Tradewinds is an annual Caribbean-based military exercise organised by the U.S. Southern Command to strengthening partnerships- principally in the area of drug trafficking, but also in disaster response. For the month of June, the U.S. Coast Guard is linking up with partners from 18 other nations, along with crews from the U.S Navy, U.S. Marine Corps and National Guard, to train in damage control operations, non-compliant vessel operations and other maritime activities. Phase one of the exercise started in St KItts and Nevis and now the crew is in Belize. Today 7news travelled to the island town of San Pedro to get a firsthand view of an operation Tradewind Dive exercise.
Monica Bodden Reporting...
Phase two of the Tradewinds exercise focuses on increasing national tactics and procedures for tracking, intercepting, and boarding suspect
vessels.
The 16 member dive training team provides the Belize Coast Guard and Mexican Navy training in the areas of group diving tactics.
During this week the teams conducted hull search, bottom search and recovery- while practicing evidence site contamination prevention techniques.
Lieutenant Joel Cormier - Fleet Drive Unit, Canada
"Basically Tradewinds is an annual exercise that we've been participating in for 3 years now. Basically our concept of operations is come here - and
we're basically teaching the partnering nations to be a working diver. We're teaching them the concept of team training and also from the concepts of
dive physiology to equipment maintenance, to different search and recovery techniques and so fort.
These underwater exercises are a first for many officers of the Belize Coast Guard.
"We actually get down to do our work dives. We have a classroom portion in the morning and from there we go into a practical exercise - call it a dry
run, which is out of the water. Then from there we go and apply the concepts we learn in the classroom. We're trying to achieve our work dives, which
is actually what we do. Vice paddy which is a certification for maybe an open water or recreational diver. What we do is work dives, which is searching
for whether it be bodies, whether it be weapons thrown overboard. We're getting a lot from this."
Cormier emphasised that the Tradewinds exercise is an opportunity to build relationships among partners and strengthen the coordination between
security forces.
Lieutenant Joel Cormier - Fleet Drive Unit, Canada
"Not only do we get to work with different Caribbean nations, we get to basically compare our tactics, techniques and procedures and see how we can
develop ours to get theirs - to improve theirs as well. Phase one was in St. Kitts, so we were there for two weeks and we did the same thing. We had 9
different nations, Jamaica to Trinidad to Haiti and we did the same thing that we are doing here with the Belizeans and with the Mexicans."
Tradewinds 2015 will conclude with a closing ceremony on June 24 at Price Barracks.
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