I woke up from a dream and realized it was actually a memory of gunboats coming at us just outside of Santa Barbara Harbor. This definitely added something wild to a charter fishing trip.
It can be a bit disconcerting to watch an inflatable gunboat barreling down on us with a massive machine gun mounted on the bow. Especially a gun that could probably cut my boat in half, like a giant chainsaw, in about three seconds flat.
I perfectly understood the reason for the show of lethal force, and I agree with the protective tactic, considering there was a modern aircraft carrier anchored just offshore from Santa Barbara.
I was taking some repeat passengers out on a fishing charter early in the morning when there weren’t many vessels out. It was just me and a couple of commercial fishing boats, and it looked like we were all getting the same treatment from the Navy.
As I left the harbor entrance and throttled up, a gunboat moved towards me from a couple hundred yards away. The helmsman carefully kept their craft between me and the carrier.
These folks were protection professionals enforcing a safety zone around their ship. I kept the harbor entrance buoys on my port side and steered a wide birth around that awesome ship.
It was during the afternoon, on my way back to harbor, that I saw how busy these gunboat crews can be. There were numerous pleasure craft out and they all seemed to want to go take a close-up looksee at the big modern warship.
Naturally, the protection vessels couldn’t allow that, and they looked to be constantly busy letting boaters know they weren’t welcome within the safety zone. The message was loud and clear and a little scary.
My course that morning left plenty of space between myself and the carrier. As long as I maintained my course, the gunboats only made their physical presence and intentions known.
Naturally, I decided not to fish my hotspot that was pretty much right underneath the carrier. I chuckled at the thought of radioing the carrier and asking them to please move off of my fishing spot for a couple of hours. I decided against it.
Every time a modern warship visits and anchors just offshore, I have this same mental image, as I’m coming out of the harbor. My image is of this relative youngster sitting amongst millions of dollars of electronics aboard the warship.
He’s already got a targeting solution on me and he’s just smiling as he gently rubs his fingertip around the FIRE button. He’s already checked his instruments and knows more about me than my doctor does, including exactly how many fillings I have in my teeth.
Over dramatizing? Maybe, but there is a part of me that wants those American military personnel to have every imaginable, and even some unimaginable, advantage over our enemies.
