Coast Guard is totally harshing my mellow, dude
October 20th, 2010 | Coast Guard | Posted by David Larter
Crew members aboard Coast Guard Cutter Sitkinak, stack nearly 1,000 pounds of marijuana at the Base Support Unit Miami June 3. Cutter Edisto recovered a ton of marijuana, 40 miles southwest of San Diego on Oct. 15 // Petty Officer 3rd Class Sabrina Elgammal
The Coast Guard, by any measure, is a fairly busy bunch. The amount its 42,000-odd members accomplish with a budget just over $10 billion is worthy of note.
Its latest accomplishment? The service says it seized approximately 1,000 pounds of marijuana (pot, hydro, righteous bush, reefer, buds) when a C-130 spotted a suspicious vessel about 40 miles from San Diego. The release reads:
Early Friday morning a Coast Guard C-130 patrol aircraft, based in Sacramento, Calif., sighted a suspicious vessel, about 40 miles from San Diego. A Coast Guard patrol boat was diverted to intercept the vessel, and Mexican authorities were notified.
The cutter did not intercept the speedboat, but as it headed toward the craft, the speedboat’s crew was observed throwing bales into the water. The Coast Guard recovered the bales from the water, which later tested positive as marijuana.
The bales of marijuana were offloaded from the Edisto and custody of the bales was transferred to Maritime Task Force San Diego.
That’s a lot of pot; more than even Snoop Dogg could smoke in a year.
Oh buoy, there goes $18,000
October 18th, 2010 | Arctic Aviation Coast Guard | Posted by David Larter
Aircrew aboard a Kodiak-based HC-130 Hercules aircraft deploy an ice buoy from the rear of the aircraft Aug. 17, 2009, over the Arctic Ocean for the first time. // Petty Officer 1st Class Jason Yonk
Ice is on the outs in the Arctic. As a result there is an enormous treasure-trove of previously undiscovered natural resources being made accessible by the receding ice. Now Russia, the U.S., Greenland and everybody in between who has an Arctic coastline is struggling for control of as much loot as possible.
So, Arctic research has become a popular subject around the defense establishment. Apparently scientists teaming with the Coast Guard are still working out some kinks.
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports a joint Coast Guard-University of Washington study got off to a rough start when an $18,000 buoy dropped from a C-130 based in Kodiak, Alaska, failed to transmit. Now it’s lost at sea and nobody is looking for it:
The enormous cost of searching in the Arctic will mean no effort will be made to recover the buoy, especially because it is not transmitting its location. That is part of the price of doing business in the Arctic, said University of Washington researcher and mathematician Roger Andersen.
“I’m afraid a cost of ($18,000) seems very large, but the logistics costs of a capable vessel or aircraft conducting such search would be far more,” he wrote in an e-mail.
“The takeaway point is the data is extremely valuable, and data from unmanned data buoys is a bargain, easily worth losing a few buoys in a failed deployment, crushed in a pressure ridge or chewed by a bear.”
What caused the buoy’s problems is not known.
A Coast Guard cutter brings the pain — $80 million worth
August 25th, 2010 | Coast Guard | Posted by Phil Ewing
Coast Guard
What does $80 million worth of cocaine look like? That’s it, right there, along with crew members of the Coast Guard cutter Forward, who took it off the hands of five “fishermen” off the coast of Honduras on Aug 3. The Forward’s crew then transferred the dope and the suspected smugglers to the cutter Tahoma, which, in turn, dropped them off in Miami this week.
If you’re keeping score at home, that’s 88 bales of cocaine — what a haul!
Will new long-range narco-subs change the game?
July 6th, 2010 | Coast Guard Submarines | Posted by Phil Ewing
Drug enforcement officials discovered a real-life submarine under construction in the Ecuadorian jungle. Could subs like it revolutionize smuggling at sea? // Navy
For years, U.S. counter-drug authorities knew there were self-propelled semi-submersibles out there, ferrying drugs out of South America just under the wavetops — but they’d never seen one. Then, in 2006, it happened: The sighting and seizure of just such a vessel, appropriately nicknamed “Bigfoot,” which became the first of several.
Next, drug enforcement officials said they knew there had to be bigger, more robust, longer-range narco-subs, to carry contraband as far as Europe and Africa — Royal Navy officials hinted as much last month. Now, they’ve found one of those, too: A partially built, 100-foot, almost-real-thing submarine under construction at a jungle shipyard in Ecuador:
Acting on a DEA tip, the Ecuadoreans found it at a sophisticated shipyard with living quarters for at least 50 people on a jungle estuary several miles from the Colombian border, he said. It had yet to make a voyage. Built of fiberglass and other composites, it has a conning tower, periscope and air conditioning system and measures about 9 feet (2.7 meters) high from the deck plates to the ceiling, the DEA said. Ecuadorean police told the DEA the vessel has the capacity for about 10 metric tons of cargo, a crew of five or six people and the ability to fully submerge, Bergman said. Compared to semi-submersibles, which cost less than $1 million each to build, “this is in a new maritime drug-trafficking class of its own,” Bergman told the AP.
So it seems — but there’s a big difference between building a single ocean-going drug cargo sub and standing up the kind of fleet operation you’d need to make this all worthwhile. Can these guys get the kind of crew members they need to safely transport their precious dope? All you bubbleheads out there — what would you say to a second career as an undersea drug-sub crew member?
Calling in the auxiliary
June 23rd, 2010 | Coast Guard | Posted by Susan Schept
Fan boats normally used for ice rescues have been sent from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico to navigate shallow coastal waters. // PA3 Zac Crawford / Coast Guard
On the same day that Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Robert Papp recognized the Coast Guard Auxiliary’s 71st birthday. the service also sent out an “all hands on deck” message requesting more of the volunteers to help with the containment of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
Today, Papp thanked the auxiliary for its contributions, especially during the aftermath of the Jan. 12 earthquake in Haiti and its current assistance helping with public affairs and vessel safety checks in regards to the oil spill in the Gulf.
But much more is needed to not only backfill positions of active-duty Coasties who have been assigned to the spill, but also to respond directly to clean up coastal pollution. The ALCOAST message requested volunteers who are willing to work long hours and be available for a 30-day period. Rear Adm. B. M. Salerno, deputy commandant for operations, had this to say:
This has become a mission of unparalleled proportion. As time has passed, the breadth and scope of spill impacts have significantly expanded and require long-term, coordinated action that is expected to last through the remainder of CY2010.
Former Coast Guard vice commandant gets new gig
June 18th, 2010 | Coast Guard | Posted by Susan Schept
Then-Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Thad Allen presents an award to Vice Adm. David Pekoske during his May 24 retirement ceremony at Ft. McNair.//PA1 Kip Wadlow/Coast Guard
After a week off, newly retired Coast Guard Vice Adm. David Pekoske landed a new gig. As of June 1, the former vice commandant is the executive vice president of A-T Solutions Inc., a counter-terrorism intelligence company in Vienna, Va.
“I love it,” said Pekoske, who retired May 24. “It’s a company whose culture is very similar to the place from which I came.”
Among other services, the company provides intelligence on how to locate and defuse improvised explosive devices. IEDs have wreaked havoc for troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. Pekoske said it is “only a matter of time” for these types of bombs to be used on civilians in the U.S. He cited the recent attempt to set off a bomb in Times Square as an example.
Pekoske will be responsible for developing and managing A-T Solutions’ international maritime and port security business unit.
Check out the beard
June 9th, 2010 | Coast Guard | Posted by Susan Schept
A look at Adm. Thad Allen throughout his storied career.//Coast Guard
Although this already has been taken off the Coast Guard’s home page, it deserves being immortalized on Scoop Deck. Here is a look at former commandant Adm. Thad Allen through his nearly 40-year Coast Guard career. Check out the beard.
iCommandant disappears…
May 28th, 2010 | Blogs Coast Guard | Posted by Susan Schept
The new Coast Guard blog.//Coast Guard
If you didn’t notice as you were busily preparing for the long Memorial Day weekend, the Coast Guard website underwent a makeover after Adm. Robert Papp became the commandant May 25.
Papp immediately set about making changes, including upending the social media blogs. There will be no more iCommandant blog or commandant’s Facebook page — both pioneered by Papp’s predecessor Adm. Thad Allen. The All Hands blog also will disappear in favor of one centralized Coast Guard Compass blog.
Seven in Seven
May 21st, 2010 | Aviation Carriers Coast Guard Congress Foreign navies Maritime operations Mishaps Naval Academy Navy Personnel Ships Sports Submarines The Pacific Washington | Posted by Lance Bacon
Sailors aboard the carrier Ronald Reagan conduct a test of the aqueous film forming foam firefighting system during a planned incremental availability maintenance period. Ronald Reagan is completing its first underway period since October 2009. (Photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Alexander Tidd)
It’s been another busy week for the Navy. Here are seven stories in seven minutes from the past seven days that are worthy of notice:
1. Defense Bill passes HASC. This bill has tons of important stuff – far too much to put in this blog. You can check Monday’s edition of Navy Times for the complete scoop. But among the highlights is this news that lawmakers bucked the Pentagon’s 1.4 percent pay raise request, and looks to instead give service members a 1.9 percent boost.
In addition, the bill aligns the 30-year shipbuilding plan with the QDR, which bodes well for the 313-ship Navy. Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., and the Seapower committee he chairs, put the following in the bill:
Breaking the ice on icebreakers
May 3rd, 2010 | Coast Guard Sea Air Space | Posted by Phil Ewing
For years, Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Thad Allen has been making the case for improved ships and equipment to enable the lifesaving service to better operate in the thawing Arctic. Now that he is only weeks away from retirement, he hinted Monday in a panel discussion at Sea Air Space that the Coast Guard, the Congress and other officials haven’t even begun to seriously tackle these questions.
“We need to have a serious, national discussion about icebreakers,” Allen said. “It has not concluded — it has not even begun yet. You may see me be a little more vocal about this on the 26th of May because my change of command is the 25th. Thank you very much.”
Marine Commandant Gen. James Conway gave remarks after Allen at the panel discussion, and apparently had no hard feelings that Allen had called him “Mike” during a discussion about how closely the sea service chiefs worked together. Conway asked Allen to stand and be recognized, and said:
“When I was a young officer aboard ship the rule was, leave your spaces better than you found them, and I think we can say that about Adm. Thad Allen, United States Coast Guard.”
The crowd gave Allen a standing ovation.