The crew of the Coast Guard Cutter Dependable returned home to Cape May on Friday. The crew patrolled a vast geographic area over the 60-day deployment, from the Florida Straits to the Eastern Caribbean Sea, performing counter-drug, migrant interdiction and search-and-rescue missions. While patrolling the Eastern Caribbean Sea, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection aircraft directed the Dependable toward a 20-foot go-fast vessel operating without navigation lights. Once on scene, the ship’s crew launched the Over the Horizon (OTH) boat and observed suspected smugglers jettisoning multiple packages overboard. The crew employed warning shots and disabling fire, stopping the vessel and recovering one of the jettisoned bales from the water. The bale contained 71 pounds of cocaine, worth an estimated $800,000 wholesale value.
