Lost at sea

WESTERN BUREAU:

AFTER MORE than 20 years of fishing, 37-year-old Larry Gordon of Black River, St Elizabeth, has had three life-threatening experiences, but none more telling than the last, when he and two other men survived anchoring their boat on a fish pot for seven days.

The three men who survived at sea in a 32-feet Eduardono fishing boat returned home on Tuesday, July 2, hours before the passage of Hurricane Beryl. At the time when they were at sea, they admitted knowing nothing about the danger posed by Hurricane Beryl and for that expressed thanks to the Almighty.

Gordon, and his 32-year-old friend, Fitzroy Foster, of a Gordon district address in Whitehouse, and 45-year-old Fitzroy ‘Dirty Money’ Munroe, who is originally from Parrottee, St Elizabeth, but now resides in Whitehouse, all departed from the Whitehouse fishing village on Wednesday, June 26 on what was intended to be a routine fishing trip to Pedro Cays and back within approximately four days.

In relating his experience, Gordon said the boat, captained by Munroe, did not make it to Pedro Cays because of seas that caused them to change their course and use more gasoline. Eventually, they ran out of gas miles away on high seas.

“On our way to the Pedro Cays, the rain squall and the breeze took us over and we got separated from our pilot boat, so we were left on our own when we ran out of gas and ended up in difficulties,” said Gordon.

“To try and save our lives. We tied our boat on a fish pot and stayed there for seven days, anchoring on the fish pot,” he shared with The Gleaner, hours after reconnecting with his family.

With each passing day their plight, he said, became more challenging, even in faith, as he recounted the temptation by one crew member to give up because they had gone for so long and not seen another boat in sight to help them. Additionally, they ran out of food.

“We went four days without food and water, so it was a very rough encounter that we had to go through,” Gordon recalled.

Those days, he said, were the most difficult he had encountered in all his years of fishing.

“This is the third time that I ran into difficulties at sea, but this time was my first serious and difficult encounter.”

He said on one occasion the boat in which he was sailing sank, and on the other occasion the boat caught fire. However, Gordon said he managed to swim toward other boats that were close, to be rescued, and because of the fire, he swam to a nearby island.

FEAR OF DEATH

On this occasion, however, Gordon said he feared they would die.

“I was concerned that if nobody came to our rescue we were going to die of thirst and hunger, because we had ran out of food and water,” said Gordon.

He added that they were even more worried about Foster, who was making his maiden voyage to Pedro Cays and was fretting about being lost at sea.

“Just hours before we got rescued by a small boat, my friend was saying he was frustrated and ready to give up and that he was not going to make it out alive,” said Gordon.

“I turned to him and said, ‘Yow dawg, have a little faith, we have made it thus far; help will soon come’.”

Munroe, a fishing boat captain of more than 20 years said this was his first encounter being lost at sea.

FIRST NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCE

He said having run out of gas, he no longer had control of his boat and it drifted with the current and wind.

“This was my first near-death encounter at sea, in all my years of fishing. It was rough, especially when our food ran out,” Munroe shared with The Gleaner.

He explained further that on previous occasions when his boat drifted far out into a channel, he would normally have adequate supplies of gas and food.

Like Gordon, Munroe said he too was more concerned about Foster as this was his first experience on high seas.

“I was fretting and praying that help would come our way, largely for the little youth. I had to beg him not to talk too much in order to maintain his strength, especially that he had not eaten anything for four days,” Morris recounted.

For his part, Foster said he has hypertension issues and was badly shaken up from the ordeal.

“It was not a pleasant experience. I was scared, just being out there on the water during the nights. This experience stressed me out, especially when we ran out of food and water,” said Foster.

The men were rescued by a passing vessel on July 2.

On land, their families expressed being optimistic that their loved ones would make it home ahead of Hurricane Beryl.

In a Gleaner article published on July 3, the day Hurricane Beryl made landing in Jamaica, and when it was discovered that the men had also made safe landing, in Clarendon, Gordon’s mother, Maxine Venner, admitted shedding tears of joy.

“He said they were coming home and I started to cry,” said Venner while giving thanks to God and revealling that she had spoken with her son for the first time in seven days.

“This feeling that I now have is hard to explain. It is ‘unexplainable’, and I am just giving God all the praise and glory for answering my prayers and for keeping my son alive,” Venner told The Gleaner.

Foster’s cousin Tanisha Parchment said at the time she knew they were alive.

“I know they were not dead; they had drifted. My greatest fear not hearing from my cousin and his friends was the coming of Hurricane Beryl,” she told The Gleaner.

While lost at sea, the fishermen expressed having no knowledge that Hurricane Beryl, with maximum sustained wind speeds of more than 160 mph, was on the seas and a threat to Jamaica.

Beryl descended on the shores of Jamaica at category-4 leaving sections of the island devastated.

“It was when I got home I learned that a storm was coming the day after they rescued us,” said Munroe. “And immediately I said I was not destined to die at sea and I started to give God thanks for that.”

albert.ferguson@gleanerjm.com