Ok, so I got the full scoop on this tragic event up on the fishing grounds. The news clipping said a man and woman went in the water, with the man drowning and the woman surviving. I was concerned for my friends and people I have met while working up there, so finding out more information has helped. Nobody I knew was in the incident, but people I am working with were directly affected.
It was a 17′ self guided boat from the Marabel with a father and an adult daughter aboard. They were at the lighthouse, which means there were swells of some size, the current rips through there and there are shallow areas where things can roil around pretty good. All told, a fun spot to fish in fair conditions. I’m not sure if they were fishing there or just passing through, but somehow they flipped the boat and they were both in the water. The daughter made the decision to stay with the boat rather than swim out to try and help her dad who was not at the boat. Somehow a mayday was called, and a young guide from NIL responded and pulled the lady out of the water. The man was then pulled out, and another guide from NIL administered mouth to mouth and CPR on the man, to no avail. That guide subsequently quit in the following days.
The not so surprising part of all this? Both the man and woman were not wearing flotation. It’s not brain surgery folks, people die when they fall in the ocean. It’s avoidable and tragic and stupid. I remember when Bob Gainey’s daughter drowned a couple of years ago in the Atlantic gulf stream. In those warm waters she would have survived 24 hours before succumbing to exposure, but she didn’t have flotation on when she got swept over board and the rough seas took her down. Wear flotation on the water, ’nuff said.
