Red Lake airport, 29. June 03

Fellow nomads,

Coop and I couold find not much sleep. Too troubling are the events of the past few days. So, I let Victoria sleep at the hotel room, went out and called Coop. It was not a surprise to hear he didn't sleep well either. So we discussed the situation and decided to have one more surveillance session. This time, we planned to start directly at Sabourin airbase.

We started our surveillance mission around 3'o clock in the morning (you understand what this ungodly time means to Cpt Hak's biochemistry, don't you?). It was my turn to sit in the hummer and watch the surroundings, when, at 04:23, I heard a growing roar in the distance. At exactly 04:25, I had visual contact with the source of the noise - and yes! it was this yellow speed boat again.

I jumped out of the car, ran to the lodge and woke up Coop, so he could verify what my tired red eyes saw. He nodded and we both were watching where the boat
was going to.


We couldn't see the landing point fo the boat, but the engine did stop for a minute ort so. While Coop and I were still looking at our maps to guess where the boat might go to, the engine noise suddenly re-appeared in the dark night, and with flames growing out of the engine exhaust, the speed boat passed by a second time, heading towards the three little islands north east of Sabourin base. Coops eyes were in a better condition... and it was him who spotted the boat turning towards a point where he said a abandoned mill is located.

The night was too dark, and we were too tired to do anything right now, but we sweared we will go and investigate the target of this mysterious boat. We planned to rent boats next day.

Chimo base, 30. June 2003
14:25,

Coop just shook hands with Jeff ( the guy who rents the fastest boats around Red Lake), and we were proud captains of two red floating flashes. I admit I was a bit scared to enter the boat at first contact, but Coop's words of de-escalation made me do the step. We drove a few rounds around Chimo base, so I could get a feeling for the bpat, while staying in the range of my "maximum-range-to-go-back-by-swimming-AND-survive" margin.

I became famiular with the handling of the "red killer anapsidas". I claaed her anapsidas since she showed the same tendency of being helpless and vulnerable when turned onto the back as a turtle...

Sooo easy to accelerate with two of these big, fat, bully engines in your back - and so damned difficult to loose the speed in time!

Soon, Coop called me over radio and said "ok, now, let's go and have a look". The sign to head for Sabourin base, and from there to the view locations we determined to be the most reasonable places to hide a boat.





While cruising in formation, enjoying the beauty of flying above the waves... feeling a little bit like in a film with Jean Paul Belmondo... we didn't waste time, and stealthly scanned trawlers we passed by (they might "swallow" the speed boat quite easily...). However, there was absolutely no sign of any questionable activity, nor inexplicable traces or tracks. As like the boat has never landed anywhere...

We reached Sabourin base after a refreshing trip of about 20 minutes over beautiful waters. We picked up some useful items like local high detail maps, cameras and laptops, refilled the tanks, discussed the to be followed search pattern for our sweep.



We checked a handful of our possible target locations, but none showed to be of real interest in this matter.However, when we arrived at the boat house next to the abandoned mine, on the island just north of Sabourin base, we saw that the boat house doors were left open a bit, yet no traces of any person. After a short situational analysis, we decided to not investigate the site, but to act like we would only be here for the fun of our boats. So, we played with the throttle lever to mimik the speed freaks like our Sir D... (oops - shhhh! no names!), and left the site.


You know, in times when you can't trust anybody (and this _is_ just such a situation here) you better discuss certain things when far away from all others... so Coop and I went ashore on one of those beautiful islands. We spent two or three hours reconstructing the past three days, doing some logical analysis of the facts we gathered, but we also spent part of the time to lay there, enjoy the sound of the waves rhythmically "playing the boat", the fresh air, the feeling of being part of all that makes sense...

I just can recommend you use your first day off duty to pick a boat in Chimo and do a trip like we did. It's awesome surly worth any second! Thanks, Coop. This boat tour was a excellent idea!



Time was running like crazy, and when the sun was slowly settling, we packed all our stuff (and we ddidn't leave our rubbish on this little paradise, but do we need to mention this?), went back into our boats and drove slowly towards Sabourin base.

A very nice day, if one could ignore what is going wrong at the moment... what does this all tell us? Be alert, but stay relaxed.

Clear sky!
Hak