My nomination for crowd-pleaser of the weekend.

In an impressive low-altitude high-speed appearence, these guys came from around the hill at our backs, preceeded by the always-spooky-sounding whump-whump-whump of the rotor blades.

As they passed over the water in front of us, there was a short bad moment when a body came flying out of the rear cabin. No attitude control, no windmilling of the arms; it looked like a belly flop from 100', and we all kind of groaned. It took a second or two before we realized it was a dummy. Whew!

A couple of minutes later, at a lower altitude, out came this guy. After getting to his 'victim of a kayak misadventure', he popped off a smoke bomb and a light flare to guide the chopper in close. Then up they went in the hoist. The small object already in the water is just an anchoring buoy; the 'victim' was virtually invisible in the prop wash.

Nice to know these guys, at least, take it all very seriously. The whole thing was over in less than 10 minutes, I'd say.

... and, no, they weren't giving rides. They didn't even acknowledge my thank you over the VHF, but even if they didn't hear me, the crowd on the beach made it clear to them they were a hit.

Coast Guard: the nicest guys you never want to meet.

Pete Roszyk,
in Snohomish