HuRRRRAh! Coast Guard crew gives cheer after success with Noyo Harbor buoy fix, check out our video- Coast Guard still getting paid but pay could be in peril from lengthy DHS shutdown

The 225- foot Coast Guard Cutter Alder was at the mouth of Noyo Harbor today, doing repairs and or maintenance on all three buoys that keep boats from straying too close to big underwater rocks that lurk up to 100 feet from the bluffs.

Any harbor boater knows what those buoys mean.

Stay left! One expensive fishing boat was destroyed last year when it went outside the buoys.

We got some good images despite the wonderful, bright and glaring sun with shadows.

More fascinating than the photography, the Coast Guard is critically important to the survival of our Coast. As the DHS shutdown stretched on and on last month, we became concerned about Coast Guard members getting paid during the shutdown. They have been so far, but during a previous shutdown they were not paid. The Mendocino Coast Community came together through Annie Liner and the Mendocino Children’s Fund to raise more than $10,000 to help young families paying high rent and many living paycheck to paycheck abck in 2019. So far we have not been asked to do it again, but the community should be ready to support its heroes. Retired Air Force veteran Stan Anderson went to the Children’s Fund recently and we are prepared to announce if help is needed. So far it has not been neeeded. The Children’s Fund will host donations again if needed. The shutdown of Homeland Security has now gone more than 50 days, although on Wednesday news articles say an end may finally be near. The Coast Guard here does nothing but save boats and keep our harbors and navigation safe. However, the often forgotten branch of the service is also on the front lines in the current war.

The USCGC Maui and USCGC Adak are homebased in Bahrain and are now protecting U.S. Navy ships.

The Coast Guard was busy with dangerous work in the Persian Gulf even before the war.

“The U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) plays a critical role in the Persian Gulf, with Patrol Forces Southwest Asia (PATFORSWA) providing forward-deployed cutters that often face tense encounters with Iranian forces. USCGC vessels have performed boardings, intercepted illegal Iranian weapons shipments, and suffered harassment from Iranian boats, including the 2016 detention of sailors and 2021 swarming incidents,” from Wikipedia.

But what were they doing in Noyo Harbor on Wednesday?

The USCG Alder’s prime mission out of San Francisco is buoy maintenance, repair, and replacement.  None of the three Noyo Harbor buoys were replaced, nor was the one in Shelter Cove serviced on Tuesday. The barancles are removed and electronics replaced or upgrded. The ship was launched in 2004 in Minnesota, doing the same buoy work in Lake Superior, along with other tasks in its mission such as ice breaking for navigation.

The ship later worked out of Baltimore in 2021 while being upgraded before coming to San Francisco in 2022. Each move put the Alder into a bigger body of water!

The commander of the vessel, according to the online pages LCDR (Lt. Commander) Drew M. Stafford

Here is the website for the Alder.

USCGC ALDER (WLB 216)

The Alder removed the buoy that is closest to the shore, could be seen scraping the barnacles and other marine life from and then put the buoy back. Some sort of repair operation also went on, with the crew giving a cheer heard from shore at one point, as the video shows.

The buoys were installed to keep mariners off the rocks but they each have other work to do, including providing ocean temperature, wave height and current information. Some have more complex missions for agencies such as NOAA and other ocean organizations, such as Scripps.

There are 61 NOAA buoys off the Northern California Coast listed on a map. Most of them seem to be offline and they do not appear to include any of the three off Noyo Harbor. There is only one of the 61 that could be among the 7 buoys visible off the Mendocino Coast, its titled “North Jetty: but gives no specific location.

Northern California Buoy Stations – Live Wave Data & Surf Conditions

Usually, there would be details online. However, the Coast Guard stopped updating the website with info on its current mission and status because of the federal shutdown related to the stalemate over the Department of Homeland Security, of which the Coast Guard is a part. The Coast Guard Station in Noyo Harbor has been able to pay its enlisted members and officers, but civilians attached to the Coast Guard have suffered interruptions in pay.

Here is another Buoy, an interesting research buoy that the Noyo Center for Marine Science is involved with.

Aqualink Smart Buoy at Albion Cove

We phoned the ship, using the online number and left a message and will update if we hear back about what they were up to.

Here are some photos of it traveling across the deck.

Here is what NOAA says the Buoys help with:

Surfers: Track swell height, period, and direction to time sessions and compare nearby breaks.Mariners: Monitor sea state and wave energy for safer transits and offshore operations.Weather forecasters: Analyze storm-driven waves and ocean-atmosphere interactions for regional forecasts.Researchers: Study long-term wave climate trends, coastal erosion, and renewable energy potential.