Tillerman asked for favorite posts of the year. My favorite post can be found here.
Back in March, there was the tragic news that a boat carrying Haitian migrants caught fire off the coast of DR. Most of the passengers perished. Here is an excerpt:
A boat carrying Haitian migrants caught fire off the coast of the
Dominican Republic, leaving at least eight passengers dead and 44
missing, a U.S. Coast Guard spokesman said Thursday.The boat was
traveling from the northern Haitian town of Cap-Haitien to the Turks
and Caicos islands when it caught fire about 25 miles north of the
Dominican Republic, U.S. Coast Guard spokesman Petty Officer Barry Bena
said Thursday.Two migrants were pulled alive from the water
Wednesday and brought to a hospital in Montecristi on the Dominican
Republic’s north coast. The two adults, a man and a woman, were being
treated for burns and dehydration, Dr. Maria Belliard said.It
appeared the migrants had been in the water for at least a day when
they were spotted by a U.S. yacht cruising from Panama, said Capt. Jose
Antonio Carrero, commander of the Dominican Navy’s northern operations.“They found just the two people, not the boat, not anything,” Carrero said.
The rescuers in this story were Bruce and Jan Smith. Their rescue account is incredible. It is one of the most gripping blog posts I have read. They pulled this poor couple out of the water. They were the
soul survivors and hard been clinging to the wreckage for 3 days.
The following summed up Bruce and Jan’s dilemma. Their story is very moving.
One night some time ago, in the cockpit of a friend’s boat, the
after-dinner conversation was around the question, “If you came across
a small fishing boat miles offshore and they needed water, would you
give it to them?” Human compassion stood on one side, pitted against
personal safety and the threat of piracy. Someone knew a cruising boat
that had faced the question head-on. Debating it was food for thought
for all of us who venture offshore.