HMCS Kingston, Glace Bay now home in Halifax

HALIFAX – Two Canadian navy ships are now back home after a six week deployment in the Caribbean.

HMCS Kingston and HMCS Glace Bay arrived in Halifax Wednesday morning to fanfare, cloudy skies and some rain after participating in Operation CARIBBE, a campaign against drug trafficking.

“People are excited to get back into Halifax. It’s rainy, foggy and the cold. It’s going to snow this afternoon so it’s good to be home,” said Lt.-Cmdr. Paul Roddick, the commanding officer of HMCS Kingston.

The ship suffered an engine room fire Saturday while off the coast of the Carolinas.

Roddick said there’s no word yet on the cause of the fire though it is suspected to be electrical in nature.

He said crews rushed into action after an alarm went off on the vessel.

“We got the people down there quickly and I believe they got there quickly enough that they were able to extinguish it before it got bigger and became a larger event,” he said.

Crews put out the fire using extinguishers. Roddick could not comment on the extent of the damage but said the fire was not big.

In March, HMCS Protecteur suffered a fire that significantly damaged the vessel, forcing it to be towed to Hawaii.

Roddick said it’s fortunate the fire on HMCS Kingston did not escalate to a similar level, but notes several things popped into his head when he first learned about it.

“Really the safety of everybody on board is ultimately my responsibility,” he said. “That was the big thing. once I was sure we had the fire under control, after a couple minutes, I was able to relax a little bit more.”

This was the first time HMCS Kingston had a law enforcement detachment on board.

“We investigated a number of vessels. We had a number of suspects vessels but we did not have any indication of contraband at the time,” he said.

“It’s good to go down there and sort of pass off our level of expertise to some of those countries that are trying to fight the battle against the drug trafficking organizations.”

Meanwhile, the crew of HMCS Glace Bay intercepted a large quantity of cocaine during the deployment.

Lt.-Cmdr. Victoria Divita, the commanding officer of HMCS Glace Bay, said the crew and the U.S. Coast Guard, which was on board the vessel, intercepted 97 bales of cocaine.

“Once we had them in sight, we almost noticed there were bales of white material in the water, which subsequently was proven to be cocaine.”

Divita, who said the interception was uneventful, said the street value of the drugs are worth $80 -84 million dollars.

There were lots of smiles, hugs and kisses as crews of both ships disembarked and reunited with their families.

Several children waved Canadian flags and one family wore matching sweatshirts reading ‘Welcome home daddy’. There were loud cheers as the ships got closer to docking.

Chief Petty Officer Keegan Dawson, who was on board HMCS Kingston, quickly embraced his daughter after he got off the ship.

“It’s really hard to describe. It’s my last trip on board so it’s good to be home now,” he said.

Wife Natalie LeBlanc-Dawson said Wednesday’s homecoming felt different from others.

“It was a long two months. We actually had a real winter so it’s just nice to have him home,” she said with a smile.