On the night of March 6th, 1999, I sailed with my family from Grand Bahama Island to Florida in our 30-foot sloop ‘Sea Scout’. At about 3 AM, when I was alone on watch, the US Coast Guard came through on VHF radio channel 16. They had received a distress call. For the next hour I listened to the most eerie communication in my life. The Coast Guard talked to the skipper of a boat with a weak radio that I couldn’t pick up. So I heard only half the conversation, which consisted of questions by a very professional, but increasingly anxious operator: What is the nature of your problem? Are your pumps working? Do you have a pump? What is your position? Do you have GPS? Do you know approximately what your position is? What is the last landmark you have passed? A lighthouse, for instance? Have you passed Great Isaac Light? Can you see any lights? How many people are on board? Do you have a life raft? Do you have life vests? Do you have flares? Can you signal us? Can you receive us? I repeat: can you receive us?

The operator then called all ships, and made a guess about the location of the sinking boat. I called in our position. We were thirty miles downwind and in the middle of the Gulf Stream.

When I explained to the operator that we were a small sailboat with a 15 horsepower engine, he told me to maintain course and stand by. So I sailed on through the night, listening to the radio traffic. In the morning we arrived in West Palm Beach and learned that three survivors had been picked up. They told the Coast Guard that there had been two boats. Only the bigger one had a radio. The smaller one started to leak. It was a 17-footer carrying 16 men and two women. They were taken aboard the other boat, a 20-footer that was already carrying 20 men and five women. It capsized. All but three drowned. All were Haitian.