From the Captain

BOUTWELL Family and Friends,

Sorry it's been so long since I've been able to get you an update. I'll try to do better in the future, but I have a feeling things are only going to get busier over the next few months. Hopefully, I will still have time to keep you informed every few weeks or so. Besides the pace of operations, there are other things that limit my ability to let you know what's going on, however. While we are working with the Navy, most of our activities and just about all of our capabilities become classified, so I can't tell you where we are going or when, specifically, or write about any equipment casualties we might have.

I can and will tell you about where we have been, and as much about what we have done as I can. And as for equipment status, I can tell you that we have received great support from both the Navy logistics organization and our Coast Guard maintenance commands. Necessary repairs are completed as quickly as possible, much more quickly than I've seen on our usual patrols. Trust me, neither I nor the Navy will allow us to operate in any condition that is unsafe.
We've been gone for just over a month now, and have been mostly transiting during that time. The weather during the trans-Pacific crossing was a little worse than what I have seen in the past, and coupled with the need to get to our port calls in a certain amount of time to meet commitments or maximize time available for inport work, the ride was not the most comfortable I've ever had. For many of our shipmates, this was their introduction to shipboard life, and there were a lot of anti-seasickness patches handed out.

I mentioned needing to be certain places at certain times. The Navy refers to this as PIM, which stands for Plan of Intended Movement, and together with the SOE (Schedule of Events), it kind of rules our lives. People get very excited if we are 'behind PIM', and even a little excited if we get too far ahead of PIM. And, if you want to get something done, you had better make sure it gets entered into the SOE. When I was an XO, I used to jokingly tell people that our meal times weren't in the SOE, so they were optional. This level of control and rigidity is somewhat foreign to us, but when you get the chance to look at things from the perspective of the strike group commander, or higher, it becomes clear how complicated the schedule is and how quickly it turns into chaos if everyone is just acting independently.

Our first stop of the deployment was in Hawaii. Not a bad place to visit, and actually, living there doesn't look too bad either (my emphasis!). We topped off our fuel tanks, picked up some needed repair parts, got some more people qualified at the rifle range, and got the rest of our aviation detachment and some other crewmembers on board. This was a working port visit, so we kept normal tropical work hours during the day, but the crew was able to get out and enjoy the island somewhat.

During our transit after we left Hawaii, we got to experience our first 'strait transit'. A strait transit, something we practiced during our workups with the Navy last fall, is different from open ocean transit and challenging on 3 different levels. First of all, there is the navigational challenge. You're closer to shoal water, there's more traffic, and there's less room to maneuver to avoid it. Second, there's a force protection challenge. You're closer to land, so if someone wanted to do us harm, it would be easier for them. And finally, there's an international law challenge, since during part of the transit we are in the territorial sea of another country. That's okay under international law, but there are certain protocols that have to be followed pretty closely, and they change based on the location and the situation. So, we put together a plan in advance of each transit, make sure everyone who needs to be is briefed properly, put additional people on the bridge and in our Combat Information Center, and make sure we are ready to defend ourselves in the unlikely event we are attacked, but at the same time avoiding the appearance of an aggressive posture. All challenging and interesting stuff.

Next, we had a 3 day stop in Kota Kinabalu, a small city in Malaysia, on the island of Borneo. The main purpose of this stop was to work with the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency, a 4 year old organization the Malaysians have put together modeled after the U.S. Coast Guard. We held boarding team and boat crew training with them, conducted some mock boardings, and gave some tours of the ship. We also played a game of soccer against them and worked side by side with them ashore doing some trail and walkway maintenance at a regional wetlands park.

Leaving there, our most recent stop was in Singapore for 2 days. This stop was primarily for crew rest, but Singapore is also a logistics hub so we were able to get some good support, received some more parts and got several crewmembers back on board who had been stateside.
When we left Singapore, we did another strait transit, this time through the Strait of Malacca, one of the busiest international straits in the world. The sheer number of large vessels transiting the strait or anchored in Singapore anchorages is absolutely mind-boggling. It was a very long day transiting out, filled with more close encounters with other ships than most cutters experience in a year. To give you an idea, my standing orders to the OOD require that I get called whenever another ship is going to come within 2 miles of us. Usually, I get those calls when the ship is 6 to 10 miles away, sometimes farther. The OOD and I discuss the situation, he or she tells me how they want to deal with it, and we proceed. I will usually go up to the bridge myself if the ship is going to be closer than a mile away. During the Strait of Malacca transit, we were routinely 500 yards or closer to other vessels, often within 500 yards of a vessel on either side of us, making 15 to 20 knots to avoid getting run over. Again, a long day but pretty exciting and professionally rewarding.

Those are the highlights of the trip so far, from my perspective. There's also been a lot of drills, training, gunnery exercises, flight ops, underway replenishments, and normal ship's work. Plus a few morale events to round things out. We've been busy, and we are gaining a great deal of experience and expertise that is going to be very useful not only during this deployment, but in future ops as well. Keeping busy also helps keep the crews mind off the down side of the deployment, separation from family and friends back home. It doesn't work, completely, but it helps. With Valentine's Day tomorrow, I know there will be a lot of homesickness aboard. Know that our thoughts are never too far from all of you, no matter how busy we get.

Until next time,
CAPT Kevin J. Cavanaugh
Commanding Officer
USCGC BOUTWELL (WHEC 719)