Icebreaking on Polar Sea

Since he joined the United States Coast Guard seven and a half years ago, getting away from it all has taken on a whole new meaning for Bryan Goff. Goff, 26, is the IT1 (Information Systems Technician First Class) aboard Polar Sea, a United States Coast Guard cutter that returned to Seattle April 1 from a four-and-a-half month, 50,000-mile journey to the South Pole and back. The boat’s mission was to clear a path through an ice field big enough for other ships to reach McMurdo Base–the largest military base in Antarctica. Goff was part of a similar mission one year before. “The main reason I joined the Coast Guard was for the education,” says Goff, who specializes in handling all telephone operations, satellite communications and computer network systems onboard Polar Sea. “The training was both physically and mentally challenging, but I liked it.” The oldest son of Palisades High graduates Joan and Monty Goff, Bryan grew up in Topanga Canyon, graduated from Taft High and worked as an auto mechanic while attending classes at Pierce College in Woodland Hills before deciding to join the Coast Guard in 1997. His grandparents have lived on Drummond Street in Huntington Palisades since 1950. Goff’s brother David is now safely back from Iraq, where he served in the U.S. Marine Corps. Goff was stationed at the Coast Guard Yard in Baltimore, Maryland, when he decided to reenlist to get on the Polar Sea. “I knew these ships travel all over the world and that’s something I was anxious to do,” he says. “I wanted to broaden my horizons.” Polar Sea and its sister ship Polar Star are two of the largest ships in the U.S. Coast Guard and the world’s most powerful non-nuclear icebreakers. Nearly 400 feet in length and with a displacement of 13,500 tons, Polar Sea is designed to move continuously through six feet of ice at a speed of three knots. Equipped with six diesel-electric engines that power three underwater propellers, Polar Sea has a six-inch thick steel plate ‘skirt’ protecting its hull. The reinforced hull is shaped to ride up on the ice, which then breaks into small chunks under the ship’s weight. “When the bow scrapes up against the ice, it makes a very loud, distinct noise,” Goff says. “It sounds like metal being ripped apart. Not the most comforting sound for enlisted men who sleep below deck.” As one of only a handful of ships worldwide capable of conducting unrestricted high latitude operations, Polar Sea routinely operates in the Bering Sea, Chukchi Sea and the Arctic Ocean. Since being commissioned out of Seattle in 1978, it has sailed all seven seas, visited ports in 24 foreign countries, circumnavigated Antarctica nine times and ventured to the Arctic Circle 13 times. “The main purpose of our mission was to break up the ice around McMurdo Station so that supply ships and fuel ships can reach the base safely,” Goff says. “On this last mission, the hard part was trying to break into Marble Point, which is a fueling depot for the two HH-65A helicopters we carry on board. We hadn’t broken the ice there in four years so it was very hard and thick. When we broke through, we could see the layers of older ice. Usually a layer is equivalent to a year.” Although his most recent assignment brought him to tourist havens like the Hawaiian Islands and Sydney, Australia, and exotic spots like Tasmania, where mission scientists came aboard, Goff is quick to point out that in the armed forces, life at sea is no pleasure cruise. “It’s not as glamorous as it seems,” Goff admits. “Even when you’re docked, you’re on the boat and once you are underway it definitely gets routine. “You’re out there to do a job,” he adds. “At sea, you wake up at 6:45 a.m., have breakfast at 7 and work from about 8 in the morning to 4 in the afternoon. My wife Jessica is in the Coast Guard too. She’s stationed in Seattle, which is our home port, but once I leave on a mission I don’t see her for months at a time.” Goff even confesses to getting seasick: “I can assure you that is no fun. Especially when you’re 100 miles from nowhere and all around as far as the eye can sea is blue ocean.’ Though day-to-day life aboard Polar Sea gets boring at times, missions can also be exciting and full of adventure. Recreational activities include a library, exercise room and daily movies to maintain morale during lengthy deployments. To break up the monotony, officers even order an occasional “abandon ship” drill, during which every crew member must report to a designated life raft with a specific piece of equipment. For Goff, that item is a satellite phone. Several times in January, while in “Ice Liberty” (meaning the vessel is lodged in ice and cannot move), Goff and his shipmates descended a ladder, engaged in snowball fights, played football and soccer, snow boarded and skied cross country-style across the iceberg. On one occasion the Polar Sea and Polar Star were caught in Ice Liberty together. “We were playing football and they decided to challenge us to a game,” Goff recalls. “In the end we beat them and they had a long walk home.” On New Year’s eve, Goff and his crew encountered a pod of orcas at the stern (rear) of the ship poking their heads out of the water to look at them. As the orcas surfaced, hundreds of Adelie penguins fled from the water and waddled to safety on the ice to avoid becoming dinner for the hungry killer whales. “That night, we had the penguin drop,” Goff explains. “You know how New York City drops the ball at midnight? Well, we have what’s called a penguin drop. All it is is a big inflatable penguin that we had up on our lanyards. As the time got nearer, the penguin got closer to the deck. After that was done with, we wrapped things up and went to bed.” McMurdo Station, located in the Ross Sea, has a population of 200 in the winter and 1,200 in the summer. It covers almost two-and-a-half square miles and contains over 100 buildings, including a church, fire department, a coffee house, a U.S. Post Office and even two ATM machines. Goff says it “resembles a mining town from the Old West.” Navigating through the Ross Sea requires the utmost precision because of icebergs, a constant threat to ships due to their massive size and often invisible surface. “About seven-eighths of an iceberg is underwater,” Goff explains. “Icebergs are either white or blue. The white ones have bubbles trapped in the ice and the surface reflects sunlight, giving the berg a white appearance. But blue ones have few or no bubbles at all and therefore no reflection. Those are the most dangerous.” One of Antarctica’s most impressive tablet-shaped icebergs, labeled B-15K, is six miles wide, 24 miles long and 100 feet high. While the assortment of marine life is fascinating to watch and the scenery can be breathtaking, crew members know the mission itself is first priority aboard Polar Sea. “We had to constantly send divers down into the sub-freezing water to check our propellers to make sure the ice wasn’t bending them,” Goff claims. “There were times when the ice was very thick at certain locations, where we were moving about 100 yards a watch (one watch is four hours in duration). It takes perseverance and determination to get the job done.” Polar Sea is back at its home port in Seattle undergoing routine maintenance, as it does upon completion of every mission. And although he still reports to work every morning, Goff is happy to be doing so on dry land for a change. “It’s nice to wake up and be in the same place you were when you went to sleep the night before,” he says. “Looking out the window and seeing the same view takes a little getting used to.”