ELIZ­A­BETH GON­ZA­LES

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

The search is on for a group of Venezue­lan na­tion­als lost at sea, af­ter their ves­sel sank near the First Bo­ca, just off the coast of Trinidad. It is be­lieved that one of the Venezue­lans was res­cued by the crew of the Buc­coo Reef fer­ry as it made its sail­ing to To­ba­go.

In a re­lease yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Coast Guard con­firmed the in­ci­dent.

Up to 6 pm, the search for sur­vivors was on­go­ing.

Pas­sen­gers on­board the Buc­coo Reef were left shocked when they spot­ted the man float­ing in the wa­ter and des­per­ate­ly sig­nalling for help.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands the man was spot­ted one hour in­to the sail­ing. Soon af­ter, the cap­tain and crew on­board the ves­sel were alert­ed and the boat made an emer­gency stop.

In a 35-sec­ond video, the man was seen des­per­ate­ly wav­ing to pas­sen­gers stand­ing on the deck. The cap­tain then sound­ed the horn as the man drift­ed in­to the chop­py wa­ters.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day on the in­ci­dent, Na­tion­al In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny chair­man Her­bert George said he was proud the crew was able to save a life.

“I feel hap­py that we were about to res­cue some­body in dis­tress. I feel very hap­py,” he said.

He could not re­call a sim­i­lar in­ci­dent where the Buc­coo Reef and its crew had to un­der­take an emer­gency res­cue.

“The fact that it just hap­pened now, be­cause what if the guy was in the wa­ter and he got run over, al­though we don’t have pro­peller, but it is good,” George said.

The boat docked at the Scar­bor­ough Port just be­fore noon and as pas­sen­gers dis­em­barked, an am­bu­lance was on the com­pound to col­lect the man.

Pas­sen­ger Al­lan Alexan­der said he first thought the man was en­joy­ing a swim.

“Me and oth­er pas­sen­gers were look­ing out the win­dow when we saw the man wav­ing and we just thought it was some­one swim­ming and they were wav­ing in the wa­ter. So, we wave back,” Alexan­der said.

How­ev­er, he said the cab­in crew and cap­tain were even­tu­al­ly alert­ed and the ves­sel turned around.

“The lifeboat came out and they went and pick him up. Ap­par­ent­ly, they dropped some­thing for him, and they went and pick it back up,” he said.

An­oth­er pas­sen­ger, Mar­garete Thomas, said she was hap­py the man was safe.

“The wa­ter was rough but I didn’t want him to drown. I want­ed them to come for him and take him out the wa­ter.”

While some pas­sen­gers were hap­py to help, oth­ers were ir­ri­tat­ed over the ex­tend­ed time the voy­age to To­ba­go took.

The sunken ves­sel is be­lieved to be the same boat the man fell from.

Hun­dreds of so­cial me­dia users praised the cap­tain and crew of the Buc­coo Reef for their swift work. Some even jok­ing­ly ques­tioned if the strand­ed man was Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots po­lit­i­cal leader Wat­son Duke mak­ing a sec­ond at­tempt at his in­fa­mous 2017 swim—from To­ba­go to Trinidad— in protest of the in­ef­fi­cient op­er­a­tions of the sea bridge.

Mean­while, Grena­di­an na­tion­als, com­ment­ing un­der a CNC3 post, won­dered if the man was one of two miss­ing Grena­di­an fish­er­men—Ly­don Fran­cis and Shawn—from Soubise, St An­drew, who dis­ap­peared at sea dur­ing a fish­ing ex­pe­di­tion on Tues­day.

But the re­lease from the Coast Guard ex­plained that the ves­sel left Las Cuevas Bay some­time af­ter mid­night yes­ter­day en route to Venezuela.

The Coast Guard al­so ac­knowl­edged the ef­forts of lo­cal fish­er­men and the crew on­board the Buc­coo Reef for res­cu­ing those who fell over­board.

It said its mar­itime op­er­a­tions com­mand cen­tre is ac­tive­ly en­gaged in search and res­cue op­er­a­tions in the area to con­firm the in­for­ma­tion re­ceived and to lo­cate sur­vivors.

Up to late yes­ter­day, there was no in­for­ma­tion as to how many peo­ple were on­board the ves­sel and feared miss­ing at sea.