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April 20, 2005
French Navy Ship Intercepts Platina
We were motor-sailing along the coast of Guadeloupe and we saw a battle ship in the distance, criss-crossing, so we thought that they were doing some sort of exercise. Then they seemed to be racing towards us, and when they were about a kilometer away, we heard, on the VHF radio, “pa-mumble, zis iz franche Naval Ship mumble…” We thought that they COULDN’T POSSIBLY be speaking to us. Then we heard it again, but this time there was impatience in zi voice. We got on the VHF and asked if they were talking to us…and they were. They said that they wanted to board us.
Suddenly a black zodiac dinghy appeared and came speeding towards us with about 8 soldiers (Dave believes that there must have been about 50…) in fatigues, toting machine guns. As they got closer, we could see that they could talk to, and hear each other, using tiny, in-the-ear, electronic communications equipment. Of course, they were all big and mean looking. And, of course, they could not speak English.
They pulled along side Platina, and after rapid French mumbling, through their special communications equipment, one of them said, “zis iz a standerd prosseedure. We want to bored yur bot.” How polite, to ask before you storm.
As soon as we said, “yes”, they scrambled aboard. Two entered the cockpit; four others stayed on our port- and starboard-decks, hugging their machine guns while they maintained a vigilant look-out. One of them was relaying information back to the war ship, “we boarded the boat; there are two men; we have entered the cockpit; one of them has gone below to get their boat papers; he has returned with the boat papers; we are in possession of their boat papers; we are in possession of their passports…”. Meanwhile, the naval ship kept circling us, in smaller and smaller circles. They asked a bunch of questions about which ports we had recently visited which ports and countries we plan to visit, whether we plan to take on passengers etc.
They were very polite. When they spoke to Dave, they assumed that he could understand them. One of them asked him if he was “that famous stockbroker guy from America”, and Dave just stared back. Chis jumped in and said that Dave is a famous financier, but only in Toronto. Once they knew that we are live-aboard and that the boat is new and from France, and that we had just sailed her across the Atlantic, they became almost friendly.
We had a détente.
If only George Bush could be so lucky.
After a bunch of note-taking and more secret-communication mumbling, they scrambled off Platina, boarded their high-speed zodiac, and disappeared. We wanted to take a photo, but thought that military prison in Guadeloupe would be quite uncomfortable. Just another day in the lives of Chis and Dave.
Posted by chis at April 20, 2005 03:20 PM