{"id":755,"date":"2007-03-09T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2007-03-09T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/?p=755"},"modified":"2009-04-15T08:56:25","modified_gmt":"2009-04-15T13:56:25","slug":"s_logs-dashew-dashew349","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/s_logs-dashew-dashew349\/","title":{"rendered":"Boarded by the Mexican Navy"},"content":{"rendered":"
Boarded by the Mexican Navy.<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

We’ve seen a variety of Mexican Navy patrol boats this trip. These are all high-tech looking vessels, capable of at least 30 knots (we’ve tracked them on radar at speed).<\/p>\n

\"boarded<\/div>\n<\/p>\n

They are also well armed. In addition the M16 assault rifles, they are fitted with a .50 caliber machine gun which is radar controlled. In other words, if they want to fire a warning shot across your bow, they program this into their fire control computer<\/em>. Hey folks, this is the 21st century after all.<\/p>\n

We kept expecting to be boarded, but it wasn’t until we were passing in front of the navy base at the south end of Magdelena Bay that we were hailed.<\/p>\n

"Navy vessel passing in front of the navy base, this is the Mexican navy calling."<\/p>\n

Uh…Could that be us? (Way cool that they think we’re a NAVY vessel!) We answered, "This is the motor yacht Wind Horse<\/em> back to the Mexican Navy. Is it us you are calling?"<\/p>\n

After some dialog they requested a boarding.<\/p>\n

\"Mexican<\/div>\n<\/p>\n

We’ve heard lots of horror stories over the years about various navy and Coast Guard boardings that resulted in damage (although ours have always gone well), but these guys handled their vessel with a high degree of professionalism. One of the men knelt on the bow, signaling distance to our topsides. They never touched, getting just close enough for the boarding party of four to jump across.<\/p>\n

\"cruising<\/div>\n<\/p>\n

One of these young men was at the bow, another at the stern, with a third inside accompanying the boarding officer. We were pleased to see that fingers were not on their triggers.<\/p>\n

\"Image\"<\/div>\n<\/p>\n

Shoes were removed before coming below. We were concerned about the M16 scratching the varnish, but they were very careful not to bang into anything.<\/p>\n

\"boarding<\/div>\n<\/p>\n

Our papers were checked, and notes made. This officer spent two years aboard the Mexican navy sail training vessel. He cruised as far north as Seward, Alaska, west to Hawaii, and through the Panama Canal to Spain. He also knows celestial navigation. Bravo for Mexican navy training!<\/p>\n

\"boarding<\/div>\n<\/p>\n

We spent a few minutes going over the paperwork, and then took a tour of the boat.<\/p>\n

He asked where we were headed and when we said "Rehusa Canal" he was surprised. He stressed that there was no usable channel to the sea, which we knew. We assured him we’d use the main entrance to leave Magdelena Bay.<\/p>\n

With that, he called for the patrol boat to pick them up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Boarded by the Mexican Navy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dashew-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}