After a six-month journey to the other side of the globe, Royal Canadian Navy frigate HMCS Vancouver has returned to CFB Esquimalt.

On Thursday, Dec. 5, dozens of families and military personnel gathered at the navy base to welcome the sailors who spent the last half of the year travelling the Indo-Pacific for a number of exercises and joint operations in an effort to maintain a presence in the region.

The ship deployed on June 5, and the trip was split into two phases. The first phase was two months of multi-ship readiness training and the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise off of Hawaii, which is the largest joint combined maritime exercise in the world. That was followed by a four-month deployment in the Indo-Pacific where the ship participated in both Operations Horizon and Neon which included stops in Japan, Guam, Australia and the Philippines.

The commanding officer of the Vancouver, Cmdr. Tyson Bergmann, explained the multiple training exercises with allied navies 鈥� which included Exercise Kakadu in Australia, Exercise Kaedex with the Japanese Maritime Self-Defence Force, and RIMPAC 鈥� is a great opportunity to work on communication and understanding each other's procedures.

"It's all of the Indo-Pacific partners and like-minded partners working together to learn how to be interoperable so if we're ever all called on to do a mission together, we've already established things like establishing communications, understanding tactical procedures and how we're going to work with each other in that region," said Bergmann.

During RIMPAC in July, the ship fired two RIM-7 Sea Sparrow missiles, which are typically used for defence against anti-ship missiles. And in September, the ship made a "historical" rearmament of its vertical launch system missiles in  Australia, which was the first rearmament by an RCN vessel outside of Canadian or American territory.

It was that the Vancouver, and the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Higgins, sailed through the heavily-contested Taiwan Strait which was condemned by the Chinese army鈥檚 Eastern Theatre Command, who said it mobilized naval and air forces to monitor the transit of the ships 鈥渋n accordance with the law.鈥�

Bergmann said at this point, situations like this have become standard for Western ships travelling in the area as p from Eastern adversaries.

"I mean it is standard that there are those letters of displeasure when we go through [the strait], however, we can take solace in the fact that we know we're transiting international waters with every right of operating on the open ocean as we conduct that transit safely in due regards to any international law," he explained.

Overall, the sailors are happy to be home after the long journey.

"It's great to be back," Bergmann said. "I know the crew is very excited, a bit bittersweet as you spend your entire time working up to this deployment, but I hope the crew can take pride in the fact that they did an outstanding job, their hard work and dedication and resiliency made the mission vital."

With files from The Canadian Press.