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PORT ANGELES — Community leaders are planning to welcome the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Active and its crew home in style when they return next month.
The Active was involved in the largest cocaine seizure in maritime history last week, but is on routine patrol again.
The Port Angeles-based cutter and crew discovered more than 13 tons of cocaine aboard the Belize-flagged fishing vessel Svesda Maru in the Pacific Ocean 1,700 miles south of San Diego on May 3.
The cutter is scheduled to return to Port Angeles on June 10.
Bands, color guards, law enforcement agencies, helicopter and jet fly-overs and an escort by a fire-fighting tug boat spraying its water cannon may be part of the celebration, Port Angeles Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Russ Veenema said Monday.
But planners would like to see the 210-foot ship and its 74-member crew back a day earlier.
If the Active returns June 9, it could be the center of a waterfront celebration in its honor, Veenema said.
If it returns June 10, it will have to share community recognition with Olympic Medical Center.
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