“Zero-two-two, station, roger, good copy. Station out.” The line went quiet, and Baron hooked the mic back on to its small shiny metal carriage on the side panel of the helm. Although Baron liked getting underway, these long AOR runs wore him out. He looked around the boat to see what the other three crewmen were up to since he had not checked on them in a few minutes.
Machinery Technician Second Class Rodriguez was on lookout duty sitting in the seat next to him, keeping a weather eye on the horizon. MK2 Rodriguez was from Tampa, Florida, and like Baron, he detested the bitter cold that Michigan reliably delivered winter after winter. This station became brutal during the cold season, ice storms and snowstorms, high winds, and then, of course, were the ice rescue missions. Due to the station’s location so far north, apart from all the other duties the crew had to be proficient in, once it became winter, they trailered their boat from the docks and stuck it in the large boat shed, and got certified as USCG ice rescue operators. The training wasn’t particularly hard, and the warm Mustang dry suits worked well, but Baron—being from the south—just loathed the cold in general. MK2 had reported in February and caught the end of the winter. He got qualified quickly, but he hated every step of it.
“Hey, MK2,” Baron called out.
“Hey, BM3, what’s up?” Rodriguez replied while checking his charting calculations and plotting on a paper map, then comparing it to the digital readout on the onboard Furuno computer.
“Mind taking the helm for a little? Going to talk to the crew out back.” Although the MK2 wasn’t a qualified coxswain, like Baron, he was a qualified boat crewman. He knew how to drive, read the charts, and navigate as well as the rest of the crew. Being specialized in machinery repair didn’t stop him from learning the other crucial skills needed to be a certified crewman.
“I gotchu, Boats,” the MK2 said in reply with a slight Hispanic accent. Baron smiled at the nickname. It was only given to qualified coxswains and was a kind of verbal badge of honor or a respected unofficial title. Baron unclipped the dead-man cable from his orange vest, and since the water was smooth and there was nothing immediately in front of the boat, he left the boat at cruising speed and handed it off to Rodriguez. The MK2 clipped himself in and hopped up into the chair.
“MK2 has the helm,” Rodriguez said to Baron.
“Check.” With that, Baron pulled down his six-foot two head and walked out to the small rear of the boat where BM3 Kens and Seaman Withers were sitting across from each other talking about the college football games coming on later this evening. Baron knew he had been blessed with tall height and generous facial features. Although he was on average a fairly shy person and rarely initiated conversations, he never had a problem with women coming up to him. If it was his thick head of hair, toned body from all the swimming he did throughout high school and college, or his height, Baron didn’t know; he just knew he was blessed in the looks department and tried not to let it get to his head. Although Baron was Seaman Withers’s supervisor, he would catch her staring longingly at him even when she knew better and knew nothing would come of it. It made it uncomfortable sometimes, but he did not want to cause drama at the already small station, so he let it go.
“Hey, y’all,” Baron said simply.
“Hey, Boats,” the two women replied in unison.
“Boats, who do you think is going to win tonight, LSU or Michigan State?” Kens asked, as strands from her loose black bun wisped across her face.
“Well, as much as I hate them yellow jackets, I gotta stick with my conference at least and say LSU, by three. Should be a good game, though,” Baron replied with a smile. Although they were all technically lookouts while underway, talking about, well, literally anything else helped ease the tension, keep calm nerves, and keep away the boredom of a four-hour choppy water round-trip boat ride. The way the waves rocked usually ended with everyone having a minor headache from the washer machine effect of waves the Great Lake had a tendency to produce. Instead of like the ocean, where the waves coming from one direction, a large lake such as this, they seem to come from everywhere.
“Oh c’mon, BM3, you knew he was going to say that! Why did you even ask?” Withers chided the BM3. Her blonde hair was too short to slap her across the face, and it was coated thickly with gel to ensure it didn’t go anywhere.
“You never know, maybe the ’Bama boy would let sense prevail over allegiance,” Kens said smiling.
“Kens, the SEC conference against—” Baron was cut off by a loud crackling over the radio. His head instantly jerked around, and he peered inside with intense concentration. They kept a separate radio turned up much louder than the other one, so no matter what they were doing, everyone on the boat would hear it. This radio was always kept on channel 16, the international hailing and distress channel. If there was static on it, someone was either hailing another boat to get their attention or were experiencing some kind of emergency.”
“Mayday! Mayday! We’re sinking! We need help! Mayday!” The panic-stricken male voice shouted over the crackly radio.
“Eyes out! This call may be us!” Baron barked to the crewman on the back of the boat.
“Aye!” they instantly shouted back, snapping into rescue mode, standing up, checking gear, and making sure things they might need were easily accessible and readily available. Baron bounded inside, and MK2 was already standing with the dead-man clip out of the seat ready to hand it off. He clipped it on his vest and sat down waiting for the response. Either the coast guard sector in Chicago would reply or the closest station. Whoever picked up the mic first, won.
“Vessel hailing mayday, vessel hailing mayday, this is Coast Guard Station Frankfort on channel one-six, what is your position, over?”
Good, get your Ps going, Baron thought. The first questions were always the most crucial in any rescue situation, and the coast guard had developed a system simply called the Five Ps. These were the first things any watch-stander manning a radio would spit out their mouths no matter what: Position, People, Problems, Phone, and Personal Flotation Device. First and foremost, you needed to know where the boat was, without that piece of information, there was very little a rescue crew could accomplish to start. Then you needed to know how many people were in danger. You wanted to make sure when you showed up on the scene and three people had previously been reported in danger, you rescued three and did not miss or forget anyone.
Next, you needed to know the problem if they were sinking, on fire, or some other emergency so you could prepare to handle the situation when on the scene, properly. Then, you wanted to get any other form of communication, ideally a cellphone number the person in distress might have onboard. That way if their radio stopped working for any reason, there would still be another form of communication available. Lastly, you wanted to remind them that the rescue crew was coming to help, and they needed to don their personal flotation devices, in the event they had to get in the water, you didn’t want people in distress to rely on their ability to swim to survive.
“Oh, shit we are um… I don’t know, we are from DC. God, please come and help us!” the man pleaded over the radio. Baron brought the boat to an idle so he could hear more clearly; the crew was all ready to go in their seats just in case it was their call.
“Vessel in distress, this is Station Frankfort, do you have GPS onboard? Do you see any landmarks?” the calm, reassuring voice on the radio replied back.
Good, get a position. We can’t do jack if we don’t know where you are! Baron screamed in thought. He kept his calm and steady demeanor on the outside for the crew, but inside, he was a torrent of emotions. Baron was excited to do what he was trained to