Reminds me of Belize in '85 when the 'Guard Ship' Lynx had a bird strike that damaged the windscreen. The pilot stayed with us at APC for a bit of RandR while the ship went off to do its thing. We got notice that a Herc was coming in with new windscreen, so set up a sortie to take it and pilot to meet ship some 20nm off shore. The arrival of Herc was delayed which meant arrival at ship would be in the dark. We flew down to a small airfield near the coast and rigged the boxed windscreen into an underslung load (ship too small to land a Puma). As we flew out to the ship, I asked MB what the procedure was to join the ship. He looked me and said 'You are about to RV with a ship and then winch me down in the dark and you ask me that. How many times have you done this before?' When I told him it was a first, he turned a bit white! Went OK though