[duceswild]

This I think is an interesting and telling story. I sailed to the DR a few years ago and dropped anchor in Manzanillo Bay. I was lying at anchor off the main and only pier for a few days, when one early one morning I saw another sail boat anchored close aboard. I was just coming topside, with my morning coffee, when I spotted her about 50 yards to seaward. There was a dingy in the water being rowed straight towards my craft, when it bumped alongside I helped the man aboard my vessel. He proceeded to break down and weep, and I could see he was in terrible shape, sunburnt and blistered. I got him some water and when he was a little restored he told what had befallen him. He was a day out of Caicos when his engine quit and the wind was dropping, and kept dropping to zero mph. He was becalmed for 5 days and not prepared for the long haul, thinking he would be in the DR in 1 day. He had little water and food, and about the 3rd or 4th day, while lying in the cockpit he heard voices. Being 60 miles off shore he believed he was getting delirious. Looking over the gunnels he sees a small craft close abeam, slowly sinking, and being bailed out by two Haitians. He brought them aboard and just as their boat sank. The wind finally came up and he beat to Manzanillo were he had just now anchored. ‘Where are the two Haitians’ I asked? ‘In my boat he replied’. I said he had better report to the Commandonte muy pronto, especially with two illegal Haitians. Well he went to the office at the pier and then went to his boat for the Haitians, returning with them to the Commander. The sailors had the Haitians turn out their pockets, in them was the man’s razor, aftershave, soap, some small kitchen items, a few US dollars and some other stuff I don’t recall. The commander asked if it was his items, and he lied to protect the men that just robbed him, after saving their a-s in the sea, and said he gave them the stuff. That really surprised me, as he was a South African and ex policeman, go figure.
What would you have done?