CG Provides Support in Freezing Waters

Coast Guard Cutters are busy all over the Northern Chesapeake and Delaware Bay areas breaking through the ice that Jack Frost left behind on the area waterways. Large patches of ice at least one to two inches have been reported as far south as the area around Tangier Island, Md., in the Chesapeake Bay. Several tributaries to the Chesapeake and Delaware Bay are frozen over with ice as well. One of the tributaries to the Chesapeake Bay that is being heavily monitored is the Wicomico River that leads to Salisbury, Md., which was last reported to be 10 percent covered with a one-inch thick sheet of ice. Salisbury is a leading supplier of home heating oil to the Del Marva Peninsula. The Chesapeake and Delaware Canal is completely covered with four to six inches of ice. Philadelphia’s Captain of the Port is enforcing an Army Corps of Engineers restriction limiting all traffic on the C & D Canal to steel hulled vessels. In addition to breaking through the ice in the Delaware and Chesapeake Bay waterways, Coast Guard Cutters are repairing many of the aids to navigation along those routes. Mariners should be advised that buoys may be extinguished, dragged off station or might be destroyed due to the ice.The White Seal was scheduled to arrive in Bridgeport, Mass. from Haiti on Jan. 22, but was delayed at sea a week due to engine problems. The ship was reportedly not carrying any cargo. White Seal hails from Tonga, a small island in the South Pacific.