us coast guard

Alongside Week: Midway Through

It’s Thursday night, and we’ve only got two full days left in Buzzards Bay before casting off lines and heading south. We’re doing very well in preparations for departure, with only a couple of major things left on the to-do list. On-load was finished today, with the arrival of 200 gallons of milk. We’re now fully stocked and ready to feed 600 people fully for the next 49 days. Tomorrow is our Coast Guard-monitored fire/emergency and abandon ship drills.

Review Follow-Up: SPOT Pricing

SPOT satellite tracker

I’ve received a number of e-mails in response to my SPOT review asking how much it costs. I decided I’d just make another post to address this, rather than answer all the individual requests. Here’s how the pricing breaks down: Basic Service: $99.99/year This provides check-in (send “I’m OK” messages to people you pre-select along with your location), help requests (non emergency) and 911 requests. You get unlimited usage of these services for this fee.

U.S. Coast Guard Recruit Training – A Developing Web Presence

As I’m sure regular readers know, I went to Coast Guard Basic Training this past summer, having enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard Reserve. Since coming back to MMA, I’ve had quite a few of my shipmates ask me about it, some of whom are interested in doing it themselves. In my Internet travels, I have discovered some resources, some new and some well-established, that may be of interest to those with questions about recruit training.

Merchant Mariner Documentation (MMD) - Part 1

This year my classmates in license majors and I started the Merchant Mariner Documentation process. Merchant Mariner Documentation, or MMD, is the Coast Guard’s merchant marine identification and management system, keeping track of all registered merchant mariners in the United States. It is required to have MMD in order to ship on any commercial vessel in the U.S., so we start the process about 15 months prior to shipping commercially.

Off to Boot Camp!

I’m writing this at about 0130, mere hours before I will be hitting the road to go up to Boston and start my journey through boot camp and into the Coast Guard. I’m excited, and a little nervous, but I’m confident that I will be able to handle it. I may or may not be posting through snail mail, having my mom add my posts for me. I will, however, be posting via snail mail over at AN UNOFFICIAL COAST GUARD BLOG, as I am the newest writer for that blog.

Coast Guard Reserve: I'm Enlisting

As I’ve mentioned on here before, along with some of my readers, I’m planning on going into the Coast Guard. In fact, I’m making that happen very soon. I’ve been speaking with a Coast Guard recruiter, and last Thursday I went and met with him. We discussed options, available Reserve positions in the area, and my goals as a Reservist. I am very serious about doing it, so I scheduled an appointment to take the ASVAB and get a medical examination for this coming Thursday.

Coasties Week: All Quiet Above the Decks

This week the 1st class cadets in license majors are taking their Coast Guard license exams. The exams last all week, and are given in the gym. Since four years of school and training has been leading up to these exams, it’s obviously a stressful time for these seniors. This week is different for all cadets. We have “short mofo” in the morning, which means that instead of forming up across the entire parade field, we form up in a half circle around the patio by the mess deck.

Featured Maritime Photographer: OneEighteen

Ebb Tide

I’ve recently been spending a lot of time surfing and exploring on Flickr. I’ve been uploading my photo archives to Flickr, so while they’ve been sending I’ve been checking out other photos on the site. Through some natural stumbling, and some guidance from other bloggers, I discovered OneEighteen. His real name is Louis Vest, and he’s a ship pilot in Houston, Texas. He has a large array of absolutely amazing maritime photographs, covering ships of all shapes and sizes in various lighting and weather conditions.

Thanks to AN UNOFFICIAL COAST GUARD BLOG

On Friday I was featured as a CG Blog Find on AN UNOFFICIAL COAST GUARD BLOG. I haven’t featured this site myself on my blog, but they’ve been in my blogroll for a while. If you haven’t visited there, definitely check it out. It’s chock-full of great information about current Coast Guard news, information, and editorials. Thank you to Joe Coastie and CGBlog.org for featuring me!

Photo of the Week #4

Coast Guard cutter

This week’s Photo of the Week is a picture that I actually took - gasp - this week! It’s a photograph of an 87’ Coast Guard cutter passing the Mass Maritime campus as it heads east through the Cape Cod Canal. Since I’m planning on going into the Coast Guard, I get pretty excited when I see Coast Guard vessels and aircraft around campus, and this was no exception.