With more than 3000 volunteers at 44 units up and down the coast, inter-unit collaboration is a must and something Marine Rescue Port Macquarie and Marine Rescue Camden Haven do very well.

Marine Rescue Camden Haven unit commander Ken Rutledge said there is a great sense of friendship among volunteers in neighbouring units.

“We are all volunteers who are all trying to do our best saving lives on the water and with that comes a great deal of camaraderie,” Mr Rutledge said.

“Being so close geographically we do work quite closely with each other as well as independently in our own areas.

“Camden Haven is the most northern unit who are looked after by the police in Port Stevens and Port Macquarie is the southern most unit officially looked after by the Coffs Harbour police.”

Marine Rescue Port Macquarie unit commander Greg Davies said the benefit of having units close by is added flexibility.

“We are constantly training and upgrading our skills so having units close by means we are able to offer more training days more often,” Mr Davies said.

“With a unit our size we have smaller units like Camden Haven join in on our training and that is a good opportunity for volunteers to mix and meet people from across the region.

“Just recently Port Macquarie held sea survival and fire fighting training and we have volunteers from all over the North Coast attend.”

Mr Rutledge said the Camden Haven and Port Macquarie units also help each other upskill their volunteers.

“Recently Port Macquarie had a few skippers go through their final assessments and it was great to be able to help them with that,” he said.

“During their assessments they had to go and ‘find’ a lost vessel so we went and helped with that.”

Mr Davies said good connections between units are vital when things go wrong out at sea.

“The other benefit of having close units is extra resources during search and rescue call outs,” he said.

“Last summer we had a number of missing people at sea in Port Macquarie and we were able to cover a lot more ground.

“It is that added flexibility of being able to rely on another unit which can speed up response times.”

During the holiday period both unit commanders said they wish more people would log on when heading out on the water.

“Probably one of the most frustrating things for us is when we see people go out on their boat but fail to log on with us,” Mr Routledge said.

“There have been a number of instances where we have gotten calls for help with little to no information to help us know where the vessel was.

“It makes it incredibly hard to start a search if we don’t know where to start looking.”

“Logging on is so simple and takes just minutes so when you are heading out on your boat, yacht or jetski please log on using Chanel 16 or via the Marine Rescue app because you never plan to get in trouble,” Mr Davies said.

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