A fishing trip, some six miles in the area of Prickly Pear, one ofAnguilla’s offshore cays, has left two Anguillian families relieved, but a third family bearing the brunt of the loss of one of its members.
Alive and well, after some observation and treatment at thePrincessAlexandraHospital, are Claude Richardson, originally of West End now a resident at Blowing Point, and George Romney also ofBlowing Point Road. Missing, and presumed dead, is Cecil Edwards, alias Kitto/St. Kitts, of Sandy Ground, the eldest of the three.
Reports state that the trio left Sandy Ground on Kitto’s 24-foot fishing boat, Miss B, on Friday afternoon about 4 o’clock to fish by line for yellow tail snappers. They were due back around 4 or 5 o’clock on Saturday morning, but did not show up, raising much concern by nightfall. It was reported that about 3 o’clock that morning, while fishing, a wave swamped and capsized the boat which began drifting after it could not be righted by the fishermen who held on to it.
Keith Brooks, a well-known boatman at Sandy Ground, and a close friend of Kitto, is said to have been among those who initiated the search for the men which continued until around 1.30 on Sunday afternoon, January 29. The overturned boat, to which Richardson and Romney were clinging, was spotted around that time some 29 miles west ofRoadBayand about 18 miles offDogIsland. It was reported that Kitto, unable to hold on any longer, gave up and disappeared about half an hour before they were seen by a fixed-wing aircraft from the Martinique Maritime Rescue Services.
Richardson and Romney, exhausted by the 33-hour ordeal, were brought ashore by Who See, a tour boat captained by Douglas Carty, whose crew members included Aristo Richardson, one of the search organisers.“I had hoped to bring back three men, but I brought only two instead,” Carty said, as they were taken to the hospital ambulance.
The loss of Kitto, who was said to have been reluctant to go on the fishing trip, is a blow to the Sandy Ground community, in particular, where he was a popularly-known figure at the beach. It was not possible to bring ashore his green-painted boat with white and yellow trimmings.
The search craft included two locally-owned planes, one from Anguilla Air Services, flown by Avery Thomas, and Trans-Anguilla, piloted by Tony Webster. Martinique’s Maritime and Rescue Services and theUSand British Virgin Islands’ Coast Guard Services were requested to search for the fishermen byAnguilla’s Commissioner of Police, Rudolph Proctor, who said the Police received the report about the missing
fishermen at 7 p.m. on Saturday. He and colleagues travelled to the search area on Gotcha, another of the tour boats at Sandy Ground. They would normally have made the trip on the Police Launch, Dolphin, but it is currently out of service.
