My Coast Guard Experience
In 1974 at the ripe old age of seventeen I entered the United States Coast Guard. After nine weeks in boot camp I was asked to stay on at TRACEN Alameda as an Assistant Company Commander for the Recruit Honor Guard and Drill Team. I stayed there a year and a half, then moved on to Coast Guard Station Yaquina Bay in Newport Oregon. By the age of 19 I was an E5/BM2, Surfboat Coxswain (the guy who drives the boat) qualified on 44-foot Motor Life Boats and The 52-foot Motor Life Boat “Victory.”
When I arrived at Yaquina Bay the Officer in Charge was Master Chief Thomas McAdams. The Chief retired while I was still stationed at Yaquina Bay in 1977. Throughout the years I stayed in touch with McAdams with our common interests in maritime activities and emergency services.
In the year 2020 I was approached by members of the Lincoln County (Oregon) Historical Society and asked if I would be willing to write a book about Retired Master Chief McAdams. I agreed and spent a year and a half visiting with Tom and his wife JoAn. The result was the book which is linked below.
Coast Guard Station Yaquina Bay (1975)
Master Chief Thomas McAdams by Joe Novello
What a ride! This is a famous picture of Master Chief McAdams navigating a 44 -foot Motor Life Boat in the surf.
I was a crewman on this 44 footer at the Cape Disappointment Surf School. We were playing around before the drills began. Photo by Chief Rob Robinson
I volunteered to get into this derelict 25 foot boat and be pulled off the beach by a 44-footer. I'm the guy in the white helmet and black wetsuit. It looks like something out of a Hollywood movie but I can vouch, it was the real thing. Photo by Chief Rob Robinson
This is the 44-footer pulling the me and the 25-footer off the beach.
Surf drills at "The Cape" with me at the helm.
One eerie summer morning I was out on bar patrol just West of the Yaquina Bay jetties. We were on the edge of a fog bank with water as flat as a pond. Suddenly waves kicked up with breaking chop but we could not detect any wind. Then out of the fog appeared the schooner Sarah. I quickly took this picture and the ghostly ship disappeared back in the fog, and the water calmed. If I didn't know this historic vessel, I would have thought it to be a ghost ship from days gone by.
I took this picture in 1976 just off the North Reef at Yaquina Bay. I was in a 44-footer just finishing surf drills when the seas picked up and we were heading in for the day.
Back in 1976 we did not have digital cameras so pictures weren't taken so often. This is the only picture ever taken of me at the helm of a 44-footer.
That's me, the short guy in the middle of the back - Assistant Company Commander. (1974)
The 36-foot motor lifeboat was almost all phased out. I was able to run this boat for a few months in 1976.