Jeff wrote:



Earlier in the summer I was moored in a quiet cove in Salem Bay (MA)
when a CG boat did a "routine safety inspection" of 45 foot powerboat
at 10PM. Lights flashing, bumping into other boats in the anchorage -
it was really rather surreal. The next morning I asked one of the
local boats that was near the action what was going on, and he said
that every new power boat that is "drug running capable" gets boarded
until the local CG gets to know them.

And another friend with a large powerboat that happens to have a
southern city as the hailing port gets boarded, even though he's a
assistant harbormaster and the head of a local SWAT Team and sniper
group.

Coast Guard surveillance isn't all bad. My daughter's brother-in-law
Joe decided that he'd like to go to the Bahamas (from Miami) on
Thursday night after he'd had dinner with his dad. He and his half
brother Eric took off in the boat that he co-owned with my daughter
and SIL - at night, and this boat has two 250 hp engines on it - about
a 30 foot power boat.

The CG stopped them and asked them what they were doing. After they
were allowed to go on their way, the CG kept them on their radar.
This was a GOOD thing, because the boat ran into an uncharted rock
which ripped up through the cabin sole and trashed one of the engines.
Eric was at the wheel and went through the dodger/windscreen, but Joe
was pitched down into the cabin, and broke his wrist and severed his
Achilles tendon. He was able to put out a Mayday, and the CG knew
right where they were and came right away.

They evacuated both men - they tied the boat to the rock - the report
said that they would have left someone there, but the deck was so
slippery from blood etc that it wasn't really safe. Eric had some
stitches in his face, and Joe was taken to the hospital for his broken
wrist.

Now Joe is a personal injury lawyer, and the hospital people said
they'd have him operated on the next day, but Joe didn't recognize any
of the names of the doctors who would be doing the work. So he called
his dad, and checked out of the hospital - hopping on one foot and
went to another hospital. When he checked into the second hospital,
they x-rayed him and found that he had also broken a vertebra in his
neck.

He's OK now.

And the boat was taken by a Bahamian who was prosecuted (not by Joe I
don't think, but by Bahamian authorities) for theft, and the boat was
recovered - of course there wasn't much that could be salvaged of it,
but the insurance company wanted to see it.