senoritafish | (no subject)

From VT:

Copied from the SB Newspress

Captain rescued, was found clinging to rocks

When the fishing boat Five Gs went down in the darkness late Monday or early Tuesday a few miles off of Santa Cruz Island, skipper Clifton Kent and his two crewmen didn't have time to radio for help or put on survival gear before hitting the chilly 60-degree water.
Two of the men strapped themselves to a buoy, hoping to be saved. They didn't make it.

Mr. Kent, a surfer and sometime urchin diver, made it to shore. "He survived ?cause he's a better swimmer," said Gordon Cota, a retired fisherman who worked out of Santa Barbara Harbor for 40 years.
One of the dead was Michael Caligiuri, a 47-year-old father of two, his family confirmed Tuesday. He is survived by a daughter who is a senior in college and a 14-year-old son, said his wife, Linda. Family and friends had gathered at the Caligiuri home Tuesday night and were trying to figure out what went wrong.
Mr. Caligiuri's family once owned the Chase Palm restaurant, friends said. Although he'd had a commercial fishing license, he'd only recently gone back to fishing.

A 45-year-old man also died.

The three men were longtime friends, said Mr. Caligiuri's brother, adding he still didn't know what had happened. "We still haven't talked to Cliff," the brother said. "We're still finding things out right now. We're in shock."
The men were well-known at the harbor, and though authorities had not released the names of the dead, most of the fishermen knew who had died.

"Everybody knows who they are," said sheriff's Sgt. Erik Raney. "Everyone knows who's missing. It's a tight-knit community. But for us as a coroner's office, unless we have a photo ID on the victims, we need to confirm through fingerprints or dental records that they are in fact the people we believe them to be and then notify their next of kin."

In the past 20 years, 14 fishermen have died while working the waters off Santa Barbara. Although the ocean around the Channel Islands is not renowned for its dangers, fishing is a notoriously perilous profession.

Several fishing boats were in the area where the Five Gs sank, but none reported hearing or seeing anything. It wasn't until morning that several boaters noticed a sheen of fuel on the water and debris, including cushions and fishing gear. That's when the search began, said John Bridley, Santa Barbara waterfront director.
Mr. Kent was plucked off a rock outcropping near Painted Cave on the northwest side of the island after the crew of a passing dive boat, the Peace, out of Ventura, spotted him. They sent out a dingy and picked him up about 8:45 a.m. The bodies of the two crewmen were found floating in the water near where the 36-foot steel-hull boat sank.

Officials believe Mr. Kent had been clinging to the rocks for hours before being rescued. A Coast Guard helicopter hoisted him off the deck of the Peace and took him to St. John's Regional Medical Center, where he was treated for exposure and then released.
He was not at home Tuesday. A neighbor said Coast Guard investigators had come by looking for him ? searching for any clue about what might have caused the boat to sink. Several agencies are investigating, including the Coast Guard, the California Department of Fish and Game and the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department.
At the harbor, Michael Harrington, an urchin diver unloading his catch Tuesday afternoon, was shocked by the news of the accident. He has known Mr. Kent for years and said he hadn't heard anything on the radio overnight.

Typically, fishermen working an area watch out for each other, and when things go wrong, the news spreads quickly. However, few of the fishermen unloading their catch of urchins and sea cucumbers had any answers.

"Whatever it was, it happened really quick," said Mr. Cota.
Steve Dunn, a local trawler, said Mr. Kent is a well-known fisherman who was likely out looking for white sea bass: "He's at least a second-generation fisherman in Santa Barbara. He's a permanent part of the fishing community."
He said Mr. Kent's crew members vary from time to time, and he is not certain who was on the boat for its final trip.
A woman from the Harbor Market and Deli said she knows the crew members who went out that day, but "we're just waiting for confirmation."

Coast Guard officials are still trying to reach Mr. Kent to hear his account of the tragic story. "At this point, we do not know what happened and are trying to contact him to piece everything together," said Petty Officer Prentice Danner.

I didn't know them, but it's still sad every time we hear of something like this...