Dep. Dale Goodrich at the helm
This MCP Great Lakes Boat Blog is a presentation of House of Flavors Restaurant of Ludington and the Mason County Historical Society’s Port of Ludington Maritime Museum.
By Mark Varenhorst, MCP Contributor
In my first article on the Mason County Sheriff’s Office Marine Unit I spent quite a bit of time with Dep. Mike Fort (who is in charge of the unit) and Marine Dep. Mason Marrison. During that time with them I came to fully understand what Fort was saying, they are not there to issue tickets they are there to ensure safety on the water for all concerned be it boaters, fisherman, swimmers just about anything they come into contact with.
It is not an easy task approaching people operating a boat versus a car on the highway. This vehicle is moving away and bobbing around and the skipper is unlikely to notice the deputy near due to noise on the boat.
Plus, boarding another boat is another issue altogether as I saw with deputies Mark Willis and Tom Posma in Pere Marquette Lake. Enter the Fourth of July weekend! All of this takes on a totally different level of intensity when the crowds of tourists roll in for the parade and the fireworks in the evening. It is up to the MCSO Marine Unit, Ludington Harbor Patrol and United States Coast Guard (if available) to keep some semblance of order.
Dep. Adam Castonia
I boarded the MCSO’s 25 foot boat to spend time with deputies Adam Castonia and Mason Marrison. Watching the crowds start to line the shores, I sort of figured this was going to be an interesting evening.
Years ago I had helped set off the fireworks. Another time I had been on the SS Badger for the shoreline cruise to watch the fireworks. This was a totally different experience and angle to look at things. It all started out slow enough with a few speeding boats in no wake zones and talking to boaters about what they had on board for personal safety and such. The night was just beginning.
Dep. Adam Castonia comes to the MCSO Marine Unit with 20 years experience with the United States Coast Guard. Watching him handle the 25 footer, all I can say is that his experience showed. He handled that boat with an ease that comes from years of use, a familiarity.
He mentioned during the evening he had spent a lot of his career handling this size and model boat, so he was very familiar with it. Castonia came out of Coast Guard boot camp at Cape May, New Jersy in 2003. He then spent time in Fort Pierce, Fla. with the USCG on drug enforcement and immigrant interdiction duties. Following that he was stationed at East Tawas then Manistee.
In 2010 he was stationed in Ludington and then on to Provincetown, Mass. and even helped shut down the Ludington Coast Guard station in 2022.
I asked him which was worse for him the Great Lakes or the ocean for boat handling. He mentioned both can be tricky but that “the tides and currents on the ocean make it more difficult”.
As the night progressed mostly it was talking to boaters who had no navigation lights on their craft and were sitting in the dark. They obviously were not considering that no one was able to see them. I found it strange to see families sitting in open boats in the dark oblivious to the danger around them. They just wanted to see the fireworks. And some of them were quite combative with Castonia and Marrison when asked to return to a dock. But since they were showing no lights there was no choice. During this time, we escorted the Badger out of the harbor for the shoreline cruise so they could observe the fireworks.
SS Badger from the stern of the sheriff patrol boat.
Mason Marrison, I have mentioned in part 1 of this series. He was along with Dep. Fort on my first excursion with the MCSO Marine Unit. Marrison is a hard working guy. Working three part time jobs, one of them parking cars on the Badger and helping with ropes and tying her up etc. Marrison wants to eventually get into the Michigan Department of Natural Resources academy or some part of federal or state wildlife law enforcement.
As I rode along with these two, I noticed what all of us would notice. Alcohol use was part of the fireworks and it shows up on boats, mostly with behavioral issues. It was odd watching people argue with the deputies about having to have lights on their boat, in the dark! Common sense would tell anyone that, and the law is the law no matter what. But common sense is not so common evidently.
And then the evening changed altogether. There was a call across the radio of a subject with a pistol on the pier near the lighthouse in Ludington. I have mentioned that Castonia is a 20 year veteran of the USCG. When that call came, I watched that boat come alive. He stood it up and turned it almost in one spot, pivoted the boat and we were headed towards the lighthouse.
He obviously knew that boat inside out and what it could do. I held on tight as we came to the lighthouse area and Castonia and Marrison lit up the pier with floodlights. Having spent enough years with the sheriff’s office reserve years back, I found myself also watching the pier for anything out of the ordinary.
All I saw was a crowd of people sitting on the pier, watching us wondering what was going on. Then we shot around the lighthouse to the north side. Again, Castonia and Marrison had the lights on the pier and lighthouse watching. Once they caught sight of the subject, they never had eyes off of him. The lights stayed on him and eyes stayed on him.
Dep. Adam Castonia, left, and Dep. Mark Willis
As I watched down the pier I saw a group of Ludington Police Department officers rapidly approaching the lighthouse and then coming around. Castonia directed them right to the spot. LPD talked to the suspect and the last I saw was the group headed down the pier to the beach. In a matter of moments, it seemed we were back inside the piers and back watching over boaters. The night had calmed back down.
The fireworks came to an end and then along came the Badger returning to her dock. And before she could enter the harbor all the small craft had to be herded up the channel out of the way. By the way that is quite a sight to see, the Badger in the dark all lit up right behind you. The evening ended with the Badger coming in and swinging to her dock. That allowed Castonia and Marrison to deposit their observer (me) back on the dock. An interesting night indeed.
As a side note, I found that all the spiders on a boat seem to come inside when quite a bit of water is hitting the outside as you hit the waves. You have to finally just discount them in the dark. What spiders?? They don’t eat much.
In another ride along toward the middle of July, I rode along with Dep. Dale Goodrich. I have known Goodrich from a distance for almost 30 years. When I ran the reserves for MCSO back nearer to 2000, Goodrich was a trooper with the Michigan State Police. He was a good friend of a friend of mine at MCSO, Jim Glover. Goodrich came out of Mason County Central High School and spent time on the Grant Fire Department. After graduation from the Michigan State Police Academy Goodrich was first posted to Jonesville. He then went on to posts at Reed City, Hart (where I came to know him) and then a year in Lansing doing training for first aid. Following retirement from the MSP Goodrich worked for Al Bufka Construction and some of the projects he spent time on included working on the Badger, the car ferry apron at the Ludington dock when it had to be rebuilt and on the barge PM41. He is also the administrator of the Mason County Rural Fire Authority.
He was approached by Sheriff Kim Cole about helping with the MCSO Marine Unit, and here he is yet. As we escorted the Badger out on a very chilly drizzly morning, Goodrich remarked “I keep the bridge windows in view at all times. If I can’t see them then they can’t see me”. I had heard that same phrase in different wording from deputies Fort and Willis at different times. I remembered also Dep. Willis remarking that they stay off to the side slightly so that “if we lose power ahead of the car ferry they can bump on by and we are not directly in their path”. Watching that hulking steamer approach us from astern I thought ‘yeah, I like that idea also’. After escorting the Badger out, we returned to the dock. This is a process that is repeated twice a day both in and out of the harbor. Soon with all the fishing boats here this will once again become overly interesting. In the coming weeks I plan on spending time with Willis and Goodrich on inland lakes or up the river when possible, and assuming they let me on board!
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This MCP Great Lakes Boat Blog is a presentation of House of Flavors Restaurant of Ludington and the Mason County Historical Society’s Port of Ludington Maritime Museum, ludingtonmaritimemuseum.org, located at 217 S. Lakeshore Dr., Ludington. Please be sure to visit our companion site, www.greatlakesboatblog.com for more photographs.
House of Flavors Restaurant, 402 W. Ludington Ave., Ludington
The Mason County Historical Society is a non-profit charitable organization that was founded in 1937 that does not receive any governmental funding. It owns and operates the Port of Ludington Maritime Museum in Ludington, Historic White Pine Village in Pere Marquette Township, and The Rose Hawley Archives and the Mason County Emporium and Sweet Shop in downtown Ludington.
The Port of Ludington Maritime Museum, located at 217 S. Lakeshore Dr., Ludington, is currently open Thursday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. until Tuesday, May 27 when it will be open Tuesday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Wednesdays through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
For more information about donating to and/or joining the Mason County Historical Society, visit masoncountymihistory.org.
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