Had the bodies bobbing in Agate Passage Thursday morning been real, they would have been in serious trouble.

A strong flood tide had swept the dummies away from the bridge, from which the trio had supposedly leaped while attempting a hypothetical group suicide, and pushed them toward open water.

Luckily for the dummies, help was planing down the channel from Suquamish.

In the cockpit of the Bainbridge Police boat officer Scott Weiss panned the gray water with a video monitor connected to a digital camera on the boat’s roof, as Lt. Bob Day kept the boat skimming toward the bridge.

Within minutes Weiss and Day had located the victims, and coordinated their recovery with three other police and fire boats that arrived on scene.

Quick response and inter-agency teamwork was what department chiefs were looking for in Thursday drills, which brought nine regional fire and police departments together for four hours of marine training.

It was the second year the groups have practiced joint missions, which aim to help agencies streamline communication and get a feel for what resources are available in a marine incident.

With federal agencies increasingly focused on security following 9/11, local departments have been taking on more marine emergency missions, and coordination between jurisdictions has become key.

“It’s good to get out and rub shoulders with other folks, see how they do business, and stretch your mind a bit on some of these problems,” Day said. “If only it went as well in real life.”

Fire and police boats from Bainbridge and Poulsbo departments, were joined by boats from Central Kitsap Fire and Rescue, North Kitsap Fire and Rescue, Edmonds Fire, Port Gamble S’Klallam Police and Suquamish Police, at a Port Madison dock prior to the drills.

BIPD’s 35-foot, 750-horse power SAFE Boat, purchased just over a year ago with a federal Homeland Security Administration grant, drew the most attention.

“That’s the show-stopper right there,” said Lt. Chris Smith of NKFD, who helped organize the drills.

On the dock at Port Madison USCG Petty Officer First Class Brandon Ortega explained to the local crews that USCG responds when passengers from a vessel are missing, lives are in danger or a vessel is a hazard to navigation.

Ortega said USCG hasn’t lessened its commitment to search and rescue, but the added counter terrorism mandate has changed his job significantly since 2001.

“A good portion of our missions now are security,” he said.

Following the briefing in Port Madison, the boats were split into two groups to take turns responding to scenarios on Agate Passage and in Kingston.

The bridge jumper drill in Agate Passage gave the agencies a chance to practice search and rescue in a realistic scenario.

A Bainbridge man survived a leap from the bridge in 2002 and was retrieved by police and a resident in a row boat. Another man survived a jump in 2006.

The Thursday drill drove home the need to know tidal conditions going into any Agate Passage rescue.

“Standing on shore, it was amazing to see how fast (the dummies) took off,” said BIFD Operations Chief Luke Carpenter, one of several officers relaying orders to the boats from the beach. “Any units responding are going to have to know what the tides are doing.”

Shortly after scooping up the bridge jumpers, BIPD’s group was in the Kingston Marina responding to a boat fire and missing person.

Dispatch for the exercise reported a contained fire onboard a 44-foot steel boat, and said a good samaritan who had been battling the blaze was missing following an explosion.

BIPD arrived first on the scene and found smoke rolling out of the cabin of the ex-Coast Guard life boat tied to the dock, and two boats rafted alongside. Weiss nosed the police boat in and Day spotted the dummy wedged between two boats. Day hauled the “victim” from the water, and he and Weiss cleared the rafted boats away.

Poulsbo and Bainbridge’s open fire boats arrived and doused the stricken vessel from both sides with fire monitors. The scene was realistic enough to fool one civilian boater, who rushed up the dock to ask officers where the fire was.

Debriefing over coffee on the dock, the crews said the exercise went well despite some difficulty maneuvering of the fire boats inside the marina. And all said they felt they had a better idea of what they could expect from their colleagues during a real marine emergency.

“It sounds like everyone is taking something away from this,” Smith said. “That’s good, that’s the goal.”