Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

The fam­i­lies of two miss­ing To­ba­go fish­er­men are cling­ing to hope as search­es con­tin­ue.

The men left Pi­geon Point Fish Port at 6 am on Tues­day aboard a white and blue fi­bre­glass pirogue, TFT 1528 – XE­NA, but nev­er re­turned. The Coast Guard has launched a search. How­ev­er, haz­ardous sea con­di­tions have de­layed them.

Al­bert James and Ju­nior Thorne were re­port­ed­ly head­ing south­west to set three fish pots but their ex­act lo­ca­tion was not dis­closed. Rel­a­tives raised the alarm af­ter they failed to re­turn as ex­pect­ed.

In a state­ment, the To­ba­go Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency (TEMA) said rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties have been alert­ed, in­clud­ing the T&T Coast Guard (TTCG), North Post Ra­dio, the Fish­eries De­part­ment, Di­vi­sion of Food Se­cu­ri­ty, Nat­ur­al Re­sources, the En­vi­ron­ment, and Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment and the All-To­ba­go Fish­er­folk As­so­ci­a­tion.

TEMA said search and res­cue op­er­a­tions com­menced up­on no­tice. James’ wife said she is heart­bro­ken and wor­ried but has faith her hus­band will re­turn soon.

The woman, who on­ly want­ed to be iden­ti­fied as San­dra, said this is the first time he had failed to re­turn home from a fish­ing ex­pe­di­tion, and while the sit­u­a­tion is trau­mat­ic, the prayers and sup­port of the com­mu­ni­ty are keep­ing her strong.

She said: “I’m try­ing to be strong, every­body hold­ing me up not on­ly me hold­ing me up. I’m try­ing to be strong not on­ly for me but al­so for the fish­er­men out there be­cause I know with the hot sun and bad sea I’m wish­ing they come home safe.

“The whole en­tire com­mu­ni­ty (is pray­ing). I’m grate­ful for all the as­sis­tance.”

She be­came emo­tion­al as she de­scribed the over­whelm­ing sup­port from fam­i­ly, friends and the com­mu­ni­ty.

“All we pray and wish and hope is that they come back and come back very safe. He has been a fish­er­man all his life,” she said

TEMA teams have set up a sta­tion and an am­bu­lance is on stand­by near the Pi­geon Point Fish­ing Fa­cil­i­ty in case the men need im­me­di­ate med­ical at­ten­tion if they are lo­cat­ed.

A rel­a­tive of Thorne, who didn’t want to be named, said his fam­i­ly re­mains hope­ful de­spite grow­ing con­cern as time pass­es.

“I’m com­fort­able and re­laxed be­cause I know they are safe. I’m just hop­ing they find them. I’m not feel­ing as if they drown or any­thing like that. My spir­it is kind of high,” he said.

Up to 3 pm yes­ter­day, there has been no sight­ing of the miss­ing men. The sec­ond day of the search for the men end­ed un­suc­cess­ful­ly with TEMA di­rec­tor Al­lan Stew­art re­port­ing is­sues with rough seas. He said the Air Guard has been asked to as­sist.

“The search team has re­turned from the ex­pe­di­tion. The four ves­sels that went out did not reap any suc­cess. They are re­port­ing that the search con­di­tions are very rough out­side and we are now de­pend­ing on the Coast Guard and the Air Guard to con­tin­ue op­er­a­tions,” Stew­art said.

“I know they (Air Guard) would have com­plet­ed their flight to­day and we are hop­ing that it brings a re­ward or they (the miss­ing men) are picked up by some pass­ing ves­sel.”