Dances With Waves sails into choppy waters
AS it bobbed around on choppy seas off west Cork during a long, wintry, night, Dances With Waves seemed an appropriate, if bizarre, name for a yacht found carrying the biggest haul of drugs seized in Ireland.
People in Castletownbere know their boats and were keen to have a look at the latest arrival in port.
A few hardy souls waited on the wet pier for several hours, as the McGregor sloop remained tied to the naval vessel, LE Róisín, about a mile inside the eastern entrance to the harbour.
Word came through that Dances With Waves was having engine trouble and would not arrive at the expected time, 8am.
But, experienced sailors eventually got her going and guided her into the new wharf, on Dinish Island, at 9.30am, even if she did look low in the water with 1.7 tonnes of cocaine in the hull.
She was escorted into port by two Navy boarding boats, while gardaí, carrying Uzi sub-machine guns, and a large number of naval personnel, some also armed, patrolled the pier inside the sealed-off area where the yacht berthed alongside a naval vessel.
Dances With Waves was then handed over to the gardaí and forensics experts immediately jumped on board to examine and photograph the haul. The sleek 60-footer had a classy look and flew a flag showing a union jack against a red background, described as a British red ensign maritime flag.
Commander of the Navy, Eugene Ryan, who was in celebratory mood, later remarked the yacht was designed for calmer waters than she encountered in the north Atlantic.
The three men on the yacht offered no resistance to the boarding party — the official line from the Navy was they were “compliant” when confronted.
Cmdr Ryan also told how the 30-hour mission, called Operation Seabight, was conducted from the Naval Base in Cork Harbour and of how constant contact was maintained with the LE Niamh before and during the seizure.
The big photo opportunity for the assembled media in Castletownbere came when the unloading of the 74 canvass bales — said by Garda sources to be 80% pure cocaine — began.
Officers from the various agencies formed a line handing the tightly-packed bales to each other until a stack well over a metre high formed on the pier.
The haul was then put into a white van which left the pier under the Garda escort with sirens blaring.
Many Castletownbere people didn’t seem too surprised at the size of the seizure, with some local trawler skippers saying they had often come across quantities of drugs in the sea.
Clearly angry fishermen also felt the authorities were paying more attention to them than to the activities of drug traffickers, with one claiming there were upwards of 15 fishery officers but only one customs officer in the main Beara peninsula port.
“I have picked up drugs near Bere Island and I know two other boats also picked up drugs last year. There must be a lot of it (drugs trafficking) going on out there,” said one skipper who asked not to be named. “It’s unknown what quantities of drugs are coming into the country.
“There aren’t enough resources to police the coastline.”
There was strong speculation on the pier that Thursday’s drugs consignment was due to be landed in west Cork, with Baltimore being mentioned as a likely drop-off point.
Senior Customs official Brian Smyth said the yacht, detained about 240km off Mizen Head, could have been headed for Ireland.
But, he added, given the quantity of drugs on board, it would not have been just for the Irish market.
* September 2008: Heroin and cannabis worth €4.2m found in a car near Dublin Airport after a surveillance operation by Gardaí and PSNI. A large haul of guns is seized at the same time.
* January 2008: 32kg of heroin worth €6.4m seized from a wholesale operation in Palmerstown, west Dublin.
* September 2007: Cannabis resin worth €1.8m is caught in the nets of fishermen trawling off the Aran Islands.
* August 2007: Cocaine, heroin, ecstasy and cannabis worth €6m found in a warehouse near Cornelscourt, south Dublin.
* August 2007: A sniffer dog finds €2.4m worth of heroin hidden in two cookers imported into Dublin port from Amsterdam.
* July 2007: A record €440m worth of cocaine found floating in Dunlough Bay in West Cork when the speedboat, transferring it to land from a catamaran anchored offshore, capsized.
* January 2007: A planned raid on a house in Tallaght, Dublin uncovers heroin worth €5.2m.
* October 2006: Heroin weighing 54kg and worth €11m is found in a raid on an apartment in Clondalkin, Dublin.
* October 2006: Cocaine worth €1m is seized in a raid on an apartment in Blackpool, Cork.
* July 2006: Gardaí in Co Clare search a van and find up to €9m worth of cocaine, cannabis, ecstasy and amphetamines.
* June 2005: €1.4m worth of cannabis found in a car and hidden in open ground near a house construction site in Ballysheedy, Co Limerick.
* June 2004: Linked searches of a house in Cork, a car in Dublin and a hotel in Naas uncover €3m worth of cocaine and ecstasy.
* June 2004: Cannabis, cocaine and ecstasy worth €1.7m are found in linked searches of two cars in Co Cork — one in Clonakilty and on in Cork city.
* May 2004: €4 worth of cocaine and €5m worth of cannabis found within a fortnight in Clondalkin and Phibsboro, Dublin.
* February 2004: A van stopped in Dublin docks is loaded with €2.5m worth of cannabis resin.
* October 2003: Cannabis worth €1.3m found in a car in Adare, Co Limerick.