It’s not even that complicated. Most intercoastal freighters, as these are, can unload themselves. They can unlock a boom and swing a load over the side while at sea. Fairly heavy stuff could be dropped into a barge or landing craft of most any sort and left to find its own way ashore. There’s no mention anyplace of what kind of traffic might be moving inshore? And the Persians are a waskily bunch-—they might simply be dropping buoyant packages in the water for pickup by PIRATES? Hardly any different than dope smugglers?
If it were just crates of rifles and ammo, I agree with you. But I think these guys were intending to drop off much heavier equipment and we’ll never know for sure, but I don’t think they got that close to shore. The TR’s planes were monitoring their activities. I doubt they could pull any funny business. I don’t think anything was dropped off. Anyways, the original story said that they had ported and at least that was what I was commenting on. There is no way they actually went into port and unloaded in less than a day. I think some overzealous reporter spotted some other commercial freighter and reported it was the Iranians. That’s just a guess on my part of course, but it’s the only thing that makes sense.