2
Baron
“Coast Guard Boat 255022…Coast Guard Boat 255022, this is Coast Guard Station Frankfort on channel two-three over.” The radioman at Coast Guard Station Frankfort, Michigan, piped over channel 16. Boatswain’s Mate Third Class Jeremy Baron sat in the driver’s seat of the twenty-five-foot rescue boat enjoying the early cool summer air of northern Michigan. The sun was high; the breeze was soft; and the young petty officer was fully content with his life on the water. The boat crew of the 022 were on an area of responsibility north run to the Manitou Islands for their area familiarization training. The purpose of the run was to identify any hazards to boating, get time underway, and help new people at the station see in person what they studied on nautical charts to have a better understanding of where they would be operating. It also helped seeing things in person before a search-and-rescue mission so the crew could use landmarks to describe an area to a person in distress if they didn’t know their exact coordinates.
Baron loved the northern Michigan waters. They were cold freshwater lakes that happened to house some world-class shipwrecks. Thanks to his Advanced Open Water diving license, Baron and some other local divers were able to take advantage of the pristine shipwrecks from time to time.
The Great Lake Michigan was vast enough that if you went sufficiently far out, you would not be able to see land in any direction even on a clear, cloudless day. Sometimes he and the rest of the crew would come out in the evening to do some night training, and once they had finished it, the crew would enjoy the full sky of stars unmolested by the light pollution emanated from the cities. During the day, the water shimmered like an endless sea of gleaming diamonds from the sun reflecting off the clear water. Baron cleared his mind and keyed up the handheld mic.
“Station Frankfort, this is the 022, go ahead, over,” He replied with trained muscle memory.
“Zero-two-two, station. Requesting ops and position.”
Had it been thirty minutes already? he thought. Coast guard regulations dictated every thirty minutes, unless during a rescue or inclement weather when it became fifteen minutes, all assets had to check in with what they were doing and where they were. Helicopters, boats, crews doing training—it didn’t matter. Baron had been a certified coxswain for almost two years now, and the rules and regulations were automatic. It had been a tough few months getting certified as, what is basically, a captain of a small boat. Coxswains are responsible for all navigation, operations, and people onboard their boat while underway.
“Station, 022. Ops are normal, conducting north AOR familiarization run, position is as follows: 44.80 degrees North, 86.23 degrees west. Over,” Baron replied coolly, reading off the coordinates from the digital Furuno display. Due to the ever-changing of the waters, coastal areas, and consistent changing out of crew members due to people getting new orders and moving, the coast guard had mandated everyone be up-to-date on what their AOR or area of responsibility looked like in person and not just on a map. The coast guard had mandated each crew go on a certain amount of AOR runs so everyone was familiar with their rescue station’s specific coverage area.
“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
