On call for a month - and loving it...

Under normal circumstances Kellei and I are on-call with the Coast Guard Auxiliary for About 1.3 weeks each month (3 crews rotate on a weekly basis) but this month, for various reasons, we´re basically on-call for the month...

For the system to function you need to have one Coxswain and two crew on-call at all times. Our unit normally has 3 crews and there is also one reserve coxswain that will jump in and fill in from time to time. Right now the system sin´t quite that simple. One of our coxswains is on vacation in Scotland (lucky guy!) and another is on the East Coast attending to an ill family member. That´s left our unit somewhat short-staffed and the only two Coswains remaining are Kellei and myself - so... we´re on-call.

Now it´s not all that bad wearing the pager for a month. Granted, we can´t leave Sechelt (not even for a trip to Gibsons) but it´s after Labour Day and the amount of calls drops off considerably. In fact, we haven´t even been paged yet this month. (Typical call-out rates are About 1-2 times a week in the summer but only once a month otherwise) That combined with all the work we need to get done around the house is making this all work quite nicely.

All that said we are very low on people in our unit at the moment. Through mainly bad luck with people moving and jobs changing and not a lot of new members signing up - we have become quite "lean" I mention this here in case anyone in the Sechelt area is interested in joining up - Now is the time as new training starts in the Fall and the cll volume is, as I mentioned, quite low.

So if you are interested or know someone that might be - send them over to http://www.ccga12.org and/or drop me a Line. We need all the help we can get!

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