the warm water element of her first-of-class trials, when she was deployed on short notice to the coasts of Honduras and Nicaragua to provide humanitarian assistance in the aftermath of Hurricane Mitch. In early 1999, Ocean was scheduled to take part in an exercise in the Atlantic, but was diverted to the Mediterranean in readiness for possible deployment to Kosovo. During 2000, Ocean supported Operation Palliser in Sierra Leone, joining in aiding the suppression of rebel activity with her own embarked force, and providing support facilities for the Spearhead battalion ashore. 2001–2010 On 17 February 2002, whilst under command of Captain Adrian Johns, a unit of Royal Marines from Ocean accidentally landed on the San Felipe beach in the Spanish town of La Linea instead of Gibraltar, causing a minor diplomatic incident as various media outlets labelled the mistake as an "invasion". Ocean was part of a large Royal Navy task force deployed for Operation Telic, the UK contribution to the 2003 Iraq War, for which she was awarded a new battle honour "Al Faw 2003". In the helicopter assault role she was accompanied by . She was awarded the Freedom of the City of Sunderland on 26 July 2004. In the summer of 2006, under the command of Captain Christopher Clayton, the ship was deployed as part of the task force involved in the Aurora exercises on the eastern seaboard of the United States. Clayton was later succeeded by Captain Tony Johnstone-Burt. In 2007, Ocean began her first long refit period. This was carried out by Devonport Management Limited at their Devonport Royal Dockyard facility and lasted around 12 months. Following this major period of maintenance and upgrading work, Ocean sailed from Plymouth on Wednesday 24 September 2008 to start sea trials. As part of that upgrade, a PyTEC pyrolysising waste recycling unit was fitted. On 18 February 2009, Ocean sailed from Devonport as part of the Taurus 09 deployment. She was joined on this deployment by the landing platform dock , as the flagship of the group, which included Type 23 Frigates and and four ships of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary. This exercise was filmed for the second series of the Channel 5 documentary Warship. In June 2009, Ocean took part in exercise Bersama Shield with HMS Somerset and off the Malay Peninsula. During the air travel disruption after the 2010 Eyjafjallajökull eruption, Prime Minister Gordon Brown assigned