Mairi Welman

A crackling marine radio call for help, a southerly wind roaring through Stuart Channel between Salt Spring and Vancouver Island at close to 80 km/hr, and waves of nearly three feet ... oh and, did I mention? It’s dark. This is not exactly the time any of us would choose to jump into a boat and head out to sea, but on the evening of March 24, just as they were finishing up their weekly crew meeting, a call from the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre sent our local Marine Search and Rescue team (RCMSAR25) out into the proverbial ‘dark and stormy night’ to look for a distressed sailboat. Wearing their survival dry suits and radio helmets, and equipped with radar, night vision goggles, electronic charts, and powered by the combined 450 horsepower of the engines on their 28’ rigid-hulled inflatable, the team cast off from their dock at Vesuvius and started hunting for a drifting 27’ Catalina sailboat somewhere out in the dark. Radio communications were scratchy at best, an…