He's Back!

Nathan is back in Glen Burnie, MD - on duty on the cutter at Curtis Bay through at least April 15th. He is around and about. He is looking to get certified on the small boat team.

RETURN OF NATHAN!

Nathan returns on 2/25 to pull HSST duty on his still-disabled cutter in Glen Burnie.

Port Call - Key West, Florida

Nate is in Key West for a few days. He is trying to determine what would be a good course of action for his career. He still wants to go to "A" school, but the wait is long, and he wants to pick up other skills in the meantime. He isn't sure if he will study some on the side for another position, or if he will have some formal training for other jobs on his boat. He really enjoys their port calls in Key West, spending time walking or hanging out in his favorite coffee shop, Bad Ass Coffee, a shop that originated in Hawaii.

This patrol, they have been shuttling migrants. Most notably, a decrepit ship of 242 migrants were intercepted by another cutter and the migrants were transferred to the Diligence, their borrowed ship this assignment, and returned to Haiti.

Nate had been taking some gorgeous sunrise pics, but when he tried to back them up to the computer, he found he had only backed up a link for his card, not the actual photos, so nothing to share yet...

Nate at Sea

Received info from Nate - his words follow:

While at sea, Nate has been "running drills and stuff to test our ability to respond in case of fire and stuff. I'm on the BDS team (battle dress station) we're like a first aid team, we respond with stretchers and stuff working with doc if someone gets hurt. Its pretty cool actually.

Been cleaning the boat so when we give it back we don't have a hugeee lot of stuff to clean yah know?"

Shore Leave! San Juan, Puerto Rico

At 9 am this morning Nate's cutter arrived in San Juan. Shore leave! It is better than Mexico - not all touristy like Cozumel. Major relief to be ashore!