TWO men, one of them the nephew of Dr Jean Ramjohn-Richards, wife of President George Maxwell Richards, remained missing at sea up to late yesterday after the boat they were in overturned when their nets were snagged by a passing tug on Saturday morning.
The incident occurred around 3.30 a.m. while the men were conducting a marine life survey off the east coast in Mayaro.
Carl Ramjohn, 36, of Caledonia Road, Lange Park in Chaguanas, and Floyd Lucas, 38, of Henry Pierre Terrace, St Augustine, were on the boat with their colleague, 31-year-old Ryan Mohammed, of Princes Town, and the boat’s captain, 46-year-old Cyril Adolphus, of Plaisance Road, Mayaro.
Ramjohn, whose father is Ramjohn-Richards’s brother Lucas, and Mohammed are employed with a statistical environmental company which was subcontracted by Canadian oil and gas company Petro-Canada to collect data on the marine life in the area. Adolphus was hired to take the men out to sea on his 28-foot-long pirogue From Dusk to Dawn.
In an interview yesterday, a weary-looking Adolphus, a fisherman for the past 12 years, recounted the moments which led up to the disappearance of Ramjohn and Lucas and left himself and Mohammed adrift for approximately 12-and-a-half hours.
The father of two said he and the men, who were all wearing life jackets, were about five miles away from an oil tanker and had thrown a net.
’We were there for a little while when a tug came from the south side, going up Galeota, and it hooked the net,’ Adolphus said.
’The sea was rough so the boat turned over. I ended up under the boat and I stayed there a while until I managed to come up and hold on to the engine. I pulled myself up, sat down on the engine and tied myself down so I would not fall off.
’I saw two of the men a good way off and I was calling them to come towards the boat. They were swimming towards the boat but one of them started to fall back. One reached close to the boat and I was able to stretch my hand and pull him up on the engine with me.’
The man, identified as Mohammed, also tied himself to the engine to prevent him from being knocked off the boat by the rough waves.
Adolphus and Mohammed were rescued at around 4 p.m. by another fishing boat, about ten miles from shore, and were taken to the Princes Town Hospital, where they were treated and discharged.
A thankful Adolphus told the Express that it was prayers which kept him and Mohammed safe.
’I was praying to God to guide and keep us alive. He answered our prayers. At a certain time, I thought I wouldn’t make it. If we didn’t get assistance, we wouldn’t have made it because when the boat picked us up we were cramping and couldn’t hold anything.’
Members of Lucas’s family were gathered on the beach at Guayaguayare in hopeful anticipation of his safe return.
His brother Ricardo told the Express that he last saw Lucas on Friday evening. Ricardo said Lucas was not a ’very strong’ swimmer but hoped that his chances for survival were increased because of the life jacket he was wearing.
Public relations officer of the T&T Coast Guard’s Civil/Naval Affairs Unit, Lt Kirk Jean-Baptiste, confirmed that the Coast Guard had joined in the search for the missing men.
Jean-Baptiste said two of the Coast Guard’s vessels are on patrol along the east and south-east coasts and a helicopter from the Trinidad and Tobago Air Guard is also assisting in the search.
He said the Venezuelan Coast Guard was contacted via its embassy located in Port of Spain and an air-and-sea search is also being conducted in the waters off Venezuela.
