When I was about 25, I was working on a towing vessel shuttling barges from New Orleans to Houston. One day, we were about halfway between lake Charles and Galveston on the ICW. Time was about 5pm. I was standing in the wheelhouse next to the wheelman, just talking and as I was looking up ahead, I began to make out what looked like a small white boat on the southern bank. I asked David, the wheelman, to grab the binocs and look and see what it was. David goes "That's definitely not birds, looks like a boat to me."
Something was not right. Civilian boats on the ICW should have their radios on at all times, as the large tugboats on that stretch of water constitute the vast majority of marine traffic. This vessel did not answer our repeated radios calls. As we got closer, keep in mind we were going a whopping 5mph with a loaded barge, We noticed that the craft was indeed a small cuddy cabin type boat, about 20ft long. Its bow was pushed into the bank and it appeared that its engine was engaged because we could see propwash. This whole time we were laughing about what they could be doing, David suggesting perhaps the "captain" had taken his old lady below for relations.
When we got right up on them, there was no sign of anyone on deck. This was an open cockpit type boat and there was nowhere to hide from our view, as out eye-level in the wheelhouse was about 19 feet off the water. We could see that the cabin door was closed, though.
When a large vessel such has a 2500HP tugboat drives down the ICW, the large propellers move so much water that it "sucks" water away from the bank and the resulting wake is sent smashing back into it.
As we drove by, I asked David if we should drop speed to keep from sucking them off the bank. He quickly pulled the throttles back to clutch speed (dead slow), but by then it was too late.
Right as we passed, the little boat came right off the bank and what before my eyes emerges from the cabin? No 1, not 2, but 3 ass naked broads and one dude who looked like Wolf Blitzer come piling out, frantically trying to drive the boat back into the mud, presumably in order to finish whatever it was that was going on.