The Plan...of course it's written in the sand at low tide....

The Plan...of course it's written in the sand at low tide....

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Friend or Foe

We had an interesting experience just before we left El Salvador and it gives food for thought. We were planning on leaving on Sunday, November 8th but on Saturday there was a big storm. It was cloudy and rained most of the day and through the night. We were up and down watching the storm and finally decided about 2:00 a.m. that we would not leave and wait for the storm to blow through. Well sometime early, early morning we thought we heard someone knocking on the haul. Alan went topside to check and due to the heavy rains didn't open up and leave the cockpit but looked all around and didn't see anything so he came back to bed.



Around 6:00 or 6:30 a.m. we woke to what we thought were voices but didn't hear anything else so though it was just the radio and went back to sleep. Well here's what really happened. Some time in the early, early morning hours a couple of young men in a small canoe topsidded at the boca, mouth of the river. One of the young men floated all the way down the river almost 2 miles and must have caught onto our anchor chain. He was able to pull himself up on to our boat and he was the one knocking. When Alan went topside to check the young man was at the very bow of the boat sitting way low and with all the rain he did not see him. Later in the morning John on SV Veracity, moored right next to us, saw the young man on our boat. He came over in his dinghy and the young man went with him over to Colette's (Colette is a nurse). He was hypothermic and worried about his friend who could not swim. Colette started warming him up and treating him and John went over to the El Salvadorian Navy station for help.


The navy came and got Colette and the young man and got him to a medical facility and John came over to update us on the situation. We felt horrible we didn't see him to help him but also wondered what would we have thought if we did see someone on the boat in the middle of the night......would the fight mode set in automatically?

Well the story ends on a good note. The young man was okay and his friend was able to get back into the canoe and make it home. The question that comes to mind is how would we have reacted if we had seen him? How do you know if someone boards your boat if they need help or are looking to do you harm? It's an interesting situation and one to give some thought.

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