Updated at 12:15 a.m. ET: After a long day of tracking a sailboat believed to be involved in a Bay Area abduction case, the United States Coast Guard recovered two children from South San Francisco down the coast about 20 to 30 miles off the Monterey Peninsula.
The children were safe and suffered no injuries, according to the Coast Guard. They were reunited with their mother around 10 p.m. Friday.
A fishermen tipped police after seeing Christopher Maffei and his children - Devin, 2, and Brooklynn, off Pillar Point by the San Mateo County coast. He made contact overnight, but couldn't tell authorities about it until he got back into radio range just after sunrise Friday morning.
The Coast Guard, the FBI and South San Francisco police were dispatched to retrieve the children, and that is just what happened.
The children's mother, Jennifer Hipon, was anxiously awaiting her childrens' safe return at her South San Francisco home. She said that Maffei, whom she had dated in the past, had recently returned from Thailand, and had wanted to see his children.
She agreed, but added that he had seemed increasingly anxious to be near the kids. His zeal to see the children scared her enough to seek a restraining order against him, she told NBC Bay Area on Friday. She was at the courthouse in Redwood City on Tuesday seeking that order, when she said Maffei went to her home on James Court about 3 p.m.
Her mother was babysitting, and Hipon said he just grabbed the kids, one under each arm.
Police then believe Maffei took off in a rented white Ford Fusion to the Bellena Isle Marina in Alameda, where he later allegedly stole a yacht from Alameda and sailed away. Investigators say that Maffei had been at the habor two weeks before, and had asked about buying a boat.
