Cross border rendezvous proves costly for U.S. man and his Surrey girlfriend because of COVID-19

A Bellingham man was hit with $2,000 in penalties after slipping into a Surrey marina to go on a boating outing with his girlfriend last weekend.

On Sunday, they were nabbed by the RCMP doing a marine patrol as they anchored in the Crescent Beach Channel near Blackie Spit off Surrey in a Seasport cabin cruiser.

The 49-year-old man left his home port and picked up his 50-year-old friend at Elgin Park Marina earlier in the day.

He was arrested and his boat was seized. He was fined $1,000 for violating the Quarantine Act and had to pay another $1,000 to get his boat back.

The woman got a ride back to her vehicle and promised to self-isolate for 14 days.

A search of the boat found no signs of any other criminal activity.

“Boaters found illegally within Canadian waters may face severe penalties, including fines, seizure of their vessels and/or criminal charges,” states an RCMP Federal Serious and Organized Crime news release. “Failure to report in and other Customs Act contraventions may make foreign nationals inadmissible to Canada.”


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Rob Munro

Rob Munro has a long history in journalism after starting an underground newspaper in Whitehorse called the Yukon Howl in 1980. He spent five years at the 100 Mile Free Press, starting in the darkroom, moving on to sports and news reporting before becoming the advertising manager. He came to Kelowna in 1989 as a reporter for the Kelowna Daily Courier, and spent the 1990s mostly covering city hall. For most of the past 20 years he worked full time for the union representing newspaper workers throughout B.C. He’s returned to his true love of being a reporter with a special focus on civic politics

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