Coast Guard cutter Stratton returns from 103-day patrol of Alaska's Arctic and Bering Sea

The Coast Guard cutter Stratton returned to its home port of Alameda, California, on Saturday after a 103-day patrol off Alaska that took it into the Arctic and the Bering Sea.

The 418-foot cutter spent 26 of those days above the Arctic Circle. The Coast Guard keeps no permanent presence north of the Bering Strait, and its operation in Kotzebue is seasonal.

"As access to the Arctic continues to increase, demand for Coast Guard presence and search and rescue in the high north continues to grow," the Coast Guard said in its account of the patrol.

Off Kotzebue in August, the crew practiced with a Jayhawk rescue helicopter, then sailed alongside a Canadian navy patrol ship in the Bering Strait. Two weeks later, the Stratton changed captains while anchored off Kotzebue, with Capt. Matthew Press taking command.

In the fall, the crew fired the cutter's 57mm deck gun at targets off Unalaska. On Oct. 6, in Broad Bay, it ran a practice refueling at anchor with the Storis, the icebreaker the Coast Guard commissioned in Juneau last year. The drill showed the Storis can refuel other cutters in remote Alaska waters, the Coast Guard said.

"From search and rescue response and safeguarding U.S. sovereignty, to joint operations with our Canadian partners and engagement with Alaskan communities, they delivered presence and readiness where it mattered most," Press said of his crew.

The crew earned the Coast Guard Arctic Service Medal and stopped in Seattle, Kodiak, Dutch Harbor and Victoria, British Columbia.

The Stratton is the second Alameda cutter home from Alaska waters this month. The Munro returned Oct. 9 from a 112-day patrol in which its crew monitored three Chinese-flagged research ships. Both took part in operations the Coast Guard calls Frontier Sentinel and Tundra Merlin, with U.S. and Canadian forces.

Commissioned in 2012, the Stratton is named for Capt. Dorothy C. Stratton, who led the Coast Guard Women's Reserve in World War II. It was the first of the Coast Guard's national security cutters named for a woman.