SAREX
Throughout the exercise injects were established independently by the SAREX Coordinator and responded to by incident command and participating resources. And, regular safety checks were performed at all bases throughout the exercise.
In general, the staff did a good job of maintaining an awareness of and comfortable level of safety at the bases. Air facilities were unable to launch early in the exercise due to low ceilings and air operations were scrapped. Surface facilities got under way and responded to incident command as expected while prosecuting injects.
There were some miscommunications and some incidents reported over the radio that were not clearly communicated as part of the exercise, resulting in a brief switch at incident command to treat that incident as a potential real incident. However, it was eventually established that there was no real incident needing attention and the exercise resumed.
The exercise terminated at 1350 after all injects were completed and all participating facilities had returned to port or were released and returning to normal patrol.
Opposite top, Nev-R-Dun IV takes a "disabled" COGA II in a long tow. Bottom, Ron Willson 07-02, Evan Tilley 07-07, and Paul Pronovost 24-03 analyze the situation aboard Semper Paratus. Below, a 45 RBM crew from Coast Guard Station Eatons Neck monitors the action.
Photos by Barbara Ingram and Linda Lakin