Cruise ships will be escorted until next March From the early-morning hours of Sept. 11, when the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Kittiwake was at sea and called to guard Honolulu Harbor and the ocean around it, the ship and crew
Cruise ships will be escorted until next March
From the early-morning hours of Sept. 11, when the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Kittiwake was at sea and called to guard Honolulu Harbor and the ocean around it, the ship and crew have been busy.
The cutter, based at Nawiliwili Harbor on Kaua’i, stayed off O’ahu for several days, patrolling southern approaches to Hawaii’s most-populated island.
Carrying weaponry and looking for anything suspicious or out of the ordinary, the Kittiwake and its 20-member contingent are “definitely on a much more heightened awareness now,” said Lt. j.g. Jennifer Cook, the ship’s commander.
“We’re armed. We’re definitely carrying all of our weapons, and have them prepared to the fullest extent,” she said.
The current Kittiwake assignments include enforcing security zones around cruise ships and Navy vessels imposed after the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center earlier this month. That includes escorting cruise ships in and out of Nawiliwili Harbor, Cook explained.
The Coast Guard announced late last week that the escorting of passenger ships will continue until at least mid-March of next year.
Elsewhere, larger Coast Guard cutters will continue enforcing security zones for offshore moorings and anchorages of cruise ships, and continue patrolling the area around the reef runway of Honolulu International Airport.
All cruise ships must provide the Coast Guard with accurate passenger lists. It was through inspection of such lists that the Coast Guard was able to identify and detain two passengers from a cruise ship in Miami, Fla. last week, according to the Coast Guard officials.
On Kaua’i, regular harbor patrols in the past have focused more on potential environmental hazards. Now, the patrols aboard two inflatable vessels and the Kittiwake are about protecting life and property, Cook said.
Port security and port safety have always been regular missions of the Coast Guard, “but obviously we’ve heightened that side a lot recently,” she stated.
The 87-foot Kittiwake has a crew of 10 aboard and 10 assigned to the two rigid-hull inflatables.
“We have a pretty good idea what the local traffic is, the barges and the dinner cruises, just from our normal operations,” said Cook.
At least one Kaua’i reservist, Paul Pomroy, retired from the Kaua’i County Fire Department, was called up to active duty and assigned to a Honolulu outfit, Cook said.
Staff Writer Paul C. Curtis can be reached at mailto:pcurtis@pulitzer.net or 245-3681 (ext. 224).
