• October 15, 2008: Coast Guard Rescues Three From Overturned Vessel

• August 16, 2006: Coast Guard MedEvacs Man From Cruise Ship

• January 7, 2009: Coast Guard Finds Two Missing After Night At Sea

• July 19, 2006: St. Pete Coast Guard Finds Overdue Boater

• February 15, 2009: Coast Guard Rescues Two Men From Burning Ship Off Coast of Naples

I could go on and on, but I think you get the point.  You see and hear these headlines all the time in the newspaper and on television, and it’s so easy to just take it for granted – the Coast Guard rescued somebody else who was in trouble at sea.  But, really, it’s quite remarkable and very impressive that such an organization exists, and that one of their main roles in life is to save us from ourselves!  While many people think of most military functions in terms of protecting us from threats coming from abroad, and while the Coast Guard certainly has a huge role in that same function, via their constant patrols of the waters surrounding the United States, they also spend an enormous amount of time and money and effort in search and rescue missions to save Americans in trouble.  

And the reason that this is noteworthy and is showing up in my blog is that every one of the headlines that I listed above are referring to rescues launched from the Coast Guard station located right here in St. Petersburg, at Bayboro Harbor.  And if I felt like taking up more space, I could list another ten or fifty or a hundred similar headlines.  The St. Petersburg Coast Guard Station, known within the Coast Guard as “Sector St. Petersburg”, has an area of responsibility that ranges from a few miles north of Yankeetown to several miles south of Ft. Myers.

It’s interesting to note that the St. Petersburg Coast Guard base at Bayboro Harbor was originally constructed in 1924 to help find and stop bootleggers!  This was during the Probibition years, and Tampa Bay was an easy place for bootleggers to smuggle liquor ashore without being caught.  So the Coast Guard station was built and the heat was on.  The base was abandoned in 1933, but reopened in 1939 to be used as a training site for Merchant Seamen.  After World War II, the Coast Guard base became an ongoing, functional peacetime base and has been so ever since. 

In addition to Search and Rescue missions and regular Patrol missions, new duties were added after the World Trade Center disaster.  The Coast Guard, which had previously fallen under the umbrella of the Department of Transportation, was moved to become a part of the Department of Homeland Security.  With additional boats and personnel that were provided, they began new patrol missions, monitoring several designated special Security Zones in the Tampa Bay area, including the area around the Weedon Island Electric Production Plant, the Port of Tampa, and the Sunshine Skyway Bridge.

As is the case with all of the men and women who put their lives on the line to protect American lives, whether in the armed forces, police departments, fire departments, or countless other similar similar postions, the men and women in the Coast Guard deserve our thanks, appreciation, and support.  Add to that the fact that St. Petersburg is lucky enough to have such a major center of Coast Guard operations right here in our city and we know that we’re in good hands.

As I close this post, I want to mention today’s photos.  They were taken from the seawall near the USF Marine Science building on Bayboro Harbor.  The photo above is of some of the base buildings.  Although it’s quite a distance away, if you click on the picture to see a full sized image, you can see the Mediterranean Revival architecture evident in the buildings  – pretty cool for a Coast Guard base.  And the picture of the Coast Guard Cutter, below, led me to an interesting site.  After taking the picture, I was wishing that I could have seen the name of the boat.  But from my vantage point, I could not.  However, I searched online for anything at all about a Coast Guard Cutter with the number 625 that’s on the side of the boat, and it actually led me to a full web page that documents the history of this Cutter, from its beginnings right up to the present, including awards and honors — I just found it an interesting read.  Check it out yourselves, if you’d like:  US Coast Guard Cutter Venturous.

U. S. Coast Guard Cutter Venturous (Click for larger view)