Welcome to Harvey's Homesite 

Brisbane Coast Guard (QF2) is based at Manly Boat Harbour on Moreton Bay, the biggest boat harbour on the East Coast of Australia, near the mouth of the Brisbane River in Queensland.

(Latitude: 27º 27' S, Longitude: 153º 11'E)

Inaugurated on the 8th November 1972 and Chartered as an official Coast Guard base on the 13th November 1973, it is now widely regarded as the biggest and best Coast Guard flotilla in the State.

The Lord Mayor of Brisbane is its Patron, making QF2 the official Maritime Search & Rescue outfit for Brisbane City.

The Bold & The Brave

Steve Creevey and Craig Bowen - two members of this flotilla who repeatedly took a tiny inflatable into a maelstrom of very dangerous and rough waters over Flinders Reef on a moonless December night in the teeth of a heavy storm, to rescue 18 passengers trapped on the stranded and sinking dive boat Nautilus. Despite strong wind and waves buffeting their small recue boat, and with near-zero light to guide their actions, these two Coast Guard volunteers brought all 18 stranded passengers, a few at a time, back out through the wild waters crashing over Flinders Reef, to the safety of waiting rescue boats without a single injury. The bravery and courage of these two volunteers is in the highest tradition of Coast Guard service. Without hesitation they put their own safety at risk to save the lives of others in distress at sea.  In a situation that could easily have resulted in loss of life or limb, their calmness and fortitude deserves the highest praise and respect.  They are an inspiration to their colleagues.  We salute them.

Here's the Dive Boat Nautilus in slightly calmer but still cold and choppy waters the morning after the wild night rescue.  She is 90% submerged here, barely clinging to the sharp rocks of Flinders Reef.   Moments after this photo was taken, she slipped off the rocks and sank to the bottom of the sea.

QF2 - Flotilla News:

Here's what's been happening at QF2: Sunday 10th January 2010.  Duty Roster: 'I'.  Duty Skipper: Sam Smalley.

First job, as usual: Boat Checks.   Yep, they're all there!  And Hawkeye Brian Prescott spotted the masthead lights array on CG-22 had stress fractures on all its welds and was on the verge of breaking away entirely and falling on the heads of any crew below.   He promptly grabbed some spare metal and created 'L' brackets with which he clamped  the array to the radar dome post and effected a solid if temporary repair.  Good job!   Then DFC Jason Ferrari happened by and told us the whole thing was being replaced next week anyway!   Thanks a lot.

By now we're getting hungry, so Warren Hollins provided breakfast and Tom Mills cooked it. Then we discussed the day ahead.
 

Moreton Bay was unusually calm and quiet, and the sun was shining, so we took three boats out to different spots, to check and record drift patterns. This involves dropping a weighted fender overboard at a fixed GPS position, letting it drift for 12 minutes (two-sixths of an hour) then recovering it and recording the GPS position. A simple calculation allows you establish how far and in what direction an object will drift if it goes overboard in this area. This helps with our Search & Rescue work.   And when the sea is calm and the weather is good, like today, this is also a very enjoyable time on the boats   Here are Warren Hollins, Brian Prescott and Graeme Thompson on CG-23.

And of course, here is moi:

But fun in the sun can't last forever. So eventually the Local Heroes must return to Manly Boat Harbour - noting on the way that some fool has collided with the outer red Leads Marker and nearly knocked it over.   That's going to be hard to explain to daddy when he sees the collision mark on his boat later in the week!

More accidents awaited us ashore: A young man, entrusted with putting a 6 meter dive boat in the water, had disconnected the safety chain and winch hook before backing his boat down the ramp.  Result: as soon as he reversed onto the ramp, his boat promptly slid off the trailer onto the concrete ramp with a loud crash!      His options:  the winch, the tide or the use of a big crane.   Since it's on land, it's not really our problem. We have to worry about other clowns on the water - like the ones who log on in the morning, spend the day drinking at sea, then forget to log off when they come home.  There are a few of these today, and each one involves a poli ce search and a visit to the owner's home ... where invariably we find some guy spluttering the usual tired old excuses like "I tried to call you but the radio was busy" or "I was going to do it later."   People can be such fools on the water.  But that's why there's a Coast Guard.

Harvey.