As many as 300 Canadian sailors went ashore in Biloxi, Mississippi, Tuesday to help in the hurricane Katrina recovery effort.

The sailors arrived in the U.S. Gulf Coast on Monday aboard two Canadian warships now anchored off Biloxi -- HMCS Athabaskan and HMCS Ville De Quebec.

Last night, the ships delivered relief supplies to Pensacola, Fla. The cargo included everything from lumber, blankets and chainsaws, to diapers and cots.

Cmdr. Stu Moors, the commanding officer of HMCS Toronto -- a third ship that arrived in the area later Tuesday -- said the sailors from Athabaskan and Ville de Quebec will help in the reconstruction and cleanup in Biloxi.

"Now the effort is working to return those communities to some sense of normalcy so that they can start getting back to a normal life," he told CTV.

He said the area that sustained the most damage from the strong hurricane winds were in the Biloxi-Gulfport area.

"At this point, the discussions that we've had with the United States military is that this is where they want us to work."

A fourth vessel, the Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker Sir William Alexander, is still to come. When it arrives, the Alexander's crew will work on restoring navigational buoys destroyed by the Aug. 29 storm.

It's still unclear how long the ships and personnel will stay in region to help in the recovery and reconstruction effort.

Moors said the engineering component will likely need to stay a bit longer than some of the specialists in other areas.

"I think in terms of the ships being down here, we're talking weeks as opposed to months," he told CTV Newsnet.

The divers

Shrimp fisherman Fred (Buddy) Johnson in Bayou la Batre, Ala. marvelled at the drive of Canadian navy divers.

"Boy are they hardworking," the 65-year-old said Tuesday. "So is the US navy, but they aren't here -- the Canadians are."

A 15-member dive team is trying to clear this fishing community's channel to the Gulf of Mexico.

A capsized 26-metre shrimp trawler sits in the middle of that channel. That won't do.

"There's no other way to get out to make a living. It needs to be cleared so we can go shrimping," said fisherman Joseph Rodriguez.

The work is made infinitely more difficult by a channel that's murky and polluted, hiding the debris and tangled rigging wires.

"Its like a dark room. You close your eyes and feel your way through," said Leading Seaman Luc Champagne.

The divers are expected to be in the disaster zone for about six weeks.

With a report from CTV's Joy Malbon