps out of the ocean. We
spent several hours with them, motoring around from fishing trap to fishing
trap, had a nice picnic on a tiny island in the middle of nowhere, and then
we got a tour of their "camp," which had a wall make up of hundreds of conch
shells.

--
"j" ganz @@
www.sailnow.com

"Joe" wrote in message
oups.com...
Not a bad ideal Peter

Here are the logs of the sailboat that meet this fishing boat in the
middle of the ocean.

These guys have the best pictures I've seen on any crusing log.

http://sailwhisper.com/logs/news_20040415.html

Oh and better pictures of the ship.

Myself Id would lock and load... hope for the best.... and expect the
worst.

Joe