Skipper Released by Mexico Has Emotional Homecoming

Sailor Scott McClung stoically endured 39 days in captivity and faced a possible three decades in a Mexican prison, struggling all the while to remain strong, to keep his faith alive.

Now a free man, he finally dissolved in tears Wednesday when he piloted his 145-foot ship, the Rapture, into Newport Harbor--where horns blasted and hundreds of people cheered--stepped onto the dock and spotted his dog, Mel.

“Hey, buddy,” McClung said as the 150-pound Newfoundland greeted him with a wet kiss. And then McClung politely excused himself, walked away from a bank of media microphones and collapsed, sobbing, into the arms of friends.

It was a noisy and joyous homecoming after a nightmare odyssey for McClung, who was arrested Aug. 10 when his ship limped into port at Cozumel and authorities discovered firearms on the Rapture.

McClung had explained that the ship was armed for possible attack by Caribbean pirates, but it took weeks of legal efforts and international diplomacy before charges of violating Mexico’s weapons laws were dropped and the sailor was released.

He rejoined his crew in Costa Rica and shoved off to complete the two-week voyage home. What awaited was poignant, unforgettable.

“It’s heartwarming,” the 36-year-old skipper said as he pulled into the harbor, stunned at the outpouring of 500 people on the pier. “It’s great that so many people have showed up.”

After the emotional reunion with Mel, and a few moments out of the public glare, McClung thanked his well wishers, many of whom prayed and wrote letters of support during the effort to win his release.

“I can’t believe the support,” McClung said. “What did I do to deserve this? There are a lot of other people down there in Mexican prisons who just get lost. I don’t know why God chose me.”

More than 125 students from Mariners Christian School came to the homecoming with banners, eager to learn whether he had gotten their gifts.

“He’s my hero,” said Anna Klingler, 11, who held a homemade sign, “Welcome Home Scott.”

Amy Yoak, 17, a senior at Corona del Mar High School and a member of McClung’s church, Mariners South Coast Church in Irvine, saw McClung make his way through the crowd and yelled his name as she ran up and hugged him.

“Did you like the cookies?” Yoak said about a package she and other church teens had sent McClung while he was in a clinic at Cozumel, where he spent most of his confinement under guard.

Yoak said the package had letters urging him to “fear not,” and also homemade oatmeal cookies with chocolate chips, “Scott’s favorites.” McClung said he enjoyed them and thanked her.

For McClung, whose company, Certified Marine Expeditions, takes school-age children on religious trips, his return to Newport Beach was a triumph of the will. He and his crew left June 25, for what was supposed to be a three-week trip to pick up the new $4.5-million vessel and sail it to Southern California.

Instead, the voyage took him from Florida straight into a Mexican jail when the Rapture developed engine problems and made an unscheduled stop in Cozumel, a resort island off Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.

McClung, his father, Eugene, 71, and first mate Noah Bailey, 31, were arrested by Mexican officials in Cozumel after two AR-15 semiautomatic weapons and three shotguns were found on the boat.

The elder McClung and Bailey were released after nine days in custody, but Scott McClung was held and ordered to stand trial on charges of violating Mexico’s weapons laws.

McClung argued that his insurance company and the U.S. Coast Guard advised that he carry arms as protection against pirates in the Caribbean.

His arrest and detention became an international controversy between the United States and Mexico after McClung’s lawyer accused a Mexican prosecutor of seeking a $10,000 bribe to win McClung’s release. The prosecutor denied the allegation.

Mexican officials launched an internal investigation and McClung’s family and friends began an intensive lobbying effort involving political leaders, diplomats and church members. Scott McClung finally received his freedom when a federal judge in Mexico agreed to dismiss the charges.

Instead of flying home, he rejoined the ship waiting for him in Costa Rica and piloted it home.

For Bailey, the trip was not only long but excruciating. The ship was plagued with breakdowns and equipment failures, including loss of steering while more than 90 miles off the Costa Rican coast.

“It seems that everything that could go wrong, did,” Bailey said. “Then we had all this added emotion of what happened to Scott in Mexico on top of everything else.”

Eugene McClung estimates that legal costs and business losses have cost the company more than $500,000.

Scott McClung’s mother, Mozelle, whose strict discipline aboard the Rapture earned her the nickname “den mother,” said the crew and family did not rejoice until they docked in Dana Point late Tuesday night.

“It didn’t really hit us that we were back until we slowly came into Dana Point Harbor and saw [deckhand] Jeremy [Johnson’s] mother jumping up and down with joy on the dock.”

“Then it hit all of us and we just hugged one another,” she said.

The ship must pass a Coast Guard inspection before it can begin charters, including a three-day voyage to Santa Catalina Island on Oct. 20, for a group of sixth-graders at Mariners Christian School.