A crewmember prepares to deploy a Side Scanning Sonar "fish" off the coast of Japan. The ?Fish? is a portable device, which provides ships the ability to conduct precision underwater mapping operations of ports and ocean floors, critical to planning mine countermeasure operations. USS Guardian is an ?Avenger? class mine countermeasures ship designed as mine hunter-killers capable of finding, classifying and destroying a wide variety of deployed mines. Guardian is forward deployed to Sasebo, Japan. U.S. Navy photo by Journalist Seaman Wes Eplen.