Yola on the beach

Early Sunday morning another yola came ashore at Shacks Beach. This one is small, not much bigger than a rowboat. Apparently it made the crossing from the Dominican Republic with people in it, but we don't know how many. Small boats like this are more frequently used for drug drops than people-running. But we know there was at least one refugee: he turned up at one of our friend's homes in the middle of the night, hungry, thirsty, and scared enough to want to go back. He asked our friends to call the police so they could pick him up and send him back. Two Customs and Border Protection officers were happy to oblige.

The boat, a single layer of fiberglass already fractured where the side wall meets the bottom, is still on our beach. We and others have made several unsuccesful attempts to contact the DRNA (Natural Resources Department) about getting it off the beach before high tides and waves wash it back into the pool inside the reef and it breaks up, either on the reef or on the rocks at the edge of the beach. Someone managed to flip it over so it's now upside down with the stern toward the water. At least it is less likely to wash off the beach that way.