How "secure" do you feel?

[Bruce S Kershaw]

A Cuban Coast Guard patrol boat, flying a Cuban flag, pulled up to the dock at the Hyatt Marina Resort in Key West. Four Cuban coast guardsmen got out, armed and in uniform . They walk into town, found a cop and surrender themselves. A Spainish-speaking officer who was called for assistance said that they "are happy to be here" and want to defect.

Back at the dock, aboard the Cuban coast guard patrol boat that was still flying a Cuban flag, were two loaded AK-47 assult rifles along with ammunition.

OK, I know it was 4:00 am, and it is Key West, (nobody looks "normal" there) but... Jeez!... :shock:

Actually, It's kinda funny in a way. They were on patrol to stop their own countrymen from fleeing to the US, and decided to terminate communication with Cuba and head north themselves. :usa

[Frank Hagan]

Welcome to the Cuban Coasties!

But hey, shouldn't we have at least known they were there? Maybe we need to give Tom Ridge a pair of binoculars and a 18' Sea Ray runabout and have him at least patrol SOMETHING! :wink:

[Charlie Jones]

This was stolen from another board, written by someone who has lived in the area for many years--

"The Florida Coast has a long history of being porous.

1) The British were unsuccessful at blockading French supply ships carrying arms to the Colonials, in the Revolutionary War.

2) The British were again unsuccessful blockading against weapons movement in the war of 1812. (Even though they successfully convinced us to leave Canada alone.)

3) The Union was wholly unsuccessful blockading against the Confederacy. A few miles from my home, is a road called Military Trail. It was named that, because it was used to move troops and supplies in the Civil War. It was far enough inland, that Ships off-shore, could not see the dust kicked up by troops and supply movement.

4) The Federal Government was equally unsuccessful blockading against Rum-Runners between the Bahamas and the U.S. during the Prohibition Era. There was a concrete Liberty Ship just off Bimini that I used to dive off of. That same boat was used in the 30's to store cases of hooch, to off-load into the speedboats approaching the Florida Coast at night.

5) Uncle Sam's luck was again dismal, with Feds trying to interdict pot-runners in the 60's.

6) Ditto with the human waves of Haitians in the 70's. I happened to be working on a condo in Key Biscayne in the early 80's, when a whole boatload of them (like 40 people in a 21 foot boat) landed against a seawall and they all came spilling out. The millionaire condo owners were quite incensed.

I was once doing touch and goes practicing short soft field take-offs in a fairly hefty cross-wind. While re-fueling at the FBO, a guy walks right up to me, calm as you please and says: "Good cross-wind landings, out there."

"Thanks!" I replied.

He handed me a card, saying: "You ever want to make 1500 bucks a night, landing on a beach, give me a call."

He handed me a card that said: "Universal Exports" like right out of a James Bond movie and had phone, fax and telex numbers right on it!

After he left the office I asked the guy working the counter: "Is that guy for real?"

"Could be" he said, you're like, maybe the 3rd or 4th guy he's given a card to, and he hasn't given any cards to any of the students, so he knows what he's looking for."

"Yeah" I said, "but what if I was a cop or something? I mean, handing over a card like that and saying something like that in broad daylight is pretty brazen, don'tcha think?"

He shrugged and said: "Some guys threw the cards away, one guy kept the card."

"Swell." I thought. But guess what? It's just that easy, down here.

7) The flood of cocaine in the 80's was just as successful. Me and my buddy were fishing one night, that just happened to be Operation Clean Sweep, a joint task force exercise between the U.S. Navy, the Coast Guard, the ATF, the DEA and (of course) the FBI. There were all these helicopters sweeping the area with searchlights, co-ordinating with all these military vessels and boats and whatnot, which got quite annoying, so we kept moving and even on a relatively slow sailboat, we were able to dodge the searchlights quite easily. You could see the light on the water comin' at you in a straight line, from a ways off. Other boats that did not bother to move around, preferring to stay anchored over the reef, were boarded and investigated. By simply staying out of the searchlights, we were never stopped all night.

All that manpower, equipment, and fuel cost about a bazillion dollars and netted them several marijuana joints and some undersize lobsters for their efforts.

8) Haitians in yet another over-loaded boat landed in Biscayne Bay recently, as did an airplane from Cuba a few months back.

And NOW you're trying to tell us, you think perhaps our coastline just MIGHT be a little porous?

AND you think they should have been intercepted by the Coast Guard?

Reality check time.

The Coast Guard (until they get folded into Homeland Security) is under the control of the Transportation Department (not the Department of Defense, like everybody usually thinks) and are tasked with keeping the waterways marked and reasonably clear. Because they have a whole lot of boats and know how to use them, they are burdened with going out and fetching back the idiots that have gotten into a Jam, Out There. Now that there is a crisis of security in our country, they are also tasked with guarding cruise ships and protecting harbors.

During the Great Rafter Exodus of some years ago, they used up so much of their budget getting PFDs, water and even diapers for Cuban balseros (rafters) they had to curtail some patrols, due to no more money in the budget for fuel.

Hopefully, they'll FINALLY start getting the funding it takes to do a hard, thankless job, that some people seem to automatically think they should be on top of, already.

Even though the most powerful countries on the planet (at one time or another), have never managed to achieve that for the last half a dozen centuries, or so.

Food for thought"

[Frank Hagan]

It is a lot of coastline. It would be hard to put enough ships out there to track it all, but it would be nice if there was some kind of technological answer to the problem. Something like Norad for the sea.

[Bruce S Kershaw]

It is a lot of coastline. It would be hard to put enough ships out there to track it all, but it would be nice if there was some kind of technological answer to the problem. Something like Norad for the sea.

Yeah, but on the other hand, it would be creepy knowing that Big Brother was watching me every time I came back in from a fishing trip.

It

[Guest Andrew Butchart]

Kinda makes you wonder. I live on the "other side" of the longest unprotected border in the world.

I can't cross the border without explaining to an armed government official why I should be there and heaven help me if I try to drive across in business atire, then the questions get a bit closer about where I'm going and why.