One weekend a month, I work as a Volunteer Coast Guard – as a rescue boat crew member, assisting those in peril on the sea, and also as a radio officer, coordinating rescue vessels. I’m proud of the work we do and it’s important for me to feel that I’m ‘giving back’ to the community that my wife and I live in.
Whilst we’re all volunteers, and unpaid, we’re all trained to professional and commercial standards, with marine industry recognized qualifications. The training is unceasing, because the people we rescue don’t know that we’re unpaid, nor do they care; they just want to know that they’re in safe hands when an unfortunate situation befalls them.
Sometimes though, people don’t help themselves.
Like the person who decided to head out to sea for a laugh in a swimming pool toy boat… (See below). A mile or so offshore, with sight of land becoming increasingly distant, a passing fishing boat raised the alarm to us as the tide took their inflatable recliner ever further away from land.
A footnote to the waters we patrol – the Moreton Bay region – is that it is teeming with bull sharks (who are some of the grumpiest creatures found in the ocean). It’s certainly not a risk I would take; but it’s funny what excess alcohol encourages others to attempt.
This story has a happy ending, thankfully. Unfortunately, not all of them do; and that’s tough for us to deal with.
At Coast Guard we have a saying that goes ‘You have to take part in your own rescue’. Which basically means be properly prepared for what you’re about to undertake. It’s not a bad motto for life.
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