Corpus Christi, Texas. (March 23, 2023): In the famous “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, singer Gordon Lightfoot implores “Where does the love of God go, when the waves turn the minutes to hours”. For stranded mariners facing mortal danger miles from land, the U.S. Coast Guard is all that stands between them and disaster. Fortunately, the Coast Guard fields the highest trained and best equipped rescue teams in the world. In the above photo, a Coast Guard Air Station Corpus Christi MH-65 Dolphin helicopter crew works alongside a 45-foot Response Boat to assist a 44-foot fishing vessel taking on water with two people aboard 3 miles southeast of the Corpus Christi. Coast Guard crews help pump out the vessel and then escorted its thankful crew to the Corpus Christi Marina and safety.

Coast Guard Sector Corpus Christi was commissioned in May of 2005 by joining all the units within the area of Port Lavaca throughout Brownsville under one unified command. Last year, Sector Corpus Christi personnel conducted over 450 search and rescue cases, assisted 554 people in distress, and saved 101 lives and $11 million in property. The unit’s law enforcement activities included seizing 22 small craft conducting smuggling and illegal fishing and confiscated over 5,500 pounds of drugs. The unit also interdicted over 130 illegal immigrants and performed 375 vessel inspections.

The Euro copter MH-65 Dolphin is a twin-engine helicopter used for medevac-capable search and rescue and can be armed for airborne use of force missions. There are now 102 Dolphins in the Coast Guard Fleet based at 17 cities on the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean, Gulf of Mexico, Hawaii, and the Great Lakes region.

For mariners lost at sea, the sight of a Coast Guard Dolphin bringing highly skilled rescuers is a wondrous thing indeed.