Under Surveillance

We were filmed for suspicious behaviour the other day. Each week we see the Australian’s Customs plane fly over undertaking their patrols for illegal activity on along the remote coast line. Every now and then they will do a flight along the beach of Crab Island. On this particular occasion, the Customs helicopter was doing a patrol. Story goes - We had parked one of our ATVs on the northern end of the island in the middle of the beach. At the same time a small suspicious looking yacht was plying it’s way over the shallow waters just off the same northern beach – the first time we had seen a yacht so close. On the mainland a bushfire was burning frantically in the Jardine wetlands and the smoke was drifting over towards Crab Island. Kelsey and I were travelling north on the other ATV when the Customs helicopter came down very low and started doing circle’s around us. We politely waved. They then went out to the yacht and did the same and then to the other ATV we had parked on the beach. We were obviously being filmed. It was probably very bizarre for the Custom’s officials and they probably thought they had stumbled across a drug exchange or something – in their eyes, a suspicious yacht, a smoke screen from the mainland, 2 wild looking people on ATVs on a remote island! ….“Sir, we were only trying to count turtles! Honest!”….