The Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Michael Murphy returned to its home port of Pearl Harbor on Thursday morning after an eight-month deployment. Families waving welcome signs lined the pier-side as they waited for the ship and their loved ones aboard to pull in.

It was a long deployment for sailors, who, due to COVID-19 restrictions, did not have shore leave at foreign ports during the deployment — all visits were pier-side, quick affairs for refueling and resupplying to resume the unit’s mission. Many sailors were visibly eager to get off the ship as it pulled in.

The ship’s commanding officer Cmdr. Jason Lautar said the Murphy and its crew traveled almost 60,000 nautical miles over the course of its mission, conducting operations near Hawaii, in the South China Sea and in the Persian Gulf.

The Murphy set sail from Pearl Harbor on June 3. Right away it was tasked with monitoring a large Russian naval exercise in waters just west of Hawaii. Involving several warships and bombers, Russian officials described the exercise as the largest the Russian military conducted in the Pacific since the end of the Cold War.

Next, the ship joined the the USS Carl Vinson Carrier Strike Group before sailing west to Guam and later through the South China Sea and the Strait of Malacca. It then went on to report for duty with the Navy’s 5th Fleet in the Indian Ocean.

In that region the Murphy made eight transits of the Strait of Hormuz and 10 through the Strait of Bab al-Mandeb, escorting both military and merchant vessels as they made the journey and helped with the rescue of a disabled vessel.

“We wanted to make sure that we had the free flow of commerce and the freedom of navigation through the straits,” said Lautar.

The region is full of vital international trade routes as countless tons of goods travel on merchant ships and tankers. But it’s also become an increasingly dangerous place for mariners to work. Pirates, militant groups and, occasionally, regional governments have hijacked and attacked vessels moving through the region.

Smugglers commonly move through the area as well. The Murphy assisted with three flag-verification boardings that involved looking for violators.

The Murphy was also drawn into a strange episode at sea in October, in which members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy seized an oil tanker in close proximity to U.S. Navy ships. Dozens of small Iranian boats swarmed the Vietnamese- flagged tanker Sothys as armed men stormed the ship. The scene was documented by Iranian camera crews and drones, with video footage later released on social media.

The video showed IRGC members pointing guns at the U.S. ships and their crews at close range. According to the IRGC’s version of events, the Murphy and another destroyer, USS The Sullivans, had attempted to detain the tanker and steal oil on board but were warded off by IRGCN forces. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby called the account a “bogus claim.”

In November a defense official told U.S. Naval Institute News that the IRGC had engineered a “Hollywood production” for propaganda purposes and that U.S. crews quickly realized there was “no point in trying to engage” after arriving and surveying the scene.

The Murphy and its crew also trained with Israeli and Egyptian militaries before returning to the Pacific. Lautar said the ship used 4 million gallons of fuel over the course of the deployment.

In many cases the ship’s deployment was long for both the sailors and their families in Hawaii — as thousands of military families continue to be affected by the fuel contamination of the Navy’s water system on Oahu, which serves 93,000 people. Many families are still living in temporary lodging in hotels in Waikiki as the water crisis stretches into its third month.

Lautar said while he looks forward to a future when port visits are part of deployments again, in the meantime public-health restrictions are important to protect both service members and civilians.

“I think we’re doing exactly what we need to do right now,” said Lautar. “We came back healthy, 100% healthy, and we’re ready to go. I’m super proud of this crew.”