(The following article by Michael Marizco and Ignacio Ibarra was posted on the Arizona Daily Star website on October 30. Randy Howard is a member of BLE Division 28 in Tucson.)
PUERTO PEÑASCO, Sonora — Winds that gusted up to 50 mph and 6-foot waves forced the Mexican navy Thursday to abandon its effort to bring an overturned fishing boat to port.
There was still no sign of the five missing fishermen from Tucson, and Mexican officials, friends and family members plan to continue their search.
The five men had gone to Puerto Peñasco, also known as Rocky Point, to go sport fishing Saturday morning and were expected back in port Saturday night. When they failed to return, Mexican officials began searching for the boat.
Missing are: Mark Brinke, 47; Daryl Holland, 42; Carl Hopper, 42; and Randy Howard, 47, and his son Joshua Howard, 21.
The 24-foot catamaran the men were riding was sitting 35 miles out from Puertecitos, a fishing town on the Baja side of the Gulf of California. A navy helicopter was to keep an eye on the vessel overnight, said Capt. Florentino Muñoz Medina, commander of the Mexican Navy detachment in Puerto Peñasco.
The P210 Ramirez, the navy patrol boat assigned to the overturned boat, returned to Puerto Peñasco in the afternoon, its crew exhausted and the bow slightly damaged.
“The conditions of the sea were not favorable,” said Capt. Oscar Valencia Palacios, the ship’s commander.
The catamaran is still upside down, though divers entered and ascertained nobody was inside, said Sergio Dominguez, a navy diver.
Two ships were dispatched from Guaymas Thursday and the catamaran will likely be towed farther up the coast to San Felipe, a coastal town north of Puertecitos, Muñoz said.
While the rescue effort continues, Muñoz said if the men survived, it is unlikely they remain in the water. He said no ships have reported picking them up and many people live on and fish the islands the men might have reached.