Doug Nabham’s Coming Here
Coast Guard
Nobody, and I mean nobody, has more respect for the United States Coast Guard than I. It is a service branch that literally protects the average Joe from intrusions on the coasts of America. I always thought if I had to do it over I would aim for the Coast Guard Academy. I would have a tough time getting in because when I was 18, I had only seen water. I wasn’t actually on a boat until I was 30. So, I would have a tough time on the questions.
Why do you want to attend the Coast Guard Academy? My answer? For the same reason that George Mallory said he wanted to climb Mount Everest—“Because it’s there.” I can just imagine the people at the academy reading my profound answer and thinking, “Maybe he should apply to the ‘mountain climbing academy.’ ”
Anyway, the reason I am writing about the Coast Guard is because it is a big day in my book of life when I take my boat out for the first ride each summer. It is the time that I know summer is actually here. I swear this is the truth. When I put my boat in the water it is like an “alert” goes out. The Coast Guard has a bug in my boat and the lights and bells go off at Coast Guard Headquarters and it is announced: “Nabhan is on the water.” The Coast Guard boat is waiting for me from the moment I take off. It likes to make sure all the boats are in compliance at the beginning of the season. Somehow they never seem to miss me.
When I see the Coast Guard, I head straight for them and start to get my gear out. This year, I had the nicest crew aboard my boat I’ve ever had. It was a very polite and attractive group of young people. They did not even ask me why my boat had Beirut as its port of call written in Arabic.
Everyone who has owned a fiberglass boat knows the perils of black-soled shoes, so when the officers boarded my boat with what looked like technology from World War I, I politely said, “I’m a guy who cleans the floor of his boat with a toothbrush. Black scuff marks are really hard to clean.”
You would think the Coast Guard uniforms would be a bathing suit and flip-flops. These poor folks are dressed for combat in the Arctic Circle. They apparently understood the perils of blacked-soled shoes on fiberglass and said, “No problem, we’ll just stand right here.”
Having been inspected many times, I know the drill. Here is my whistle, throwable cushion, flares, life vests, the toot of my horn, and my registration.
But here are two things I did not know. You are supposed to have a photo ID, and the throw-able cushion has to be in a place that is actually throwable. That is because the whole idea is that if someone falls overboard, you can throw something at him. I was glad to learn these two new rules. The practical problem is that a throwable could get blown off the boat and be overboard sooner than anyone will fall overboard, so I am still trying to figure out what to do with it. So, the nice young Coast Guard people printed off a piece of paper that is like a Monopoly “Get Out of Jail Free” card that allows me to go until September without having to be inspected again. I told them I was going to write an article about them and the captain said, “It better be nice.” And I said, “Aye aye.”
We are fortunate to have such capable people guarding our waters and making sure that if we get in trouble we have a fighting chance of surviving.
Now if we could just get the flare and fire extinguisher companies to have longer expiration dates.
Douglas M. Nabhan is a lawyer with the firm of Williams Mullen in Richmond and has had a weekend home in Deltaville for 18 years.
