Went down to the Malecon yesterday morning to watch a bit of a demonstration by the Mexican Navy on some of their capabilities. The base here in La Paz is far from being the largest. They have something like seven vessels based here. The largest of them is a former US Navy minesweeper that served in WW II. It wasn't part of the demo.
The first part of the performance was the rescue portion of a SAR operation. A Blackhawk helicopter arrived on scene of two "victims" in the water, two rescue divers jumped into the water from the helicopter. One victim and one diver were hoisted up to the helicopter. As the aircraft flew away, a harbour patrol boat with sirens blaring came on scene to rescue the remaining victims.
When everybody had been "rescued", a "drug interdiction" demo against a small craft was conducted. The helicopter returned and with rotor wash brought the "bad guys" to a stop. Then a boat with a boarding party arrived, demonstrated how they upset the target craft then boarded the target boat.
While everybody was paying attention to that part of the "party", the helicopter went back to the airport, off loaded the rescue scenario crew and took on a new bunch of passengers.
Attention back on the water where two fast coastal patrol craft came across the "show line" and two squads of seven amphibious troops jumped off the back of the boats. When these guys were in the water, the helicopter arrived, hovered over one of the piers and a similar size squad let themselves down to the pier by sliding down a road. Then, both sets of troops "assaulted" the beach.
The Mexican Air Force got involved by conducting a few fly-bys of one of their Beech King Airs and two PC-7 aircraft.
An entertaining display. It drew a large crowd (it had been advertised in several places). And it answered the social media questions from the prior three days of "what's going on?" The aircraft had been practising their formation flying.