The Tribune

By LETRE SWEETING

SISTERS of the boaters who disappeared at sea on Monday are awaiting progress in the search for their loved ones who were travelling from Bimini to Andros.

On Sunday, brothers Christopher Mackey, an employee of the Water and Sewerage Corporation, and Jerome Sands, a carpenter and boat engine repair man, went to Florida to retrieve a bright yellow and white used boat for a buyer in Nassau. As they were travelling, the boat experienced issues with one of its two engines and the hull.

Still both men made it safely to Bimini, where they stopped to get assistance from a relative, Tony Sands, and other relatives on the island, before heading back on the water toward the closest island Andros, where the brothers had other relatives that were willing to assist them.

Themeia Sands, sister of the missing boaters, said the trip from Bimini to Andros was where the situation turned grim.

“Now after speaking with Tony, Tony assured me that he told them to try and get a flight out of Bimini instead of trying to take the boat back. To which my brothers thought that they could have made it. So, they repaired whatever part it was and then they left Bimini around the hours of three and four o’clock that Monday afternoon. Mind you, before they left on the boat, they tried to get a plane out, but everything was full coming out of Bimini. So, they got on the boat and tried to make a voyage on the boat to get to Andros. We haven’t heard from them since,” Ms Sands said.

She added, “They were basically travelling on the grace of God and that one boat engine.”

Another sister, Talinda Rolle said, “They are not fishermen, one of them works for Water and Sewerage and the other one is a carpenter. They frequent the waters often, because my brother Jerome Sands, he fixes boats and he owns one or two vessels as well.”

Ms Rolle said, “To my knowledge the last information I received from a relative in Bimini, was that they left Bimini, headed for Andros, on Monday after 3pm. They never reached Andros. They contacted my brother in Andros to be on the lookout for them, because the boat was experiencing issues. My brother stayed on the dock until two am Tuesday morning, they never arrived. And that’s when we got alarmed.”

In addition to getting assistance from Bahamas Air Sea Rescue Association (BASRA), the Royal Bahamas Defence Force and the United States Coast Guard, Ms Rolle said she also officially reported her brother missing on Wednesday.

“We reached out to the Defense Force and BASRA from Tuesday morning after they didn’t arrive on Monday evening. Yesterday (Wednesday), I went to the Carmichael Road Police Station and officially filed a missing person’s report myself. We also had a number of family and friends who would have gotten airplanes and boats. Over the last two days, they have been searching along the area for them and we haven’t found anything as yet,” said Ms Rolle.

BASRA operations manager, Captain Chris Lloyd echoed Ms Rolle’s sentiments. He said that BASRA and RBDF search and rescue officers have found nothing in their searches thus far.

Obviously it’s lobster season, a large number of vessels are in the vicinity between Bimini, Andros and Nassau. And even if it wasn’t lobster season, that’s a very highly trafficked area. We had multiple aircraft searches and assistance from the US Coast Guard. Nothing has been seen,” Mr Lloyd said.

“It’s a bright yellow boat, if you’re talking to other boats in the area they would remember if they saw it with no difficulty,” he said.

Mr Lloyd added that the brothers on the boat had a few emergency items that should have hopefully helped them avoid a truly terrible situation.

“From studying the photos, we can see a VHF (very high frequency) radio and there’s no obvious sign of an antenna and there’s no obvious sign of a GPS, but the two men made it from Florida to Bimini, across the ocean. It was reported that there was mechanical damage, but then later after some investigation we determined that the vessel had in fact had a compromised hull. They were advised not to travel, put it on the mailboat,” he said.

“We do know from the picture, that the boat had a six-pack of life jackets. There was no other sign of any safety equipment, but, if something terrible happened each of them would have three life jackets to hold on to, which would be very visible as well from the air and by boat,” Mr Lloyd said.

This is the second incident in the last two months involving damaged boats at sea.

On July 25, 17 migrants died and some 25 people were rescued after a twin engine speed boat suspected of being involved in a human smuggling operation capsized off New Providence.