PORTSMOUTH, Va. – The crew of the Coast Guard Cutter Bear is scheduled to return to Portsmouth Tuesday after a two-month law enforcement patrol in the Caribbean Sea.
The Bear enforced counter-drug and alien migration laws while working for the Seventh Coast Guard District, which covers the coast off of South Carolina through the Caribbean Sea.
The Bear’s crew responded to increased Haitian migrant activity in December, interdicting 318 migrants from five overloaded and unsafe vessels. The crew provided food, water, shelter and medical care to the migrants before repatriating them.
The crew conducted counter-drug boardings and maintained a presence along known drug routes leading to the United States and Europe.
They also assisted the motor vessel Miss Juina, a 72-foot Haitian coastal freighter that was sinking south of Great Inagua Island, Bahamas, Dec. 15.
Bear is one of six 270-foot cutters homeported in Portsmouth.
