ST. LOUIS - Master Chief Petty Officer Scott Ehrich (left), an aids-to-navigation instructor from Coast Guard Training Center Yorktown, Va., teaches a group of Coast Guardsmen the safest ways to deploy buoys during a river tender training event at the Coast Guard Industrial Support Activity, Sept. 23, 2011. Coast Guard Sector Upper Mississippi River is hosting five Coast Guard cutters and more than 115 sailors for a week of training and exercises beginning September 19. This assembly of ships represents nearly half of the Coast Guard's inland river fleet. They are responsible for more than 10,300 miles of inland waterways and the entire navigable lengths of the Mississippi, Ohio, Missouri, Illinois and Tennessee river systems. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Stephen Lehmann.