# USCG MIO Long Beach California



## kewl dude (Jun 1, 2008)

I ran across the attached recently. 

Years ago I was at the USCG Marine Inspection Office Long-Beach, California to renew my license. USCG MIO was located INSIDE Terminal Island Federal Prison. You had to get out of your vehicle at the prison gate and submit to a personal search, while others inspected my car inside and out including rolling a mirror underneath.

I was given a map to exactly follow. I drove down a narrow 'tunnel' made of razor wire topped tall stout chain link fences, with a razor wire roof stretched between the fence tops. 

A civilian female clerk made out the paperwork and fingerprinted me. We were done with the paperwork but needed to wait for the OCMI - Officer in Charge Marine Inspection. He needed to administer the oath.

A few weeks later my license came in the mail, the attached came with my license. 

I strongly suspect it was the female clerk who did so?

Attached: Engineer.jpg (297.5 KB)

Greg Hayden


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## kewl dude (Jun 1, 2008)

While I stopped going to sea in1976 I renewed my Merchant Mariners Do***ent and C/E License every five years. For quite sometime USCG MIO Long Beach California was in an older metal building right alongside the shipping channel. 

Then came the day I drove up and arrived to find the place shuttered and fenced. There was a large sign with a map directing me to Terminal Island Federal Prison. Seems the building was going to be torn down and the land beneath it dug out to widen the channel.

Five years later when I showed up at the prison gates I was told MIO had moved. The gate guard gave me a sheet of paper with an address in a civilian office building in downtown Long Beach. That is where MIO stayed at least until I renewed my license for the last time in 2007.

Looking on Google maps today I see USCG still has that base inside the prison.

Attached: TerminalIslandPrison.jpg (132.4 KB)

Greg Hayden


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