Inside the Coast Guard's Air Station on Kodiak Island

The Super Hercules parks next to its four HC-130J siblings. Nearby squat six MH-60T Jayhawk and four MH-65D Dolphin helicopters, aircraft that US Coast Guard watchstanders will scramble to rescue mariners at sea, hikers trapped in bear country, or downed pilots anywhere across 4 million square miles of the Gulf of Alaska, Bristol Bay, the Bering Sea, and a good chunk of the Pacific Ocean above the 40-degree latitude line.

If a distress call comes in west of Yakutat, that's a helicopter mission. The Super Hercules patrol the entire width of Alaska.

Coffee or Die Magazine spent a week with Kodiak's Coasties because this is their busy season. Between May 1 and Aug. 31, 2021, air station crews responded to 72 maydays. That meant crews spent 157 hours in the air to save 42 lives and aid 20 other people in distress.

By late July of this year's summer rescue season, crews had already flown 159 hours, saving 34 people and helping 18 others. And there was still more than a month to go. Cmdr. Richard "Rich" Kuzak, the executive officer of the air station, told Coffee or Die his rescue crews follow the fishing fleet.

Along Kodiak's archipelago and into the Bering Sea and Pacific go the black cod and halibut boats, the crabbers and the shrimp potters, the cod catchers, the trawlers, longliners, and seiners, their nets or snoods fat with walleye pollock, herring, and sole.

A flight from Kodiak, which juts 50 nautical miles into the Gulf of Alaska, can shave precious minutes off a rescue mission.

"Seasonally, as the fishing fleet gets underway, Kodiak is positioned in an area that allows us to have the adequate response capability to meet the time of loss of useful consciousness, just in case they have to get in the water," Kuzak said.

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