The window in the airport restaurant framed the distant New York skyline in a way that accentuated the gap where twin towers once stood.

My buddy and I, passing time during a protracted layover last week, struck up a conversation with the man behind the bar. He wasn't working there on the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, but he remembers vividly the fiery chaos.

I wondered what it must have been like sitting where I was, in Newark Liberty International Airport, waiting for a flight that day and seeing smoke billowing from the World Trade Center in the distance.

We all carry a piece of that vision. It has defined us, put us on alert that security sometimes is illusory, that heightened vigilance is the best armor for our vulnerability.

That airport moment was fresh in my mind Tuesday when I joined about 50 boating enthusiasts for a program on America's Waterway Watch. It functions like a floating neighborhood watch, encouraging people to keep their eyes peeled for activity that looks suspicious or blatantly illegal.

"We're just trying to educate people to report stuff to us - it's that simple," Terry Waterfield said. A petty officer with the U.S. Coast Guard, he coordinates America's Waterway Watch in an area from North Carolina to New Jersey.

Waterfield returned to active duty in the Coast Guard because he believes in the effort, he told the group gathered at Adams and Durvin Marine in eastern Henrico County. His experience in law enforcement, including years as a game warden, has taught him that you don't get a good picture of what's going on when you ride around in a marked vehicle or boat.

"When I go out there, everybody is just as nice as they can be," he said to a ripple of laughter. "The general public can do a better job of seeing things than we can."

With 95,000 miles of shoreline and 290,000 square miles of water in the United States to watch over, the eyes of more than 70 million recreational boaters can play a vital role, he said.

"Terrorists will have second thoughts when they realize such magnitudes of eyes are watching for their waterway activities," said George Bruner, program chairman for the Richmond Sail and Power Squadron, which sponsored the meeting.

The national effort has established a standardized format for numerous local programs and set up central phone numbers for boaters and others to call. Stickers with the numbers are available and will be included on boats manufactured this year.

Waterfield played a video, its soundtrack pumping like an episode of "Miami Vice," spiced with re-enactments of situations where calls paid off. One scenario showed a charter boat captain alerting authorities when a passenger filmed a bridge's underbelly and asked repeatedly about getting close to cruise ships and accessing drawbridges.

Coast Guard officials met the boat after the captain's call, and he was told later the man had ties to Al-Qaida.

Not every sign of quirky behavior signals a terrorist. I asked Jeff Decker, boating education coordinator with the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, if the program might prompt a flood of trivial complaints.

"I think we're beyond that now," he said.

In the years since Sept. 11, people have become more informed about security issues. Besides, boaters generally aren't busybodies.

"The thing with boaters, the majority want to go out and just have a relaxing time on the water. They won't go out and look for problems," Decker said.

Virginia has nearly 250,000 registered boats (that doesn't include canoes and kayaks), he said. The game department is charged with certain homeland security responsibilities, and Decker praised the centralized system.

"This is an awful big country, and I think they did the right thing by trying to standardize it."

Bill and Joyce Elliott of Mechanicsville, who take their 21-footer out regularly on the Potomac River, applauded the presentation and wished more people had attended.

"I think if folks who are on the water would participate, it would spread to people on the land," Bill Elliott said.

With the Memorial Day weekend looming, Waterfield pressed the importance of remembering the attacks of Sept. 11.

"As time goes by, you kind of forget. And that's when it's most likely to happen again, when we forget."