To­ba­go Emer­gency Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (TEMA) Di­rec­tor Al­lan Stew­art says au­thor­i­ties will shut down il­le­gal night par­ties at sea im­me­di­ate­ly, fol­low­ing the sink­ing of an­oth­er ves­sel at No Man’s Land on Sat­ur­day night.

Stew­art con­firmed that a ves­sel op­er­at­ing in the Buc­coo Reef Ma­rine Park area took on wa­ter and went un­der. All peo­ple on board were evac­u­at­ed safe­ly, but Stew­art not­ed the boat was op­er­at­ing with­out the nec­es­sary ap­provals and may have been over­loaded.

He said ac­tion will be tak­en against the ves­sel’s op­er­a­tor.

“There is a strong pos­si­bil­i­ty that that ves­sel will al­so be ground­ed and its li­cence sus­pend­ed un­til fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tion proves oth­er­wise,” he said.

“What is hap­pen­ing at Buc­coo is un­ten­able. It’s not some­thing that the ad­min­is­tra­tion, nor those of us in the se­cu­ri­ty arms, are com­fort­able with,” Stew­art added. “These law­less be­hav­iours must be stamped out al­most im­me­di­ate­ly. And I am adamant that it will, based on the re­sources that are be­ing made avail­able.”

This lat­est in­ci­dent comes weeks af­ter an­oth­er il­le­gal par­ty boat cap­sized in the same area, car­ry­ing par­ty­go­ers. Stew­art con­firmed that in­ves­ti­ga­tions have al­ready be­gun and that the se­cu­ri­ty re­sponse is be­ing es­ca­lat­ed.

“One of the things we know is that the ves­sel took in wa­ter and sank safe­ly. All the peo­ple were re­lo­cat­ed, and there was an im­me­di­ate re­sponse by law en­force­ment in strate­gic lo­ca­tions,” he said.

He stressed that the ves­sel should nev­er have been at sea.

“We know that no per­mis­sions were grant­ed to this ves­sel. Based on the in­ves­ti­ga­tion so far, sev­er­al re­quire­ments re­lat­ed to its li­cence and op­er­a­tions were not in or­der,” Stew­art said, adding that there is “a strong pos­si­bil­i­ty” the ves­sel will be ground­ed and its li­cence sus­pend­ed.

Stew­art al­so con­firmed that many night-time boat cruis­es mar­ket­ed around To­ba­go are op­er­at­ing il­le­gal­ly.

“These are il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties. No per­mit has been grant­ed to any­one to host a par­ty in that space,” he said.

He urged vis­i­tors to pro­tect them­selves by re­quest­ing to see per­mits be­fore board­ing.

“It is your right to ask whether a per­mit is avail­able. If some­one wants to take you on a night cruise in the ma­rine park, let them show you that they have the nec­es­sary ap­provals,” he said.

In ad­di­tion to lack­ing per­mits, Stew­art said the par­ty ves­sels al­so vi­o­late ma­rine park noise reg­u­la­tions.

He con­firmed that sur­veil­lance will in­crease in the com­ing months.

“We will con­tin­ue to con­duct the nec­es­sary sur­veil­lance us­ing what­ev­er as­sets are avail­able to us,” he said, adding that rec­om­men­da­tions for ad­di­tion­al ma­rine pa­trol re­sources are now “be­ing pe­rused” by the Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil.

—Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les