“We had an interesting encounter yesterday. Dom woke me up with an alarming announcement called down between waves and some devilish surf: “we are gybing and we are being followed.” A coastguard launch had latched on to us and had been following in our wake for 20 minutes. Dom had his poker face on and with memories of the Barcelona World Race and customs in Morocco haunting us I soon did too.
The launch was about 25 metres long and was staying close – their engines were at full power and making a hell of a noise. We gybed with an audience, although the efficiency of our manoeuvre was lost on them, they responded by signalling for us to stop the boat, we pretended not to see or hear them. We’ll stop the boat, sure, but only in Puerto Limon!
Dom raised them on the VHF and we were interrogated: names, first names, date of birth, passport numbers, boat registration and its homeport and on and on they went… After haggling for an hour and a half and wondering how this “local authority” saga was going to end and with our experience at the hands of Moroccan customs officers that ransacked our boat at the beginning of our last round the world race, at the forefront of our minds, we were relieved when Jean Maurel and the MRCC intervened. They helped bring the grilling to an end and we were finally able to wave farewell to the noisy launch. We are off the hook this time – thank goodness!!”
