While it may be more common to see Coast Guard boats out in the Strait of Georgia, seeing a hovercraft is a much more special experience.
That happened last week for Comox Valley resident Kris Trudeau at Goose Spit. In a video posted to Trudeau’s Facebook, the hovercraft can be seen launching from the beach while onlookers film the large craft disembark.
According to the Canadian Coast Guard, the CCGS Siyay hovercraft was in the area around Courtenay and Campbell River performing maintenance on fixed and floating navigational skids.
Navigation aids include buoys, lights, fog signals and notices and GPS stations that help marines avoid hazards.
“The hovercrafts are used to help deploy, position, retrieve and service buoys and other aids to navigation. The large flat deck space provides a stable surface for this work, and the hovercraft can cover a large area efficiently,” they added in a statement.
“Coast Guard has a network of 17,000 aids to navigation across Canada, which includes lighthouses, beacons, range lights, and several types of floating buoys.”
The Coast Guard says they are also instrumental in search and rescue efforts because of their ability to travel over land, marshes and ice.
Trudeau adds on a Facebook post that the experience was “super cool” as were the marks it left in the sand, that she figured could have been from an “alien ship” had she not been there to see it launch.
