KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

A Moru­ga fam­i­ly and the fish­ing com­mu­ni­ty there are ques­tion­ing how two pirogues man­aged to col­lide in open wa­ters, which led to the death of vet­er­an fish­er­man Le­ston “Mum­ble Jack” Dou­glas yes­ter­day.

A po­lice re­port stat­ed that Dou­glas, 62, of L’Anse Mi­tan Road, Gran Chemin, and his com­mon-law wife Ap­polo­nia Cae­sar, 35, were fish­ing in his 27-foot pirogue, Hum­ming Bird, just off Marac.

Around 12.30 am, an­oth­er pirogue, “Li­bra,” cap­tained by a 44-year-old Moru­ga fish­er­man, col­lid­ed with their ves­sel.

The Hum­ming Bird be­gan to sink send­ing Dou­glas and Cae­sar in­to the wa­ter. The Li­bra’s cap­tain man­aged to res­cue the cou­ple tak­ing them on­to his pirogue.

When Moru­ga po­lice of­fi­cers WPC Bob­combe and PC Ward ar­rived at the scene, they saw Emer­gency Med­ical Tech­ni­cians at­tempt­ing to re­sus­ci­tate Dou­glas on the shore. How­ev­er, he re­mained un­re­spon­sive and was even­tu­al­ly de­clared dead.

One fish­er­man told Guardian Me­dia he heard that low light­ing was the is­sue, but an­oth­er fish­er­man said Dou­glas al­ways went to sea at night with a light on his pirogue. Fish­er­men said the light al­lows the cap­tain and crew to lo­cate each oth­er.

Out­side Dou­glas’ home yes­ter­day, his son El­van Dou­glas said, based on the in­for­ma­tion he got, his fa­ther was re­tract­ing his fish­ing net from the wa­ter when the col­li­sion oc­curred. There­fore, he would have need­ed a light to see what he was pulling.

“I find it very hard to be­lieve. Know­ing my fa­ther, he is a man of or­der. Every­thing he does, he keeps a record. If he goes to the hard­ware and buys 100 blocks, he writes it down. If he sells 200 lbs of fish, he writes it down. He was a man who liked to keep every­thing in or­der, from gas and en­gine to boat and net,” El­van said.

El­van said his fa­ther had been fish­ing all his life, and he even ac­com­pa­nied him twice. El­van smiled as he re­called the large catch they made. How­ev­er, he could not make fre­quent trips with his fa­ther be­cause of sea­sick­ness.

El­van said he was await­ing the re­sults of an au­top­sy be­fore de­ter­min­ing his next steps.

Mean­while, the Hum­ming Bird re­mains at sea, some­where around Marac.