Early April's update from the CO

BOUTWELL Friends and Families,

I can't believe it's been over a month since I've written one of these. There has been a lot going on - I'll tell you about as much as I can. Don't feel like I'm keeping things from you - the things I leave out are not all that exciting, it's just info we'd rather not fall into the wrong hands, and as soon as this email goes to an address that doesn't end in "uscg.mil", there's a risk that that could happen.

Shortly after my last email, we joined ships and aircraft from 10 other countries for an international exercise called AMAN '09, hosted by the Pakistani Navy. AMAN means "Peace" in Urdu, one of the principle languages of Pakistan. The exercise consisted of inport workshops, professional exchanges, underway events like mock boardings, formation steaming and Search & Rescue demonstrations, and cultural events ashore. The shoreside events were all held in Karachi, Pakistan. As you can imagine, security was very tight. No liberty was granted to the crew, except to attend official exercise events, so their ability to 'experience' Pakistan was very limited. The official events were very nice, though, and demonstrated a good deal of the rich culture and historical heritage of Pakistan, as well as some really good food.

The crew also got to visit with the crews of the other ships moored with us in Karachi. Ships from the British Royal Navy and the Australian Navy were most popular, probably because of the (more or less) common language, but we also had guests aboard from the Chinese Navy, and lots of interaction with the Pakistanis. France, Malaysia, Japan, Bangladesh, Turkey, and Nigeria also had forces participating. We interacted with them at the meetings and some of the social events, but they were a little farther away from us so we didn't spend as much time with them. On our pier, there were sports events between and among the different crews, and some vendors were allowed between the 2nd and 3rd entry control points, so the crew could do some shopping.

When we left there, we made another strait transit. Remember those from the Philippines? This one was through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway between Iran and Oman that connects the Arabian Sea to the Arabian Gulf. We drew a little attention from some Iranian naval craft during that transit, but it turned out they just wanted to get a closer look at us. Not really surprising - I guess they don't see many U.S. Coast Guard high endurance cutters in these parts. I think we got a pretty good picture of them taking a picture of us.

We then stopped in Bahrain for a few days of R&R&R. The third R is for repair. Bahrain is home to the headquarters for 5th Fleet, which doubles as the Naval component commander for Central Command, or CENTCOM. As such, it’s a logistics hub for the region and we received many many much needed spare parts we had ordered, as well as literally almost a ton of mail. We then left Bahrain, went back out to the Arabian Sea. This time, when we had just finished going through the Strait of Hormuz in the other direction, we came across a small Iranian boat, disabled and adrift, with 22 people on it. We contacted officials from both Oman (because it was closest) and Iran, and stayed with the boat for several hours waiting for the Iranians to come help them. We also provided some medical and engineering assistance to them, and in the end, they were able to get their engine started again before the Iranians got there.

After that, we've spent most of our time doing counter-drug type operations, very similar to what we would be doing on an Eastern Pacific patrol. One of the most interesting things we've done was an underway refueling evolution from a Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force oiler, followed by a photo op with them, another Japanese ship and ships from Germany and Pakistan. We're also getting more and more of our people qualified in various watchstations all the time, and we have a lot more qualified boat crewmembers, boarding team members and flight deck personnel than we did before. We've had some advancements as well.

And, as often happens, we've had some equipment break. I think I've said it before in previous emails - one of the strengths of the WHEC is that we have lots of redundant systems, so that even when some of them break we are still very capable. That often makes the decision on whether to continue to operate, at a reduced level, or take time away from operations to make repairs, a very difficult one. That's true in this case as well, but we found an opportunity to repair some of the more important equipment with minimal impact on our scheduled commitments, so as I write this we are back in Bahrain to take advantage of it.

As I write this, we are almost at the halfway point of this deployment. We're starting to get into a rhythm a little bit, hitting our stride so to speak. Things we're doing that at first were new and difficult are now more routine and easier. People are finding ways to make the time more enjoyable and for want of a better word, 'normal'. We've seen the return of steel beach, and a jam session on the flight deck (made up mostly by TAD folks, for some reason). I'm excited and proud of the things we are doing, but at the same time I'm looking forward to being on the back end of the trip. There's starting to be more and more discussion about what we will be doing during the transit back, and once we get back. We still have a lot to do here, and a long time until we're back, but once we get 'over the hump' we generally pick up speed.

CAPT Kevin J. Cavanaugh
Commanding Officer
USCGC BOUTWELL (WHEC 719)