Covert Opps Explained

High speed chases, guns, undercover uniforms, helicopters, and crazy mercenaries are not quite in my job description, but when asked to help such a beautiful place such as cocos island, we decided to help.

Cocos Island is a protected marine sanctuary some 300 miles west of Costa Rica. The island has a 12 mile no fishing zone surrounding the island. We were asked to help try to catch some of the illegal fishing in the area.

In the past the Costa Rican government has had problems prosecuting illegal fisherman in the around the island. In order to prosecute them, they must actually obtain photos with the boat and fishing lines in the water. This is difficult in the park rangers patrol boats because the fisherman carry modern radar and can see any approaching vessel. This has led to only one fishing operation being fined ever.

With the help of our owner, this was the first time a helicopter had ever been used to chase illegal fisherman. The morning of the flight the park rangers were very excited. We could see numerous vessels on our radar even before the helicopter left. We found over 10 boats fishing within the park boundaries and we were able to get photos of several in the act of fishing.

Once the boats were found by the heli, our tender was transmitted the position and course of the boats. In the tender we had one park ranger, one Costa Rican coast guard, a Finnish journalist, myself, mark, and RAMBO. We can alongside two boats and gathered their information. We had blacked out the name of our boat and had to where plain shirts without the boats logo.

I wasnt quite sure how I felt about catching working class fisherman trying to feed their families. As a fisherman myself, I felt for the men on the boats just trying to earn a dollar. I felt this way until i found out the facts. The fisherman all fish out of Puntarenas, Costa Rica. In recent years, the Japanese have infiltrated the port with money in order to feed their sick appetites for shark fin soup. The Fisherman go where the money is, which has lead to the practice of shark finning. Along with tuna, most of the fisherman around Cocos are shark finning which is a horribly inhuman .

So thanks MarViva and Cocos. I hope we helped

Choper

Stoked to have guns onboard.

We called this guy Rambo. He looked like he just walked out of the jungles of columbia. He was a mercenary from way back, and we guessed that he had probably killed a few people with his bare hands. Bandana, gold chain, harry chest, knife strapped to calf, aviators, short shorts. Thats the recipe for a bad ass.