FEELING VIOLATED : BOARDING BOATS WITHOUT CAUSE IS HOT ISSUE WITH COAST GUARD.

Byline: Tom Stienstra San Francisco Examiner 

It was a cool, misty morning on the ocean off the San Francisco coast, scarcely a breeze, a slight roll to the briny green, and all was tranquil and quiet.

I was watching a few pelicans glide by the starboard bow of my boat, when suddenly, out of nowhere, a black Zodiac float boat with a big outboard came powering up alongside like a specter in the mist. It carried three armed officers, and in an instant, two had jumped aboard.

The boarding happened so quickly that I was in a state of shock, my breath short, my heart pounding. Why were they here? Was I in trouble? Were they taking over my boat? What had I done wrong?

It turned out to be a safety inspection and license check, conducted routinely by both the U.S. Coast Guard and the Department of Fish and Game along the California coast. But when it happens to you, it feels anything but routine.

Maybe it's the badges, the guns, the bulletproof vests, the terse looks, but even though everything checked out and the officers were courteous, after they departed I was shaking for an hour from the surprise encounter. I've been charged by a grizzly bear and felt less lingering trepidation.

Like so many boaters, if I were in difficulty offshore, there is nothing I'd rather see than a patrol boat. And I have seen how heroic Coast Guard officers can be.

But after that incident, I started thinking that while the law gives them the right to board my boat, they didn't have ``probable cause'' to do so, and the surprise confrontation was unnecessary and could have been conducted a lot more amicably in the harbor. Even though I didn't say it at the time, I felt like telling them that I didn't want them on my boat.

Two weeks ago, a commercial salmon fisherman from Atascadero did just that. Seven miles off Santa Cruz, Jim Blaes on the 37-footer Helja refused to let the Coast Guard board his boat. At midweek during the showdown, I interviewed Blaes out at sea and he explained how he believed the Coast Guard had pinpointed his boat for boarding as a matter of revenge.

``You know I've been a critic of the Coast Guard on the West Coast, that I've exposed a lot of their excesses,'' said Blaes, 51. ``The Monterey Coast Guard is the worst in the whole country. They've got real arrogance.

``I didn't want some kid (from the Coast Guard) coming aboard armed, and I didn't want an accident to happen to me,'' Blaes said. ``I didn't want arms aboard my boat. I told them they could board me, but not if they were armed. That's pretty deplorable. The main thing is the excess has just got to stop.''

Petty officer Philip Rolfe of the U.S. Coast Guard in Monterey said that under 14 U.S. Code, Section 89, the Coast Guard has the right to board any vessel at any time to inspect for compliance with federal laws. A warrant is not needed.

Blaes has since returned to port, and Lt. Cmdr. Scott LaRochelle said the Coast Guard will no longer monitor Blaes and his boat. But Blaes might face charges by the U.S. Department of Justice, LaRochelle said.

Regardless, it presents the Coast Guard with an ethical paradox. On one hand, there are people with illegal desires roaming the earth, some of them are on boats, and the idea of a floating security force is a safety net for a lot of people. But on the other hand, the moment law-abiding people feel violated and intimidated without recourse, you are losing a basic sense of freedom.

Over the years, I've found the Coast Guard extremely effective on the water, such as in its rescue of a shark-bite victim at the Farallon Islands. The Coast Guard was able to get the victim out of the water, then stabilized and transported to a hospital in San Francisco by helicopter in less than 15 minutes. That was just one of hundreds of incidents where its fast, clean work saved a life.

But the Coast Guard is part of the military, and this military attitude can be passed down to the public sector when stops are made on the water.

Most Coast Guard and DFG operations at sea are run from a large mother ship with radar to locate boats in the fog. From the mother ship, the Zodiac inflatable is dropped in, then used to zip around like a race car, making surprise stops and boardings.

After one such boarding on a party boat, which resulted in nearly an hour of inspection with no violations, I remember how many people said they ``somehow felt guilty'' and that the skipper later joked with the crew by extending her arms forward and saying, ``Handcuff me. I'm guilty. Take me away

'' It helped defuse a strange uneasiness.

That's because the whole attraction of boating is freedom. There is nothing but open space in front of you, often for miles . . . no stoplights, no traffic jams . . . and even on a holiday weekend, with roads jammed, heading out in a boat is an instant transport to freedom.

The last thing a law-abiding boater needs is a surprise visit and sudden boarding by the Coast Guard or DFG without probable cause to demonstrate just where that freedom ends.