CALGARY ON THE HUNT FOR DRUGS

As HMCS Calgary transited north through the waters off South and
Central America during Southploy, it participated in a multinational
anti-narcotics mission led by U.S. Joint Interagency Task Force South
(JIATF-S).

During this mission Guatemalan and American Forces captured a drug
boat housing 10 metric tonnes of cocaine valued at $250 million. The
Oct. 22 bust left Calgary's crew eager to locate other drug vessels
known to be in the area.

"This was the largest drug bust in Guatemalan history," said Cdr
William Quinn, ship's commanding officer. "The U.S. Coast Guard
transported the four crew members and the drug boat to shore to hand
over to Guatemalan authorities."

Through JIATF-South assets, Calgary's command team learned there were
other drug boats in the area and the ship was tasked to track and
report any contacts of interest to JIATF-S.

"We do a lot of training for these kinds of events and the crew was
excited to be involved in this mission," said Cdr Quinn.

The boats the drug smugglers use to transport the drugs to North
America are self propelled semi submersibles (SPSS). With only six
inches of freeboard and a snorkel above water, they have an extremely
low profile in the water and are difficult to spot.

"These boats are becoming much more common these days as a method of
drug smuggling. They have a very small radar cross section and are
especially hard to detect in any kind of sea state," said Cdr Quinn.
"The most common way of detecting them is visually," he said.

Earlier in the deployment, during Panamax 2009, one of the largest
multinational training exercises in the world off Panama, Calgary
searched for a SPSS that was created for the exercise.

"Out of the ships involved in the search, we used visual aids and
radar to look for the boat and ended up being the first to find it
from the bridge," said Cdr Quinn. "This was good training for the
crew to familiarize them with search techniques. It was very exciting
to find one then, and the ship's company were even more excited to be
involved in trying to find a real one once we learned several had
been detected in the waters we were in."

Calgary sailed under their navigation plan and provided whatever
contributions they could to JIATF-S as they transited.

"We were able to expand our surveillance area by using our helicopter
and we investigated numerous contacts in our vicinity, but they were
all legitimate fishing vessels or pleasure craft," said Cdr Quinn.

Each day Calgary's Sea King helicopter took to the air conducting
thorough searches of coordinates where the boats were last reported.

While Calgary was unsuccessful in locating any of the boats, Cdr
Quinn said it was a valuable experience for the crew. "It was
exciting to be involved in this and participate in the search for a
vessel that resulted in such a large drug bust."

JIATF-S is an ongoing mission for the U.S. Navy, and it's likely that
other Canadian ships will participate in the future, he said.

As Calgary sails to Esquimalt for a late November arrival, it will
conduct a missile exercise on Nov. 3 to test the Evolved Sea Sparrow
Missile in a tactical scenario. Then on Nov. 10 in San Diego several
family members will be welcomed aboard for a Tiger Cruise to reunite
with loved ones and sail back to Esquimalt together. During the sail
home the ship will participate in a Task Force Group Exercise (TGEX)
with HMC Ships Algonquin and Protecteur.