June 7th: Still Cleaning, Getting Tired

Although the storm has gone, the aftermath is turning out to be a be a storm all of its own. After over a week of salvage work, we have been able to pull the Water Rats, the On the Fly and the Wahoo out of the water. Each of these boats are somewhat intact and are being worked on. We are still working on salvaging parts and engines from the other boats that went down.

The battle against tides, dirty water and fatigued crew members is beginning to get the best of some of the crew. Another factor that is playing a part in the slowing momentum of the crew is the realization of the irreparable damage done to the sportfishing industry in Quepos. After one hour of boat crushing mayhem, there has been damage done to many different areas of the Quepos fishing community.

A total of 11 boats completely sinking, with one Captain and one Mate per boat, leaves 22 people in the Quepos fishing industry directly out of a job. Add in the managers of the boats, marketing directors and other staff, there are well over 50 people unemployed. With somewhere around three to five family members per employee, there are hundreds of people affected by this loss of boats.

These numbers come only from the amount of boats that completely sunk. If we want to factor in the amount of boats that were seriously damaged and might not be able to fish this season these numbers will be much higher. There is already talk of families moving to other parts of the country to find work to support their families.

So on top of the work that we are doing to the boats, we are working hard to provide relief for the Quepos fishing families that were directly affected by Tropical Storm Alma. In the next few days we will have all of the details worked out for you to be able to donate a little something to help out a fellow fisherman. We would at least like to be able to keep their Seguro Social up to date for a while. This pays for health insurance and some other things for everyone in their family.

Thanks for everyone who has already offered help and thanks for the tons of concerned friends of the site. We really appreciate your concern during this time.

I have included a few pictures of the most demonstrative pictures of what happened that night.

Thanks for your support,

Nap