Its not all glamour

Team goes out and rescues someone........well behind the scenes there has got to be a lot of work just to get the vehicle and station ready to do that, and some of the jobs are not pleasant.

Here Austen aka the Deputy Station Officer, lifts the drain covers up at the front of the station.

And discovers the drain is full of mud!

Nice!

Having cleaned the drains, he then appeared under my desk! (I was doing the end of month paper work and drinking coffee ((I think they call it supervising?))
And just in case you think your eyes are going funny, Ive "smudged" the back of his T shirt....it had something on it that was a little rude for our site!!!!

Caption Competition

Over to the readers tonight, what is the Sector Manager doing? Gareth is clearly thinking about something and Austen seems to have something growing out the back of his helmet which has pushed his head down.

Citizen Day!

Thanks to Austen (DSO) and Tom who took time off work yesterday to attend Sandford Middle School’s Year 5 Citizen Day. A number of other emergency services including the Police, Fire Service, Ambulance and RNLI were in attendance.

The children took part in a number of real life situations, including practise phoning for an ambulance, reporting a crime, and even had a look at some first aid. Austen and Tom were there to promote beach safety and awareness through the MCA’s SeaSmart campaign.

https://mcanet.mcga.gov.uk/public/c4/seasmart/index.htm

Obviously highlights for the kids were the flashing blue lights and sirens on the Coastguard Rescue Vehicle! We like them too!

I’m told a good day was had by all with everyone going home with SeaSmart bag including a pen and key ring!

Life as a Deputy Station Officer (DSO)

Its not great being the DSO, you get left all the rubbish jobs by the Station Officer, look after the station when the Station Officer goes on holiday and when it’s training time you get used as the crash test dummy!
Yesterday the team started their annual 1st training, we are very fortunate to have two Paramedic’s in the team who over see the training ready for the Sector Manager to assess each of us.
Brian thought it was a good idea to catch up on some sleep!

A day out.......to Weymouth

Today Austen and I attended the annual Station Officers meeting at Portland Coastguard. The meeting is a chance for all the Station Officers (SO's) and Deputies (DSO's) from the whole of the Portland District (Hants/Dorset border down to Exmouth) to get together and discuss any issues and share good practices.

What many people don't realise is that "Portland Coastguard"(our co ordination centre, aka the ops room) is in fact on the quay at Weymouth!

The operations room is where our full time Coastguards work, answering 999 calls, monitoring radio channels , launching lifeboats, scrambling helicopters and tasking Coastguard rescue teams. I would say that in the summer this place can get very busy, however with the Napoli and the Ice Prince to name a few the winter months can equally be busy.