Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

On­ly one buoy was al­leged­ly found dur­ing a court-or­dered site vis­it to the Buc­coo Reef Ma­rine Park to as­sess whether its bound­aries are clear­ly de­mar­cat­ed.

At­tor­neys for the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) and jet ski own­ers toured the park on Mon­day along­side rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Di­vi­sion of En­vi­ron­ment aboard a THA reef pa­trol ves­sel.

The Di­vi­sion of Le­gal Af­fairs post­ed pic­tures of the site vis­it on so­cial me­dia while blur­ring the faces of the pas­sen­gers aboard.

The vis­it was or­dered by Jus­tice Sher­lanne Pierre dur­ing a vir­tu­al hear­ing on May 1 as she ex­tend­ed an in­junc­tion filed by the THA against jet ski own­ers.

An emer­gency in­junc­tion was grant­ed to the THA on April 23, ban­ning all jet ski ac­tiv­i­ties at Pi­geon Point Her­itage Park and the ma­rine park.

It fol­lowed the trag­ic death of sev­en-year-old An­gel­i­ca Jo­gie, who was struck and killed by a jet ski while in the bathing-on­ly zone at the pop­u­lar beach on April 8.

The THA had com­plained that jet ski op­er­a­tors were still whizzing by close to the shore­line at Pi­geon Point and putting bathers at risk.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, at­tor­ney Saman­tha Law­son, who is rep­re­sent­ing six jet ski own­ers, said there are five points de­not­ing the perime­ter of the ma­rine park. How­ev­er, she said on Mon­day, they were un­able to iden­ti­fy mark­ers for the ma­jor­i­ty of points.

“They were tak­ing us to see these five buoys, but on­ly one was seen,” she said.

Dur­ing the hear­ing, Jus­tice Pierre asked the par­ties whether the ma­rine park was clear­ly de­mar­cat­ed so jet ski op­er­a­tors would know where they are pro­hib­it­ed from en­ter­ing. At­tor­ney Christlyn Moore replied that it was, but Law­son said she was ad­vised oth­er­wise by her clients.

Pierre in­struct­ed both at­tor­neys to vis­it the ma­rine park to de­ter­mine whether it was clear­ly de­mar­cat­ed with buoys.

She said if there was none, then it should be in­stalled.

Pierre al­so tasked the at­tor­neys with de­ter­min­ing whether the bound­aries — if clear­ly de­fined — com­plied with the co­or­di­nates in the rel­e­vant statute.

She said all “live is­sues” sur­round­ing the case should al­so be dis­cussed by the at­tor­neys.

En­vi­ron­ment Sec­re­tary Dar­rel Hen­ry told Guardian Me­dia he is ex­pect­ing a re­port on the site vis­it on his desk to­day.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands there was some ten­sion on Mon­day as de­fen­dants com­plained they were not part of the of­fi­cial vis­it.

One stake­hold­er who wished to stay anony­mous ar­gued that THA of­fi­cials (part of the claimant) were per­mit­ted aboard the THA pa­trol boat while they were de­barred.

In­stead, jet ski op­er­a­tors and reef tour stake­hold­ers board­ed their own ves­sel and fol­lowed the pa­trol boat around the park.

A reef tour op­er­a­tor re­port­ed­ly was al­lowed to board the pa­trol boat briefly to con­sult with Law­son.

Stake­hold­ers said they want­ed to ad­vise Law­son to in­spect the buoys close­ly for moss, bar­na­cles and oth­er ev­i­dence it had been in the wa­ter.

Jet ski op­er­a­tors said they were wary that buoys were be­lat­ed­ly placed in the wa­ter.

In an up­date on the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to An­gel­i­ca’s death, Snr Supt Rod­hill Kirk said “some doc­u­ments” have been sent to the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP), but a meet­ing is ex­pect­ed to be sched­uled to fi­nalise cer­tain de­tails.

A 32-year-old sus­pect was ar­rest­ed at his home in Canaan on April 9, hours af­ter flee­ing the scene. He was lat­er re­leased pend­ing fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tions.