Thanks.

Ok, well... it was a dark and stormy night :)

Actually it was pretty good weather but the sea was a bit choppy. I was on a ship that was working with the Canadian coast guard patrolling the waters in the Bahamas where there were a lot of drug exchanges happening in the surrounding waters.

It was pretty common for a plane to drop things into the water which would get collected by waiting boats.

-- warning, I'm gonna just cover a slightly related story which I just remembered --
2 days previously we'd stopped when we found a boat where the people onboard claimed they had run out of fuel and needed help (they didn't ask for help until we pulled up alongside them with a ship covered in weapons).

After a quick investigation our engineer established that they had a cut-off valve in their fuel line to be able to pretend they'd run out of fuel if they were stopped. On this occasion the boarding team also found a GPS device which was not functioning and it was given to me (as the go-to techie) to see if I could get it working. It was an easy fault and I got it working quickly, and it was sent to our navigator who then plotted all of the locations which the device had tracked (it even had waypoints to their intended locations) and I then put it back in the condition it was found and it was returned (stealthily) back to where it came from.
This led to some really good intelligence and tracking of their activities.
--

Ok, back to the original story....

We found another vessel, this time a big bigger with more people and it was determined that a slightly more robust approach was needed.

Although my main role at the time was maintaining Radar systems, I was also in charge of a group of gunners for the GPMG (General Purpose Machine Gun) rigs when needed (Think Arnie in Commando :) ) so a team of us were kitted-out with AS80 Rifles and boarded the ships helicopter.

When we reached the target boat we absailed from the Helo onto the boat so that we could establish control and not be at risk of being overpowered if they were feeling brave/stupid.

We found some drugs stashed aboard and escorted them into custody, so it was a productive effort.
Ironically, when I joined the military I was a bit scared of heights, but after one particular event (I might cover it in another post) at the top of the main mast of an aircraft carrier I got over that :)