Cruising Sailors Forum Archive

I can't believe this but it actually happened and I
In Response To: Approaching New Zealand... ()

heard it. Last year we were entering the Turks and Cacos Islands from the Dominican Republic and we were about 20 miles out. We started hearing the T and C boarder patrol RADAR station calling boats on the VHF and asking questions about where they were heading, where they planned to go after they left the T and C and general boat information. This didn't bother us until they started asking things like the owners social Security Number, drivers lic. number, passport number, home address and a ton of other very detailed stuff. I commented to my friend that the next question was going to be their mothers madden name. What shocked us was that people were actually giving them the information over the VHF. When we called and were asked these questions we politely answered that no such information would be forthcoming. They just moved on with other questions and completed the check in with no problem. When we arrived and cleared in with customs we were told that the Radar station was over reaching their authority and shouldn't be asking for that kind of information. As I said, it shocked us or maybe a better word would be "stunned" us to actually hear with our own two ears just how dumb some people can be! Let's see, how many people in a third world country can I give this information to and not have my identity stolen? That would be a fun game to play! Are you in?

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