Coast Guard Vessel Safety Check

Photos:
1. This is why I'm glad I have a big boat!
2. "Our" sea lion snoozing peacefully.

The Coast Guard Auxiliary has a program where they will conduct a voluntary safety inspection of your boat to make sure you are in compliance with all of the various CG Safety regulations. If you pass, then they give you a sticker for your boat that is supposed to make things easier if the CG ever boards you for real.

On Wednesday, we watched a real boarding of a 60’ Stephens motoryacht. The CG 47’ patrol boats went zipping out and an hour later then came back in leading the Stephens and then boarded it once it was safely tied up. Lots of excitement for this town! We were obviously wondering what their story might be…..

Since we’re just sitting here in Noyo River, I went over the to CG station and asked for the number of the local guy who does the inspections (Charles Poplinger) and he came right over and did our inspection.

As we started the inspection, it quickly became apparent that we far exceeded the minimum standards and were a well-prepared boat. As Charles was doing the inspection, he just kept muttering "I don't understand this" until I asked him what it was that he didn’t understand. He said "With all of this safety gear and your obvious careful planning, how did you get lost?" He thought it was US that got rescued by the CG and that they were requiring the inspection! We all had a laugh when we figured out that it was a different boat. It turned out that the Stephens had gotten lost (I do not know how you do that in the age of GPS) and the CG had to use radio triangulation to find him and lead him into the harbor.

Anyway, we now have new stickers for the boat (and the dinghy!).

The sea lions continue to be entertaining (see the photos above).

I think today will be a laundry and movie day. The local theater (TWO screens!) is showing a couple of choices that we will explore. We did find out that the harbor really doesn’t want us running our washing machine at the dock since it drains directly overboard. This is the first harbor where that has been an issue. Oh well…there’s a Laundromat about a half mile up the road and we can use the walk (the cooking by the crew continues to be stellar – eggs scrambled with peppers and salmon this morning!).