Because he is.
Don't ask me. As previously hypothesized, I don't think he is actually running drugs for the CIA because obviously the operation would be much more sophisticated and using, say, the Coast Guard cutter instead of the almost seaworthy sailboat. But, either way, here's the journey of sailing to Panama in his own words lest anyone care.
Judging by the sound of it, the boy seems hell bent on making the news.
:)
Happy Monday!!!
I've really got to get a less computer-centric life.
+AES
____________
("Episode 6", by Super Roger)
Greetings from Nicaragua,
I have an entertaining story for you, if you have the time--
When we left Acapulco, the next stop to check out of Mexico was Huatalco. There, I was intrigued at the Port Capitan's verrrry thoroughly checking our papers and interrogating us as to when and where, and for how long, so after he was a bit more confident in our intentions, I asked him if he had made any big scores recently. He told me that a few weeks back, a small submarine had been caught loaded to the gills with cocaine just outside of Mexico's waters...to be continued...
We got fuel and food and took off for the Gulf of Tehuantepec. Our Commodore (boat owner) had heard horror stories of the erratic winds, and was a bit timid of the crossing. Our Captain wanted to go to sea and tack back in under sail, but the Commodore would hear none of it and insisted that we beat right across as quickly as possible -- so beat we did. 25 knots of wind and crashing water right over the bow with about an 8 knot head current rendered us about 1.5 - 2 knots speed over ground. After the shift change of the third day, Captain Moyer and I were topside reading, when the little Yanmar engine spitted, then sputtered, then coughed and went to sleep. We looked at each other, then tilted our heads the way puppies do, and glanced at the tachometer, which is located at the bottom of the cockpit side combing. Yep, zero RPM. Moyer turned the ignition off to silence the engine alarm.
A few seconds later, the Commodore bounced up through the companionway and said, "What's going on?" Moyer, sitting crouched with his elbows on his knees, looked over his book said, "I think we're almost there." The Commodore looked around, seeing nothing but breaking waves on all corners and said, "Why did you stop the engine?"
Moyer, quoting Captain Ron said, "We had almost enough fuel to get us there, and we're out of fuel." The Commodore didn't find the humor -- but I did!
When Alan (Commodore) finally gained composure and climbed up topside, we had already emptied our spare jerry cans into the diesel tank and Moyer had met him going down to prime the tiny engine. The GPS showed the nearest fuel about 65 n miles away, in Guatemala, or more importantly, 14 hours away under current conditions. We had enough fuel for about 8-10 hours of motoring. Luckily, about 7 hours later the wind turned in our favor (barely) and we were able to limp into Guatemala at about 3 knots, under sail. We heaved to at about 3AM, 1.5 n miles from the entrance to the channel and waited until sunrise to enter the country.
After motoring the rest of the way through the anchorage to the fuel dock, we took on 48.5 gallons of fuel in a 50 gallon tank -- that is, after we waited for about 6 hours for the electric company to restore power to the fuel dock, and make the pump work again.
Meanwhile, we watched a US Coast Guard Cutter dock, and about 3 hours later, Liberty Call. We were on our way to the little cantina for food as they were disembarking. I got into a conversation with one of the senior crewmen aboard and he urged us to call upon his ship if we found ourselves in need of fuel, water or even food. They were leaving in 3 days, also headed for Panama. I asked him about the submarine from a few weeks ago, and first he was like, "What submarine?" I just kept looking at him and grinning. He said, "Who told you about that?"
Then he gave me the skinny. An aircraft spotted a mini-submersible and radioed the Chase, his ship. They intercepted the 40 foot vessel and arrested four Columbia crew, and 18,000 pounds of 100% blow. Then he showed me all of the kills on the side of their ship, which looked like a WWII Ace's fighter plane. 20-something pot leafs, 7 snowflakes (cocaine) 3 icons that are hard to describe for heroine and one Jolly Roger, for a pirate ship.
Anyway, blah, blah, blah, now I'm in Nicaragua getting ready to see a bit of the village near the Marina Puesta del Sol.
I don't have any good pictures yet, but I'll get some to you soon. Meanwhile, you can see these two stupid ones. During the beating of the Tehuantepek, the boat was creaking and banging and a halliard was slapping the mast and the engine was yelling, so I donned earplugs to get a bit of sleep. When I wouldn't respond to my 2AM wake-up call for watch, Moyer thought it would be funny to snap a picture of me "Sleeping through my watch."
After a day of ridicule, the next night I decided to wake him up for his 4 AM watch James Bond style by lowering the furled jib's sheet down through his berth hatch and beat him about the chest with a coiled up note that read simply, ""relieve the watch..."
See ya--
rar
Posts
