A B.C. couple is warning others after they were “aggressively” stopped by the U.S. Coast Guard and Border Patrol while on a sailing trip off southern Vancouver Island.
Lori Petryk and her husband, David Hadley, sailed from the Victoria suburb of Oak Bay to Poets Cove on Pender Island on Aug. 22, but along the way they received unexpected company near Turn Point Lighthouse.
The couple, who had their children with them on the sailboat, had lost their wind as they got closer to Pender Island and ended up in U.S. waters. Suddenly, Petryk says her husband yelled for everyone to put on their lifejackets as a boat was coming towards them at a high rate of speed. He feared they wouldn’t be able to get out of the way in time in their slow-moving sailboat.
Petryk said they couldn’t tell the incoming boat was a Coast Guard vessel until it got close and turned “at the last minute.” The boat then sped off, before returning and stopping the family. Petryk says officers aboard identified themselves and said they needed to conduct a safety check.
Petryk and Hardy were shocked at how “aggressively” the U.S. vessel acted, and said that they did not use radio to announce their approach. Hardy’s family has been sailing in that area for about 50 years, without issue, Petryk noted, and they were only briefly passing through U.S. waters.
At first, due to how they approached, Petryk assumed they were looking for something more serious, like a vessel transporting drugs.
“It was quite unnerving, because it was such an aggressive manoeuvre towards us,” she recalled. “Of course, they do have their right – we were in American waters and there was a border agent on board – but it was just unsettling, that’s for sure.”
The officers, who were armed, ran their licence and registration, and allowed them to take pictures and film the interaction.
Petryk said that Hadley, who previously worked for the Canadian Coast Guard, was taken aback, having never had this kind of experience with U.S. counterparts before. Petryk added that when she asked an officer if “this was something new,” she was told that with the new administration, these kinds of checks will be more common.
When Hadley questioned them on why they approached the way they did, she said they were left with the impression that the U.S. Coast Guard would be making their presence known, and in a more “assertive” fashion.
Although the initial approach was overly aggressive in the eyes of the couple, Petryk said the conversation they had with them during the stop wasn’t as intimidating. Once the officers were on board talking to them, she said things settled down and they became more friendly.
However, after the experience, she recommends anyone who doesn’t want to run into the same thing should take care not to end up in U.S. waters. She posted about the exchange on Facebook to warn others that it's not just when you travel by land into the U.S. that you might encounter something similar.
“It’s better to know that this could happen to you than to be caught off guard, thinking someone is going to sink your boat and it ends up being the Coast Guard,” Petryk said, adding that if you are out on the water close to U.S. territory to make sure you have the correct documentation.
For Petryk, the interaction spoke to a possible change of tone in the way we can expect to interact with our neighbours to the south.
“For the most part, as a boater, you think of them as your friendly reassurance if something goes wrong. You don’t really usually think of them as the aggressor that’s going to come and charge your boat. So when people were like ‘what’s different about that,’ or ‘that’s what they should do’ — 100 per cent, but that’s just not the way things have been done in the past.”
“It was disappointing,” she added. “There was just a different feel to it.”
In an emailed statement, the U.S. Coast Guard confirmed that they stopped the vessel near Stuart Island, in U.S. waters, under Code Title 14, Section 522 boarding. A spokesperson, Petty Officer Daylan Garlic, explained that these stops consist of a Coast Guard boarding officer “verifying vessel requirements, vessel registration and identification of the operator.”
Garlic added that their boarding officers are credentialed federal law enforcement officers, and will conduct boardings or patrols while armed. As for the frequency and “circumstances” of the stops, boardings are not new and depend on “mission requirements and operational needs.”
They also noted that there has been some “confusion” about which organizations were part of the stop, saying that a customs boarding was not done and an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent was not present.
The Canadian Coast Guard would not comment on the interaction.
