BorderForce - 50° 10' 41" N 04° 41' 18" W
Imagine nonchalantly driving along a familiar highway at 110 km/h with a friend calmly seated in the passenger seat, perhaps with a nice tune playing on the stereo.
Suddenly the back door of your vehicle is wrenched open and two black-clad, helmeted dudes jump in ... while you are travelling at full speed.
W. T. F.
Not your standard hitchhikers. |
The sailing equivalent of this happened to us. Read on.
We left Yealm under beautiful conditions. The wind wasn't in a perfect direction and required us to do some tacking but we were happily cruising along south-west towards Falmouth at six knots (12km/hr). The forecast was for the wind to stay north-west and gradually become more westerly later in the afternoon and bring with it rain. We figured we would motor the last hour or so if the wind was against us.
Glorious sailing - sunshine and even vaguely warm! |
We tacked a couple of times but the wind kept moving, from north-west to west and then south-west directly from where we were heading. Despite the great sailing, we decided we did want to get to Falmouth before Christmas so we started the engine and dropped the sails.
Once the engine was pushing us along, we popped down below for a cuppa as it was starting to rain. Remember, our boat is designed with a watch station down below. We have all the instruments there and 270° visibility so it is perfectly safe to stand watch below. We had just settled in, cuppa in hand when there was an almighty clunk.
Our forward-facing watch station. We have all the instruments and an excellent view. We can stand watch in our slippers! |
Once again, W.T.F!
What have we hit?? Something black was bumping along our side. There was not a boat in sight (or on the AIS), no channel markers and it was waaaaaay too big to be a fishing float. We leapt into the cockpit and came face to face with two helmeted and armed men in black with another four scrambling aboard. Holy sh*t! It took a second to register that they were Border Force. We hadn't seen them coming.
Once our hearts settled, they admitted that they had come in at 40kn (80km/hr) from their frigate standing off 3nm away so it had only taken a couple of minutes - and they are very good at surprising people.
Lovely chaps they were, professional and courteous, but they did their job. Asked lots of questions, searched the boat and checked our paperwork. Their concerns were drugs and people. They were interested in what we were doing and where we were going - and 'fessed up that they were excited that the only boat out and about was foreign flagged - it gave them something to do!
Border Force in their very zippy RIB. It took them just moments to cover the distance from their boat to ours... |
Their job done, they reboarded their RIB and within minutes were back to their ship. The whole exercise lasted about 20 minutes. We can be mislead to believe that because of the colour of our skin and the nationality of our passports, they are not paying much attention. Their presence is not highly visible but they are watching.
Wowza! Glad it was all friendly.
ReplyDelete