Sector Managers Retirement and Presentations

On Friday 24th April Friends and Colleagues joined Mike Armitage and his family at the Thistle Hotel, Inverness to celebrate his retirement from HM Coastguard Service.

The start of the evening was a presentation by the Chief Coastguard of long service medals to Kenny Long and Ian Wilson of Nairn Coastguard, Andy Sutherland, Martin McWhirr and Willie Wilson of Inverness.  Willie received an additional Long Service bar to reflect his 35 years service. The Chief Coastguard also thanked the wives, husbands and families of  Coastguards for their understanding in allowing their lives to be interrupted by the sound of the pager.

Following the medal presentation Chief Coastguard, Rod Johnson and Coastal Safety Manager Bill Spiers presented Mike with a certificate for recognition of service and a laptop from his colleagues

The evening then continued with a buffet and dance.

The team would like to take the opportunity to thank Mike for all his work throughout the past 21years at Inverness and how he put Inverness on the Coastguard map.  We wish him a long and happy retirement.

All the best Mike from the team.

Left to Right Back – Ian Wilson, Bill Spiers,  Mike Armitage, Rod Johnson, Andy Sutherland and Martin McWhirr

Front – Kenny Long and Willie Wilson

Bob nearly there

Bob’s been busy

Bob the builder has arrived

The long awaited building project has started at our station. After having to leave our purpose built unit along the road just over a year ago , we moved into part of the Inverness Harbour Trust office. In the interum this was good but we found we were quite restricted for room. So a new double garage is being built at the rear of the existing building, this will have access via harbour entrance

MCA handover Loch Ness Rescue Boat to RNLI

 

With effect from 1st April 2008 the RNLI will take over operations for providing a rescue boat on the world famous Loch Ness.  The Coastguard has provided rescue boat cover since 1995 with crews based in Drumnadrochit and Inverness.  The Coastguard will still carry out co-ordination for Search & Rescue on Loch Ness.

MCA Source

Coastguard Cottages

Many year’s ago now there was full time teams of Coastguard’s based around the coastline of the UK. These teams or companies as they were called in those day’s lived in coastguard cottages. These cottage’s were often substantial buildings which are still lived in today but have long since been sold off into private ownership. All Coastguard Rescue Team’s are now made up of volunteers. There is rich history to the Coastguard service in the Inverness area which we will explore over the coming months on this blog in addition to the callouts, equipment we use and training sessions.