After that cruise, I wanted to pursue a career, at sea, as a Marine Biologist, but ended up landlocked, as a Museum Curator, a job I enjoyed just as much.
I joined the Coast Guard Auxiliary in 2014, as my military career in the New York Guard was winding down. I had never lost my affection for ships and the sea, so I worked on qualifying as Auxiliary boat crew. In June 2015, Auxiliarist Yvonne Desalvo introduced me to cooking at Station Jones Beach and the AUX Chef program, as it was called then. I
trained and qualified the following January.
In addition to cooking regularly at Station Jones Beach, I cooked at several local Coast Guard stations to relieve active-duty Culinary Specialists( CS). Occasionally I cooked on board docked Coast Guard ships, including CGC Eagle, but never underway.
In the fall of 2021, U. S. C. G
Barque Eagle requested assistance from Coast Guard Auxiliary Culinary Assistants on weekends so weekdays could be spent training their active-duty Coast Guard Culinary Specialists. I answered the call, working one weekend a month, onboard Eagle at their homeport in New London, Connecticut, from November 2021 to April 2022 and mentored AUX CA trainees during weekend training in April 2022 on the Eagle as well as Station New London.
In February 2022, Auxiliarist, Richard Mihalcik, Auxiliary Unit Coordinator( AUC) for Eagle told me that there was a possibility for AUX CA1’ s( Culinary Assistants, the current program name) to go underway during summer cruises for cadets from the Coast Guard Academy. I was excited about potentially going under-
OVER THE BOW USCGAUX FIRST DISTRICT SOUTHERN REGION- WINTER 2023 15