The good news is that if a boater gets into trouble near Whidbey Island, help will be there quickly.

The bad news is that if the trouble is really bad — high seas or an onboard fire — the nearest rescuers may not have the equipment or training they need to save lives.

For more than five years, the gradual pull-out of Coast Guard vessels and personnel from its former station in Everett — and a more recent need to concentrate on homeland security — has been putting more of the work needed to keep boaters and other Puget Sound recreators on the shoulders of Island County marine rescue volunteers and professionals, according to rescue service chiefs.

Since Sept. 11, there has been less Coast Guard than ever to go around. According to a report prepared recently for Congress, the Coast Guard has spent about 2,000 fewer hours nationwide on search and rescue operations during the past three months than it did during the same period last year. At the same time, port security operations take up almost 10 times the personnel hours now than they did last summer.

The cutbacks are making agencies like Fire District 3 work harder on the water. In 1995, FD3 responded to 11 boat rescues. By 2001, that number was up to 36.

With the closest Coast Guard vessels stationed in Bellingham and Seattle, the fastest call for help for boaters near Whidbey and Camano islands is now to local fire districts. Tom Fields, the chief of Camano Island Search and Rescue, said the Coast Guard now calls him when someone in Saratoga Passage needs rescuing.

“They realize we can respond to the incident quicker than they can,” he said.

That is almost always true, according to both local rescue and Coast Guard officials. With about seven small rescue boats among them, Camano Fire and Rescue, FD3 and North Whidbey’s Fire District 2 can have marine rescuers on the water before any of the distant Coast Guard vessels can reach Island County waters.

But, said Darin Reid, chief of special services for FD3, local agencies do not always have the equipment or training they need to help boaters, divers and other recreators in distress. At present, FD3 marine rescue personnel have a 15-foot inflatable motor runabout and a two-seat personal watercraft available to them for rescue operations.

It’s not much, but better than nothing, Reid said. For doing the “mundane” tasks he said the Coast Guard has essentially handed to local rescue agencies — such as vessel assists, responses to boats adrift in Puget Sound and the occasional water rescue — FD3 has what it needs.

But this equipment would be next to useless, Reid said, if called out to assist with a boat on fire or in high seas, or with an incident involving more than two or three people in need of rescue.

Sheriff Mike Hawley, who is in charge of all Island County marine rescue operations, said his office and rescue agencies have had to get used to making do with what they have, because they are not going to get much help from the Coast Guard.

“They have virtually abandoned any response to private (boat) rescues,” he said Tuesday. “We don’t really rely on them anymore.”

With this as a baseline, rescue agencies are now after the right equipment and training to do the work they have inherited from the Coast Guard. Though FD3 service has received some training from the Coast Guard, it still paid out $1,700 for additional training from a private party. Reid said this is something he doesn’t believe his agency should be forced to do.

“No one’s offering us any money for training, yet we’re doing the Coast Guard’s job,” he said.

FD3 and Camano Island Search and Rescue are also looking for bigger, better boats to do their work. Reid said the ideal craft would be a 25-foot rigid inflatable — which is large enough to carry several people, but small enough to trailer to the waterfront. While the Coast Guard does occasionally make older, surplus vessels available at no cost to other agencies, the pickings have been poor, Reid said.

To put the situation in perspective, both Reid and Fields said their rescue personnel enjoy the work they do out in the water and feel no resentment over taking on additional duties. They both say they have a good working relationship with the Coast Guard, noting the service will send search helicopters, cutters and other vessels when needed.

For its part, the Coast Guard is appreciative of the help it gets from Island County agencies. Lt. Commander Andy Conner, a member of the guard’s Seattle search and rescue division, said his service needs help in maintaining quick, lifesaving responses to marine emergencies.

“We realize they have a waterborne capability that can help us,” he said of the county fire services.

However, he admits, the guard has only limited resources to offer in return. He said the service will give water rescuers in fire districts as much training as staff time will allow. As for the equipment issue, Conner said federal agencies take precedence over local agencies — so there’s not much to offer.

The Coast Guard probably will continue to rely on local agencies in the future. The last cutter stationed in Everett was decommissioned in 2001 and the service’s homeland defense mission has no end in sight.

“There’s a lot of resources put into that,” said Dan Dewell, a national spokesman for the Coast Guard based in Washington, D.C.

Dewell noted that a number of factors came together to affect the numbers in the Congressional report on his service’s duties. In addition to the impact of 9/11, the Coast Guard has also seen a decrease in boating incidents. Dewell said personnel hours on rescues can also be affected by efficiency measures taken to reduce the number of vessels and aircraft needed for search and rescue duties.