Lump in throat. Check. Tear in eye. Check. Boat at the bottom of the ocean... Check.
At around 4 o'clock in the afternoon on May 29th 2008 the Quepos Fishing Report lost a good friend, The Precedent, to the amazing amount of water that plowed through the rivers from Tropical Storm Alma.
As the water came from the mountains and plowed through the rivers, shutting down bridges and flooding homes, it had to come out somewhere. One of those somewheres happened to be the narrow estuary where the boats were all moored together in a giant ball in hopes of protecting one another from the rain and winds.
When the unstoppable surge of water came through the estuary, it broke the mooring lines that the boats were tied to and sent the entire ball of boats floating down the river and into the ocean... still tied together.
The end result was a total loss of somewhere between 9 and 11 boats as they turned sideways and upside down, crashing into each other and destroying one another... and then taking the final plunge.
And I'm not sure how this happened, but thank God that it did, but noone was seriously injured during the mayhem as captains went down with their ships and crew members swam the river to get to their battered and sinking boats. It is a true miracle that nobody died.
So needless to say there is a glum atmosphere in Quepos right now as we spend day after day diving for salvageable parts of our boats. We removed one engine today and might float two of the smaller boats tomorrow. All we can do is hope they are salvageable.
We would like to send a huge Quepos Fishing Report thank you to Harold from the Pez Vela Marina for letting us use his equipment and his marina to remove what we can of the boats. And another Quepos Fishing Report thank you to Janette and Bob of Manuel Antonio Divers and Oceans Unlimited Divers for all of the time, equipment and divers that they have donated to our search and rescue missions. Everything would be a total loss without you guys.
On a lighter note the fishing is pretty good right now for the boats that are fishing. The Blue Fin boats went out yesterday and caught some Sails. The Lamanta went out today and released two Sailfish and brought home some dinner Dorado.
I will be updating the Fish Quepos site over the next few days... so if you need to know which boats are still available for charter shoot us an email.
This is a picture if the bunch of boats a day before the accident and before about another 25 boats tied up to the ones pictured.
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