Off to a lousy start, looks like a year from hell.

[Gary D.]

We had just finished dinner and the flippin box starts its dreaded obnoxious beeping. I grab it and it reads; “NEED TO RESPOND TO CARLIN BAY MAN FELL OVERBOARD 2380 CALL 2329 1823 042106”.

I kiss the wife and head for the car, light up and check into service at 1824. I check out at the boathouse, 8 miles away at 1830.

I’m the first one there so I grab my belt, main bag and toolbox and head for the door. I unlock everything and get the big boat started. As I’m doing that one by one the team starts showing up.

I get the rest of my gear loaded and help load every thing else and we get underway.

We were lucky and had calm water without a lot of debris to avoid.

While enroute we get a better location. I know that area is between 100’ and 125’ deep and with all the runoff vis will be nothing to talk about.

I’ll post more details later but for now the only diving we did was to check the bottom of a 54’ SeaRay Motor Yacht. What I found was a nice clean bottom with bright and shinny rudders and screws. They had just put it back in the water.

We are faced with a lot of unanswered questions at this point. The only two onboard were the husband and wife owners and he is missing.

I drove the vessel back to the marina and we secured for the night. Back at it at O630. Boy do we need the SS right now. Vis is about 18” with a light at the surface. Temp is 43df.

Here is the general area. More towards the right or east shore but still way out in the lake.
http://terraserver-usa.com/image.aspx?T=1&S=13&Z=11&X=321&Y=3293&W=1

We were the third EMS boat on scene out of 2 fireboats and 3 Sheriff boats. Some group in another big boat was tossing hooks in and criscrossing the area. ????

More later.

Gary D.

 

[Rick Inman]

Just saw you guys on the news. As I recall, that location has a steep wall dropping from just a few feet to 120+ straight down. I guess the boat was on the deep side when the guy "fell" overboard.

I don't envy you guys doing a search in that vis.

 

[Greg D.]

Good luck with this Gary, Stay Safe!

 

[Gary D.]

Here is the right location. I was pooped last night so I was a bit to far north.
http://terraserver-usa.com/image.aspx?T=1&S=13&Z=11&X=322&Y=3290&W=1

The search area is a lot bigger than we thought it was going to be. We looked at the onboard GPS today and where she was and what the GPS is telling us are different. A much bigger area in much deeper water.

We are done searching until the SS gets here sometime on Wednesday.

Surface temp is 43df. At 100' it's 43df. No thermocline. Depth in the search area could now be around 150'.

At idle this vessel runs at 11 knots. It could cover a lot of ground in just a few minutes.

Here is the first news article.
http://www.cdapress.com/articles/2006/04/22/news/news03.txt

Gary D.

 

[Gary D.]

Time after time you hear me say; separate your self from the victim, don’t let yourself get attached, treat the victim with respect but don’t make it personal and let it go when your done.

For 8 years we lived on our boat 7 months out of the year. I only went home to pick up mail, mow the lawns and do laundry.

Living in a marina is a very unique experience. You rub elbows with everyone from the one’s who could barely afford a slip to the mega rich. But out there everyone is more equal.

The group of boaters that surround the missing gentleman are the same group I lived with over those 8 years.

Today things have calmed down a little and we caught up on old times. Some I see on a regular basis and others I haven’t seen for a couple of years. But one thing for sure, we won’t be putting this one out of our minds any time soon.

I have met the missing gentleman but never got to know him, which helps. But seeing the pain in all the people I know is tough.

I do hate this job sometimes and this is one of those times.

Then to top it all off we have been getting some “Rescue” divers calling and saying they could find him within an hour or for a fee they will come and teach us how to dive.

Hummmm, We are looking at absolute zero vis, 43df temps and possible 145 foot depths over what we think is better than a square mile search area. Someone has to be off in Never Land if they think they can just drop down and find him.

This is tough enough without the idiots jumping in.

Gary D.

 

[Jcsgt]

Hey, Gary, that sounds like a tough one. There are a lot of idiots out there, aren't there? Keep up the good work, it sounds like you do one Hell of a job!

 

[renpirate]

I'm sorry that this is a tough one for you. I wish you the best of luck.

 

[DennisW]

Gary, keep up the good work. And take care buddy.

 

[james croft]

Looks like a tough one. Good luck with the side scan. And if all else fails, for a small fee of course, I will give you a dive lesson. Just kidding-Best Wishes.

 

[Gary D.]

Here is todays article. I don't know where they get some of this stuff but here it is.

http://www.cdapress.com/articles/2006/04/23/news/news04.txt

Gary D.