Kevon Felmine

27-year-old Moru­ga fish­er­man, Phillip "Ba­too" Be­har­ry's death was prob­a­bly caused by his hes­i­tan­cy to re­lease a mal­func­tion­ing en­gine in­to the sea. Now rel­a­tives mourn af­ter his bloat­ed corpse washed up on La Lune Beach in Moru­ga on Mon­day, two days af­ter he drowned off the coast of Guayagua­yare.

Friends of Be­har­ry said he was a re­cip­i­ent of threats and ver­bal abuse for years and was even ac­cused of steal­ing. They said he had no oth­er choice but to fish for a liv­ing as he want­ed to fin­ish con­struc­tion of his house this year. Be­har­ry was among four men who left the La Rufin Riv­er on Fri­day for a fish­ing ex­pe­di­tion near Point Ga­le­o­ta, when the pirogue they oc­cu­pied cap­sized and sank, pitch­ing them in­to the rough wa­ters.

Two of his col­leagues, 27-year-old Tris "Pa­pi" Gulcha­ran and Richard "Dave" Rahim, 30, sur­vived the chop­py wa­ters and to safe­ty at the Casha­coo Isth­mus near Guayagua­yare. How­ev­er Be­har­ry per­ished while swim­ming for sev­er­al hours af­ter be­ing in the wa­ter from 11 pm on Fri­day in­to Sat­ur­day. The fourth vic­tim, Sel­wyn Sci­pio of New Grant was re­port­ed to have dis­ap­peared un­der­wa­ter with­in min­utes af­ter the boat sank.

Be­har­ry's body was dis­cov­ered around 2.30 pm by es­tate con­sta­ble Rudy Rame­sar, of Pe­ga­sus Se­cu­ri­ty Lim­it­ed, sta­tioned at the La Lune De­sali­na­tion Plant. Rame­sar told po­lice that he was mak­ing his rou­tine check around the com­pound when he dis­cov­ered the body on the shore.

Ac­cord­ing to Gulcha­ran and Rahim, Sci­pio died be­cause he had no life jack­et and could not swim. Be­har­ry who could swim, had no life jack­et and they be­lieve he may have got­ten tired and al­lowed the strong cur­rents to take him away. How­ev­er both Gulcha­ran and Rahim were wear­ing life vests when tragedy struck.

Now Gulcha­ran and Rahim, who suf­fered se­vere sun­burn and mus­cle pain said they will not re­turn to sea. Gulcha­ran, an off­shore work­er at Trin­mar said fish­ing was his hob­by but he was now will­ing to let it go. How­ev­er Rahim, a bona fide fish­er­man and fa­ther of two, will be search­ing for a new source of in­come as he is now ter­ri­fied of the sea. He said it's not the first time that he ex­pe­ri­enced dif­fi­cul­ty at sea, but it was the first time he lost a friend while fish­ing.

Speak­ing at their La Rufin Road home yes­ter­day, a de­ject­ed look­ing Samuel Be­har­ry said the own­er of the pirogue was fu­ri­ous af­ter Rahim and Gulcha­ran came back with­out the boat. "He did not even be­lieve that any­thing had hap­pened un­til he saw my broth­er's dead body on the beach. He start­ed to cuss and get on and the on­ly thing he was con­cerned about was his boat."

Rahim added that he had re­ceived threats to the safe­ty of his fam­i­ly and him­self un­til Be­har­ry's body turned up. Friends and fam­i­ly de­scribed Be­har­ry as a limer and lover who was pop­u­lar around the vil­lage. Gulcha­ran said it was dif­fi­cult to bear the loss of his child­hood friend as they both at­tend­ed the Moru­ga Ro­man Catholic School. Mean­while, up to yes­ter­day, fish­er­men and the Coast Guard con­tin­ued the search for Sci­pio.