Felipe Pazos of Miami Beach spends his workweeks trading on the financial markets. But in his spare time, he patrols Miami-Dade County waterways in his 25-foot Boston Whaler as commander of Flotilla 8-11, District 7 of the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary.
Through Friday, Pazos and his auxiliary colleagues will be extra-visible during National Boating Safety Week, observed each year in the days before the boat-intensive Memorial Day holiday.
This all-volunteer, mostly civilian force helps local marine law enforcement agencies — such as the Coast Guard and Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission — rescue boaters from sinking vessels; bring tired swimmers to safety; advise pleasure boaters on what kinds of safety equipment they need; and conduct boating education courses.
“We don’t ticket people; we tell them what’s necessary,” Pazos said.
The theme of this year’s boating safety week in Florida is Operation: Wear It/Life Jackets for Life Tour 2010. Auxiliary members will appear at South Florida boat ramps and marinas to demonstrate new, lightweight inflatable life jackets, encourage boaters to wear them and conduct free giveaways of safety equipment.
According to the FWC Boating Accident Statistical Report for 2009, the leading cause of death was drowning. Most accidents involved collisions with an object or another boat. Only about 11 percent of the victims wore life jackets; 18 percent did not wear them, and in 71 percent of the cases, rescuers didn’t know. The top cause of accidents was inattention by the boat skipper. Seventy percent of skippers involved in accidents had no formal boater education.
Four South Florida counties are among the top 10 in the state for boating accidents. Monroe was first with 77 last year, followed by Miami-Dade with 62 and Palm Beach with 56. Broward was fifth with 30.
Pazos, a 20-year boater, said he didn’t realize the importance of taking a boating safety course until he attended an auxiliary meeting five years ago.
“I’d been boating 15 years and realized I didn’t know the right way to do things,” Pazos said.
DEDICATED VOLUNTEERS
Last year, the flotilla commander said he spent 800 to 900 hours volunteering, and “I feel good about it.”
One of Pazos’ saddest experiences was in April 2009, when a close friend, Phil Burke, 49, and Burke’s daughter, Tara Ann, 8, drowned in a boating accident in Biscayne Bay. Bay waters were rough during the weekend they went missing. Tara Ann’s body was found with no life jacket.
“I was, like, man, this guy was an avid boater. He should have known better,” Pazos said. “Even when I take friends fishing, I make them wear [life jackets].”
On a recent Saturday, Pazos and three colleagues, Lorenz Davis, Matt Paulini and Jose Acosta, conducted a training mission aboard Pazos’ boat with three other members of their flotilla on another boat.
In the drill, Pazos pretended to be disabled in the middle of Biscayne Bay, and the other boat, a 22-foot Whitewater, came to the rescue.
Things went fairly well, but the Whitewater nearly traded paint with Pazos’ Whaler when coxswain-in-training Nick Krauss idled up to rig a tow line.
“I had to back out of your way,” Pazos said to Krauss. “You backed in front of my bow pulpit. You should have come from way north of me. You came from the south and got too close.”
REAL-LIFE DRAMA
After the drill was completed, Krauss and his crewmates, Alex Tellechea and flotilla vice commander Marcelo Freire, got some real-life rescue experience when they were called by USCG Sector Miami to help locate two missing freedivers 2 ½ miles off Fowey Rocks.
Freire and his crew found the divers’ boat with the skipper on board. The boat’s VHF radio didn’t work, and batteries in the skipper’s cellphone were dead. The crew updated a description of the missing divers and relayed it to Sector Miami. The divers eventually were found safe at No Name Harbor on Key Biscayne.
For Jose Acosta — a senior broadcast producer for Zubi Advertising — that is the kind of experience that makes volunteering with the auxiliary worthwhile.
“You’re giving your free time; you might as well be an organized unit,” he said.
