The search for miss­ing div­er Chevonne Bart­hole­mew has stretched to Venezuela.

Coast Guard of­fi­cials said yes­ter­day that they had ex­am­ined the drift pat­tern head­ing north of Venezuela and had con­tact­ed the Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties about the dis­ap­pear­ance of Bart­hole­mew who went miss­ing on Jan­u­ary 29.

His wife, Pe­te-Ann Bart­hole­mew, re­mains con­fi­dent that he will be found alive.

Venezuela’s Guardia Na­cional have been search­ing for Bart­hole­mew.

In an in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Pe­te-Ann said she was hap­py that the search was on­go­ing. Bart­hole­mew’s dis­ap­pear­ance has unit­ed the div­ing fra­ter­ni­ty who are now call­ing for a ban on com­mer­cial scu­ba div­ing.

Bart­hole­mew, 37, of Flam­boy­ant Cres­cent Va­len­cia, dis­ap­peared at sea on Jan­u­ary 30, while in­spect­ing the C Spir­it oil tanker, an­chored off Gas­pa­ree Is­land, Ch­aguara­mas.

The tanker is al­most 1,000 feet long, 230 feet wide and 70 feet in depth.

Bart­hole­mew was hired by Trindivers Un­der­wa­ter Ser­vices and went in­to the wa­ter with an­oth­er scu­ba div­er Lee Be­deau when he dis­ap­peared.

Since the in­ci­dent of­fi­cials form the Div­ing As­so­ci­a­tion have ques­tioned whether prop­er safe­ty pro­to­cols were fol­lowed. They said usu­al­ly scu­ba method is not used for com­mer­cial air div­ing as it was risky. (RDS)