The supermoon on New Year’s day made for some stunning photographs and local resident Al Ruff captured this beauty of the U.S. Coast Guard vessel Douglas Munro exiting Discovery Passage in front of Campbell River and entering the northern Straight of Georgia on its way south.
The 378-foot cutter was commissioned in 1971 and is stationed in Kodiak, Alaska. It was travelling the Inside Passage on its way to the “Lower 48” on New Year’s Day. The vessel is named after the only U.S. Coast Guardsman to be awarded the Medal of Honour.
Discovery Passage constitutes a portion of the Inside Passage, an international waterway from Puget Sound, Washington to southeastern Alaska, passing along the coast of B.C. It is a route protected from the open waters of the Pacific by the west coast’s myriad islands, including Vancouver Island.
Monday’s “supermoon” was the first of two this month. A supermoon happens a when the moon’s orbit comes closest to the Earth and coincides with a full moon.