Meisner's Deep Sea Diary

Friday, February 10, 2006 04:00 AM

-by Ben Meisner

When he cocked the machine gun on the front deck, one got the immediate feeling that the people on the Mexican PT boat did not want me stretching out my arm to help pull our boat closer to their's.

We had left the coast of Mexico about 40 miles north of Puerto Vallarta around 6.00 a.m. hoping to hook onto a sail fish which frequent the area in what is referred to as the blue waters about 35 miles off shore.

We had come to stay at the Decameron Los Cocos, on one of the Prince George to Mexico flights (which by the way is a hell of a deal) and decided a day in a 24 foot open “ Panga “ might just be the trick to hooking one of those sea monsters.

About 25 miles off shore my wife Elaine asked the captain of the boat, what were the two ships anchored away off there in the distance doing? He replied “Mexican Navy” and passed it off. Well that was until all of a sudden out of nowhere ( and I thought my Jet boat went fast ) that PT boat appeared , it was almost like turning on the TV and having Clint Eastwood standing there with a .44 magnum saying “go ahead make my day. “

When they pulled up, I, I could see a whole lot of guns and rocket launchers on that ship and that sort of led me to be very receptive. I thought out of courtesy I would reach out with my hand and give one of the Navy crew an opportunity to grab on and pull the two boats closer together.

Wrong.

Another chap in black jack boots, pulled the chamber back on that machine gun, (I think it was a .50 caliber but I confess I wasn’t looking down the barrel) so I very quickly put my hands down by my side. They argued with our captain for awhile, from what we could make of it it sounded like they wanted to know if he had a license to sport fish, but didn’t come aboard.

In any event, the Panga is so wide open, if we were transporting drugs you could see them from their deck. He then handed the papers back to our captain and just as quick as they came, they booted it off into the horizon.

Our Captain "Benito" sails away as the "mothership" pulls in close to get a good look

I said to my wife, “Did you get a picture “She said "If you think I was about to reach for my pack for the camera ,you are crazier than hell." She added, “I just stood there frozen until they left."

Well off we went fishing again, but about 10 minutes later, look out, here comes about a 200 footer bearing down on us. Good thing however they didn’t stop they just seemed to be taking another pass at us. (No problem getting a picture of the BIG ship)

Seems their "fishing" wasn't any more productive than ours.

Fishing report: no fish. Saw a couple of sails jump, saw a gull riding on the back of a sleeping turtle about 30 miles off shore.

If you get the chance to take the fishing trip sure would like to get a picture of that PT boat, unless of course you are also standing at attention and really don’t feel the urge to move.
Previous Story - Next Story