Puffin is now anchored next to the J.N. "Ding" Darling wildlife preserve at Sanibel Island. We anchored at the preserve last year and it was a real treat to watch the shorebirds arrive to feed on a bar exposed at low tide. There never seem to be many boats anchored here and tonight's no exception with only 3 others. It's a mile-wide bight surrounded only by mangroves on three sides providing good protection from winds out of the southwest and northwest.

The day's winds have quieted and nothing much is moving save for the occasional seabird. All is quiet as we watch the sunset and soon nighttime starts to slip silently over the mangroves. We put the anchor light on thereby discharging our singular obligation for the evening. Amidst this soothing solitude there is little left to do but eat, read, slip into our comfortable berth and stream the latest offering from Netflix.

Earlier in the day we had heard the first "mayday" call that we can ever remember hearing on the VHF. We've often heard the less urgent "pan-pan" but never a mayday. The coast guard quickly responded to the call, but as the situation played out over the next hour or so, we became less and less impressed with the coast guard's response.

This mayday was issued by a woman on a trawler, underway, explaining that her husband was suffering a stroke. This woman, while piloting a boat through a very busy and narrow ICW and tending to her paralyzed husband, was directed to proceed to three different locations at intervals of about 10 minutes. At the same time she was battered by incessant queries from the coast guard. However, she was not directed to an even closer port that had EMT's and a helicopter-landing pad. Nor was she offered any medical advice. Just questions, most not relating to the medical emergency. We thought this woman displayed an amazing calm throughout. And we certainly were awed with the coast guard's mastery of paperwork in the face of a medical emergency.