Tour of Sector San Diego
Reno Auxiliarist Tom Komadina and his wife, Ellen took a tour of Coast Guard Sector San Diego courtesy of San Diego Auxiliarists Mr. and Mrs. Dennis Usrey. Auxiliarist Komadina is much more familiar with a Coast Guard Small Boat Station since Sierra Division Auxiliarists work with Coast Guard Station Lake Tahoe than a large Sector such as Sector San Diego. After retiring, Mr. and Mrs. Usrey have been active at Sector San Diego working almost as much as during their working careers!
Our first stop was a tour of the US Coast Guard Cutter, Haddock. Our guide, MK3 Jeremy Johnson, told us that the Haddock, constructed in 2002 at the Bollinger Ship Yards in Louisiana, is an 87 foot long coastal patrol cutter. It patrols as far as 200 miles offshore. The Haddock typically has 1 officer and 10 enlisted personnel on board. Its top speed is about 26 knots and is propelled by twin 1400 horsepower turbodiesel MAN engines. The Haddock has twin diesel generators and a water maker. The Haddock usually is on patrol for a week at a time.
MK3 Jeremy Johnson, the son of a three generation Indiana farm family, is one of the crew on the Haddock. Johnson joined the Coast Guard to see parts of the United States that he had not visited. He told the Komadinas that he eventually planned to help with the family farm in Indiana after his tour with the Coast Guard is completed.
Johnson told his tour group that each person on board has their own bunk but those indeed are small. In these tight quarters the crew becomes a tight knit group. At night, two crew are on watch at the helm and in an effort to save fuel, run on a single engine. Besides maintaining the diesel engines, Johnson is also EMT trained.
After the lengthy tour of the Haddock the Komadinas visited the Rescue helicopter port of Coast Guard Sector San Diego. One of the Rescue Swimmers recounted two of the previous weeks flights. She told us that they were called to a sailboat that was 200 miles off shore. A sailor on board developed acute bladder obstruction from an enlarged prostate and had to be transported to a hospital in San Diego. The next day, they were called to another sailboat, again about 200 miles off shore. This rescue was initiated by the Coast Guard Rescue center after an epirb from the sailboat was activated. The helicopter crew arrived on scene to find a life raft with three people on board, but no sail boat. The rescue swimmer indicated that the sail boat was struck by a whale during the night and that the boat sank in 7 minutes. The crew of the sail boat were able to gather their survival gear and deploy their inflatable raft!
The crew of the sail boat was transported to Air Station San Diego by the crew of the rescue helicopter. These helicopters have seen many hours of flying time and the rescue swimmer told us that Air Station San Diego was anticipating delivery of some new helicopters in 2010.
Reno Auxiliarist Tom Komadina and his wife Ellen saw a different view of the Coast Guard after visiting Sector San Diego. The scale of a large sector base is impressive. Whether it be a large Sector base like San Diego, or a small boat station like Coast Guard Station Lake Tahoe, you definitely know the Coast Guard personnel follow their motto, Semper Paratus, always ready.
