Why doesn't the Coast Guard monitor boats that leave the US?

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Holographer

New member
A "friend" of mine got drunk one day and started up his boat, intending to sail south from West Palm Beach, Florida down to Miami.

But I guess the direction was wrong or something. Because my friend passed out for a while with the boat still going, and when he woke up, he was about two miles north of Grand Bahama island, which is due east rather than south.

Why did this happen? I can understand that the Bahamians would have trouble patrolling all of their territorial waters, but why didn't the Coast Guard do some kind of checkpoint before the boat left American territorial waters? What if a fugitive or someone on bail was stowing away? Shouldn't they check that?
 
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Hubris252

New member
Since they had no reason to believe that the boat was involved in any kind of criminal activity they figured their limited resources could be put to better uses - like investigating situations where they did suspect criminal activity. There are costs to living in a free society, one of those costs is that the government will allow to just wander off on your own.
 
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