Dock Lines Dealing with an intruder

It was 2 a.m. on a Wednesday morning at our dock when I awoke to the sound of someone stumbling around overhead. Half asleep, I quickly realized an intruder was aboard our boat. I woke my husband and we crept up to the salon, where we saw a man weaving around our fantail furniture, seemingly drunk. Arv turned on lights as I called out, asking who he was and what he wanted. He demanded we open up. He jiggled our screen door locks while Arv secured our fantail doors.  I grabbed my cell phone and dialed 911. The dispatcher connected me to the San Diego Harbor Police (SDHP), who asked my location and a description of the intruder, keeping me on the line until police arrived. The intruder climbed over our railing and split. Two officers quickly corralled him and determined he was, as I’d suspected, a hapless drunk in the wrong place, looking for his buddy’s boat. We were fortunate. The Harbor Police responded to our call within a few minutes and we were never in danger. But I started thinking:  what should you do if you’re in an anchorage or away from immediate police help? The good news is such incidents are...