GUARDIANS OF THE BAY By Melissa Walsh Photos Gary Sissons
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t’s 3a.m and Jeremy West is asleep at home when the pager goes off to alert him that someone needs help in Western Port Bay. The Flotilla Commander, VF4, Jeremy is in charge of the Western Port Coast Guard, and has his hands full as this is the busiest Coast Guard flotilla in Victoria. For Jeremy and the sixty other volunteers at the Hastings flotilla, this is not even their full time job.
It takes a special kind of person to join the volunteer Coast Guard; with the chance they are putting their lives in danger every time they get a call out. “We all do this on a voluntary basis and have people of all ages and backgrounds who are hands-on helping on an average of 160 incidents per year,” said Jeremy, who has been Flotilla Commander for three and a half years. During the day, Jeremy works in IT at Deakin University, and the rest of the time he oversees the running of the Western Port flotilla. He works alongside a group of volunteers from diverse backgrounds who have all joined to help those in the community. “We have someone with a PhD, accountants, tradies, even an eighteen year old, one ex-navy and one current navy and a member who is just shy of eighty who has been in the coast guard for 50 years. We complete 160 activations each year, largely because we are the only
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Coast Guard flotilla in Western Port with an area from Cape Schanck to Western Port, down to Refuge Cove near Wilsons Prom, with a huge stretch running up to ten nautical miles off shore,” said Jeremy. “We cover a large piece of coastline with Bass Strait and a couple of treacherous parts leaving Western Port.” This particular night there is a rescue call that someone has drifted into Bass Strait. The swell is high and the boat hits bad water causing it to free fall two metres and hit the water. The skipper has been doing this for 35 years and assures the Coast Guard rescuers that all will be fine. “Sometimes it can be pretty bad and you don’t know what you’re going to get. A couple of years back the Hastings Channel was so foggy that we couldn’t see anything. When that happens the radar doesn’t work and the compass struggles so you rely on your eyes,” said Jeremy, who has been rescuing vessels and people for almost six years in the Western Port area. “On this occasion, one of the guys went out on deck and couldn’t see the water. When it’s minus three degrees, everything freezes on the boat so a frequently we ring the police and the disabled vessel to find out their situation. If they are okay we hang back to see if it clears. If not, we contact other services to get there before us.” continued next page...