The U.S. Coast Guard will close a large gap in small boat operations in the eastern Strait of Juan de Fuca today as it establishes a new boat station in Port Angeles.
The station, five years in the making, will allow for round-the-clock small boat response in searches, rescues and other Coast Guard missions in the waters spanning the Strait and into Admiralty Inlet and marks a capability the agency has not consistently had.
“This is a big, big plus for the Olympic Peninsula and this area,” Capt. William Peterson, commanding officer of Group/Air Station Port Angeles, said Thursday.
The boat station will be established at 11 this morning at Ediz Hook during a ceremony featuring state Rep. Jim Buck, R-Joyce, as the keynote speaker, and presided over by Rear Adm. Jeffery Garrett, commander of the Seattle-based 13th Coast Guard District.
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The rest of the story appears in the Friday/Saturday Peninsula Daily News.