Photo: The Customs Dock, Prince Rupert...

My step brother Gary was all gooey eyed. He stood on the Customs Dock confronting the nine foot tall policewoman from the Canadian Mounted Police whilst she talked into her radio trying to sort our problem out. She had long dark flowing hair, all neatly tied up, which easily conjured up unhealthy thoughts... and it was the first time I'd ever noticed Gary break into an uncontrolled sweat. He's an ex-policeman himself you see.

I still refused to move off the Customs Dock at this hour of the night and my ongoing feud with Canadian Customs & Immigration wasn't improving. Having just cleared Customs in Prince Rupert we had then been ordered off the dock by the port security officer, who'd threatened to call the police if we didn't leave. I'd called his bluff. It was pitch dark, there was no safe anchorage and I'd been informed previously there was little chance of finding free space in the Prince Rupert Yacht Club or even the small boat harbour. I wasn't about to meander around an unfamiliar harbour in the middle of the night... we had planned to arrive sometime the next morning but then there suddenly came a good wind, you see. I told him that under International Maritime Law, of which Canada was a signatory, I was within my rights as skipper not to put my vessel or its crew in danger and therefore I was not moving. He was beside himself with indignant anger so I told him to go ahead and call the police.

Now, this image of uniformed beauty, a tall goddess of the night so to speak, appeared out of the darkness... and my step brother immediately intervened. He eagerly took over my role in a suave, professional way that was beholding to see and I was impressed. Gary explained to her, in his own polished manner, that we weren't exactly refusing to leave the dock (which I was), it was just that we had no safe place to take the boat. I straight away realised that leaving the problem to Gary would be our best course of action and so it proved. Ignoring the fact that he was obviously as tired as I was, he easily slipped into his proud sophisticated style and delivered the ultimate copper's chat up line. "I'm one of you, you know...."

I was beside myself, smiling away down below out of sight whilst listening to their conversation through the open hatch. He was magnificent. At some point soon, I thought, she would whisk him away, to somewhere private, in her posh police car and I would never see them again. However, even I thought she was good. I was summoned to her personal cell phone to talk to the port harbourmaster, who she'd called in her genuine effort to resolve the problem. He explained that we were not allowed to stay moored to the Customs Dock and I repeated my refusal to move in the dark until we were given a safe place to tie up. I also explained that it was his responsibility to monitor channel sixteen at all times and that he didn't. In short time he responded by allocating us a berthing space in the Yacht Club, stating that he had the authority to do so. Of course, that was fine by me.

Only twelve months previously, almost a year to the day, Marie and I had been moored on the same dock having sailed three thousand miles from Hawaii, arguing with a big immovable woman from Canadian Immigration who threatened to refuse me entry into Canada because she couldn't find a space in my passport for an entry stamp. We had a serious impasse, where would we go... until Marie interjected and asked where had she found those really nice shoes and could she herself buy some in Prince Rupert? There then followed a fifteen minute conversation between Marie and a now all womanly Customs dragon about shoes, following which my passport was duly stamped.

On this occasion Gary and I let slip Sänna's mooring lines and we motored off into the night. I distinctly noticed him staring despairingly into the darkness in the general direction of the Customs Dock, and he turned to me saying, "There's a proper way to deal with these things, you know," he advised with authority, "You shouldn't be confrontational, it's all about being professional and dealing with it the right way." Of course, Gary was perfectly right.

It had nothing at all to do with a dreamy, fifteen foot tall Canadian Mounted Policewoman with dark flowing hair and deep brown eyes.
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