PORTSMOUTH

On Friday, the Coast Guard Cutter Bear unloaded its prize: 1.6 tons of seized cocaine with a street value of $100 million.

On Saturday, it sent ashore its treasure: more than 100 crew members, home after 66 days from the front lines on the war on illegal drugs.

Value (with apologies to MasterCard): priceless.

The crew, which celebrated the cutter’s 25th anniversary while at sea earlier this year, returned to Portsmouth on Saturday morning, greeted at pier side by scores of family and friends.

Many will likely hear stories from the crew about the cutter’s dramatic encounter with a high-speed drug boat in the Caribbean.

The craft was spotted on radar Dec. 19, speeding through the western Caribbean, 40 miles off Nicaragua’s coast.

The cutter’s MH-68 Sting Ray helicopter was sent aloft to check out the vessel. A small boat also was dispatched.

At first blush, it appeared to be nothing more than a large fishing boat. But it sported four, high-speed engines.

And its crew refused to stop.

The helicopter kept pace, flashing blue lights in an effort to make clear the vessel was to halt.

It didn’t.

The Coast Guardsmen fired several rounds from a machine gun over the craft as a warning.

It still didn’t stop.

So the gunner took aim on the vessel’s engines, shooting and disabling two of them, the Coast Guard said.

In the meantime, it had become clear why the vessel’s crew didn’t want to allow the boarding party aboard.

“As soon as they saw us bring out the sniper rifles, that’s when the bales (of cocaine) started going off the vessel,” Lt. Steve McCullough, told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel on Friday as the drugs were brought ashore in Port Everglades on Thursday.

By then, however, the helicopter was low on fuel and was forced to return.

The boat took off and made it into Nicaraguan territorial waters, effectively halting the pursuit.

The Coast Guard’s Seventh District Command Center in Miami contacted Nicaraguan officials and received permission through diplomatic channels to board it.

The Coast Guard went aboard without further gunfire.

A subsequent search went on for 16 hours and the diligence paid off with the discovery of the contraband, hidden below concrete in the fish hold.

The vessel and its crew were detained. Diplomatic discussions are ongoing regarding where the crew may be prosecuted, the Coast Guard said.

In the meantime, the Bear had recovered 50 bales of cocaine tossed into the water by the speed boat’s crew.

All of the cocaine, 3,200 pounds of it, was packed in burlap sugar sacks.

The cocaine was turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on Friday.

Federal agents had to use a U-Haul truck to cart it all away.

McCullough said the Coast Guard believes the cocaine was destined for Mexico where it would have then been smuggled across the border into the United States.

The Coast Guard says it seizes about 150 tons of cocaine annually. Last year, it set a record with the seizure of 355,755 pounds of cocaine with an estimated value of more than $4.7 billion.

That included the Coast Guard largest-ever maritime cocaine seizure when it intercepted the Panamanian vessel Gatun in March with more than 33,500 pounds of drugs.

The Bear is one of six, 270-foot medium endurance cutters based in Portsmouth.

Steve Stone, (757) 446-2309/2319, steve.stone@pilotonline.com [1]