The Man is not too heavy in Canada but they are there. Believe me.

Rounding Cape George Nova Scotia today Pamela noticed what looked like a Coast Guard Cutter off our stern, maybe 2 nm back back. It had got exciting when we rounded the point and the wind piped up to over 30 knots steady. Honking as Joe from Irish Rover says. I was just starting a turn on a nav buoy and got the sail trimmed in and the auto pilot set before I could look up. By the time I looked, there was a 25 foot RIB blasting across the extremely rough 3-5' choppy seas we had just left. I got the binoculars and thought humm, that's interesting. I got just a brief glimpse before they arrived at our port quarter, all black with side arms.

Just about the time I lowered the glasses, they arrived within 10' of our cockpit, closing the gap from the cutter mothership in I'd say no more than 2 minutes. That's 2 NM 2 minutes. We cover 1 in 10 minutes. They were screaming. Pamela and I both waved and then they dropped back as if they were checking the name on our vessel and confirming our flag of registry. Then after 2-3 minutes they pulled up again and said they were going to board our vessel. They were 10 feet away and he said it in a loud voice only. I said Sure! No problem. Can we do it in the marina that was only 1 nm away? They agreed.

As we prepared to land Pamela went below to get our lines. She said she could see them watching her from just next to our boat through the portals. These guys were so close and watching everything we did for like the next 10 minutes. Pretty Heavy.

We arrived and tied up, they did a 10 minute check of our safety gear, took down our registration numbers, legal address, passports and let us take a picture of them before they left. Pamela even got the guy that was 6'5'" to take a cookie. They were a marine security enforcement team out of of Quebec City and gave us the "see something say something speech" and gave us a card and we gave them one of ours. I hope they get a chance to read this.

Got to tell you these guys were bad-ass and I would not want to mess with any of them. They represented the law as Royal Canadian Mounted Police and were extremely professional and courteous with us and our boat. I imagine a training exercise for them. I've got a number to a dispatch center that I was told to call if we needed anything. Got to love Canada