The Terra' From Unda'!

The welcome and unique, though infrequent, tones for a water rescue sounded at about 11pm.  There was a vessel in distress with 9 people on board just a couple of miles outside of our marina and the water was too shallow for the Coast Guard to approach.  We jumped into our foul weather gear, loaded up Rescue Boat 41 and took off for the marina.  Rescue Boat 40 (smaller and equipped for towing if need be) and the BC were responding as well.


We arrived just before RB40 and prepped our boat for launch.  Details were still coming in from the Coast Guard as to the nature of the problem and the vessels position.  We got the lat and long coordinates and were advised that the vessel was now taking on water and there were no life jackets on board.  RB40 has a shallower draft and could tow the boat in if needed so they launched first.  We launched right after in case we needed to offload the people onto our boat or possibly pull them from the water.

 

We headed out of the channel right towards the CG vessel.  The vessel in distress was a couple hundred yards south of us and were heading towards the rocky shore.  They had been headed out fishing and had lost engine power.  I'm not sure how long they were out there because I don't believe they had a radio either.  They were woefully unequipped to be out on the bay.  The only thing they appeared to have had in abundance was beer.

RB40 made contact with them and determined that they were not taking on water or at least not much and would attempt to tow them in.  RB40 had their navigation electronics go out on them in the middle of the operation so we came along side and had them follow us back to the channel and into the marina.  As we came up to them and my spot lights lit up the rescued vessel it looked like we were about to assist a group of refugees enter our country illegally.  There were nine guys stuffed into a boat built for four or maybe five max.  They were so packed in there I don't see how they even thought they would be able to fish.  And if they caught something, where would they put it?  As I said, they had no business being out on the bay.  It did make for a great night drill on boat ops for us, so no complaints from my end.

And speaking of pretending to be nautical.  The most humorous part of this call actually did come from our end.  Our BC was on scene for the operation in the capacity of Incident Commander (from the shore).  This is good because he can help communicate and coordinate with the Coast Guard or assist in getting extra resources if needed.  However, he is not water rescue personnel and the operation is pretty much left up to the crews of RB40 and RB41 who have trained for this.  Even at that, when talking on the radio we use simple terms and plain text and don't try to get too nautical as it can just be confusing.  Once RB40 had the boat in tow and we were all headed back in, the BCs voice came over the radio, "Rescue Boat 40 - what's your tera frumunda?"  Myself and my crew all just stared at one another in disbelief saying simultaneously, "What did he say?"  Meanwhile the captain aboard RB40 came back with, "I have no idea what that means so I'm just going to use plain text.  We have the vessel in tow, no medical, and we are in the channel at Channel Marker 14."  It took a minute or two of discussion amongst ourselves to figure out that what the BC must have wanted to know was their ETA to Terra Firma.  Now, I don't know if this was meant to be a joke on his part, but it certainly became one.  It would have been confusing regardless since he left off the ETA part of the question, (Hey good buddy, what's your terra firma?  Uhhh...I don't know...Earth?) but we don't even use terra firma in our terminology anyway.  I couldn't stop myself from laughing when my Captain went on the radio and reported that the vessel was secure at the dock and we would be Tera Frumunda in about thirty seconds.  Hopefully the Chief didn't hear me in the background.