On Wed, 17 Oct 2001 02:35:42 -0400, Dave DeBarger <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
>At the risk of getting torpedoed in the crossfire, I will re-enter this
thread
>briefly to respond to a couple of points concerning my earlier posts:
Dave,
My deepest thanks to you for bringing this episode back ON COURSE,
in discussing what ACTUALLY HAPPENED as opposed to what sharks and
bottom-dwellers MIGHT do in the aftermath! :-)
As always throughout this thread, you have been most forthcoming,
in terms of reporting you FIRST HAND experience and perception,
responding to questions arisen from them (mostly from me) by
CLARIFYING your part, in relation to the FIRST HAND reports of
others.
Through YOUR participation here, I was able to piece together a
much more COHERENT picture of what ACTUALLY HAPPENED (which I
couldn't have done without your input, which was made without
rancor or fanfare).
You presented my ongoing line of inquiry perfectly accurately, in
a logical order it which they arose, to the extent that YOU showed
very well how I was beginning to able to piece together a much
clearer picture from TWO surviving PASSENGERS (you and Mary Lou),
from your points of view and perception, PUT TOGETHER, that
neither of your independent reports could have conveyed singly,
or even jointly, without YOUR further input.
So far, so good!
The discussion between us led me to the obvious questions of what
the CREW were doing, during this entire time of your ordeal of
approximately an hour at sea, WHEN were you finally rescued, by
whom, etc.
That was when HELL broke lose, and went off course onto why the
Captain and crew should be silent, for reasons of probable
litigation, bla, bla, bla. While there are valid reasons for
the authorities of Peter Hughes, Inc. to tell the crew not to
express their OPINION on anything (for reasons of probable
litigation), there is no reason why Peter Hughes himself should
not answer SOME of the factual questions, as a Spokesman for
the organization.
It turned out all of that is unnecessary, because YOU have
provided more than adequate replies to ALL of my questions,
given what you saw first hand!
So, I'll comment on the substance of your present post in
the same spirit that both of us have taken, in our approach
to the DISCUSSION on, and about, what ACTUALLY HAPPENED at
the scene.
Without further ado, let's continue.
>Reef Fish wrote:
>
>> >> For example,
>> >> you said the whole thing happened in 15 seconds. I questioned that
>> >> perception, but chose not to follow-up. Another passenger, Mary Lou
>> >> Hayden seemed to have a rather different perception of the same event.
>> >> She singled out that fact that the three of you spent 45 minutes at a
>> >> life raft calling out to your collegues.
>> >
[DD] These are two different events. I stated that the capsizing
[DD] of the Wave Dancer -- from the first hit that threw me across
[DD] the vessel until the boat was upside down and filling with
[DD] water -- lasted no longer than 12 - 15 seconds. You apparently
[DD] thought that this time estimate included the time it took me to
[DD] get out of the boat to safety. Not so.
>>
[RFL] Glad you clarified this point. That was why I wondered how
[RFL] the CREW could have gotten to the window to pull you out ...
[RFL] in 15 seconds! The hit that threw you across the vessel must
[RFL] have been the SAME hit experienced by the crew and everyone
[RFL] else on the boat, isn't it?
>
>I can't comment upon what the crew or other passengers experienced.
>I was on the main cabin deck, most of the others were elsewhere.
>I'm sure we all suffered from the same "hits" although our differing
>locations may have resulted in our experiencing them in different ways.
>
[RFL] But in your original post "I'm still alive", you wrote,
*> Wave Dancer broke
*> loose from its moorings and capsized. Sixteen passengers and
*> three crew members are known dead, two passengers are still missing
*> and presumed dead; The whole episode took about fifteen seconds.
[RFL] It wasn't at all clear what you meant by "the whole episode".
>
>I apologize. My original post on the tragedy (from which you drew the
>above quote) was written immediately after I returned home from Belize.
>I was tired -- emotionally and physically -- and wanted only to post a
>brief advisory about the tragedy so that my friends on the list would
>have confirmation that I was alive and safe. I'm afraid my posting was
>incomplete on the details of the accident.
There is no need to apologize. I would have understood the reasons you
gave even without you giving them! My line of questioning was intended
clarify (in the light of TWO independent reports by you and Mary Lou)
the DURATION of the incident/accident.
[DD] THEN we sat in the raft for approximately 30-45 minutes --
{RFL] That's still another piece of interesting new detail. What
[RFL] was the CREW doing all that time?
>
>There were three crew members in the boat when I arrived. One
>additional crew member arrived at the raft by crawling out of the
>mangroves where he had been carried by the storm when Wave Dancer
>rolled. Another crew member (the Captain) swam to the raft from
>the other side of the overturned vessel.
Excellent! So, all 5 surviving members of the crew were with you
(the 3 surviving passengers) on the raft, shortly after the 3 had
pulled you out from the capsized vessel.
Until your clarification NOW, it wasn't at all clear from earlier
reports where the surviving members of the CREW were, or what they
were doing while the three passengers were drifting for 45 minutes
until they were blown to the mangroves.
>While in the raft we spent some time beating on the hull and listening
>for any response. We also called out, hoping others would hear us.
>We hung onto the capsized boat to avoid being blown off by the wind.
>The Captain left the raft at least twice to climb around the overturned
>hull to the other side in search of survivors, as did at least one
>other crew member.
Excellent, again! At this point, ALL survivors (Captain, crew, and
passengers) were at the same raft, ALL taking part in the search for
remaining survivors.
>> What happened NEXT, after you were blown off into
>> the mangroves? :-) When were you actually rescued off the sea?
>
>When our effort at paddling against the wind failed, the Captain
>left the raft and swam to the Belize Aggressor. He got them to launch
>their RIB and motor over to our location. They made two trips and
>returned all of the Dancer survivors to the Aggressor. Several crew
>members from both boats and a couple of passengers from Aggressor then
>donned scuba gear and returned to Wave Dancer to continue the search.
>They returned nine bodies before giving up for the night.
When I asked my question about the CREW, I didn't have the slightest
inkling (from the reports till then) that you were together with some
of them, let alone ALL of them, during the 45-minute float at sea.
I had thought at least SOME of the answers could come ONLY from the
Captain or/and crew. Not so. ANY of you could have given the SAME
informational account. I don't need a court of law, by the Belizean
Government or any of the other "official investigations" to make my
OWN verdict that there appeared to be NO impropriety, NO negligence,
by Captain OR crew,*** DURING the time *** between the vessel capsized
and the time you were rescued onto the Aggressor boat.
For those who had been pontificating about or implying WHY we have
to wait until the "official" investigation, or court litigations are
over (which may be YEARS from now) before knowing the answers (to
the simple, direct, FACTUAL questions I asked) Dave gave, from the
Captain, the crew, or a spokesman from the Peter Hughes organization?
Dave, thanks for saving me years of waiting. :-) I may not survive
(according to laws of nature) long enough to wait for results of
litigations on this case, or until lawyers have been satiated with
the fees they collect!
This reminds of an appropriate quote, from an unidentified source
(the source is irrelevant anyway) :-),
"If ever I was put in charge of the world then the first
thing that I'd do is send all the lawyers, urban planners
and social workers off to the salt mines to work
alongside the 'journalists' that'd already be there!"
[RFL] This again differed somewhat from your original "15 second" and:
*> -- This was not an accident at sea. No one floated around in
*> swirling waters awaiting rescue the next day.
[RFL So, the passenger DID float around and got blown off ...
>Not my meaning. No passenger floated around awaiting rescue. All
>surviving passengers and crew huddled together in a life raft, then
>attempted to paddle to safety and were defeated in that attempt by
>the wind, and were shortly thereafter rescued by the Aggressor crew
>in their RIB. The point of my statement quoted above -- apparently
>missed -- was that this was not a scene from "The Perfect Storm"
>or "Titanic" where individual passengers tossed around in life
>jackets on a roiling sea awaiting rescue from afar.
I should clarify the REASON for MY question, which is apparently
missed by you, and probably many others, was the accounting of
those "drowned in the boat".
Your comment "No passenger floated around awaiting rescue", is
pertinent and correct. From your accounts, I was drawing the
SIMULTANEOUS inference (to correct my original impression that
most of the passengers who died were trapped in the SALON --
which I believed to be the safest place they could have been)
there MOST were drowned AT SEA, rather than in the salon. See
"A chronological RECAP of some facts and issues discussed ..."
and subsequent discussion below.
You comment, while perfectly pertinent and correct, concealed one
fact )not intended by you to conceal of course) that some had
drowned AFTER thay have escaped from the capsized vessel, some
MAY have still be waiting to be rescued at that time of the search,
and all of them were eventually found, to have been drowned.
Autopsy would have revealed detailed causes of drowning as well as
the approximate TIME of the drowning, to allow anyone to make
better inference about HOW LONG anyone were at sea before drowning.
The bodies were not totally recovered until two days later.
Since there was NO AUTOPSY, we'll never know.
>We can quibble
>about the semantics: as I said we were not "at sea," we were in a
>river -- and a rather small one with no waves or current to speak
>of; we were "floating" in the sense that the life raft was afloat
>but we did not "float around" haphazardly; we only got "blown off"
>when we attempted to paddle out of what was a fairly stable
>situation to final safety. Had help not arrived, we could have
>eventually worked (paddled) our way along the fringe of the
>mangroves and back to the area of the dock.
That's all very pertinent information about what ACTUALLY HAPPENED.
I have no quibble about the sea or river at all. :-) If any
quibble, I would consider the statement
"No passenger floated around awaiting rescue"
to have been more accurately stated as, "No SURVIVING passengers
were known to have floated around awaiting rescue at the time"
for the reasons I explained my question and inference.
>
>> When did the Aggressor or anyone else KNOW about the capsized Wave
>> Dancer?
>
>I do not know what anyone else knew or when they knew it. I was later
>told that during the height of the storm the passengers on the Aggressor
>boat were below decks in the cabin area and so could not see what was
>happening outside. I understand that there was a crew member on the
>bridge of the Aggressor boat during the storm, so he might have seen
>something -- although he may have been distracted when the window of
>the wheelhouse shattered or when Aggressor's own bow lines parted.
>There may have been crews on the other vessels tied up in Big
>Creek, and they may or may not have seen Wave Dancer go.
All very reasonable analysis/assumption from YOUR point of view.
But now we DO KNOW for a fact that the Aggressor DID KNOW about it
by the time your Captain swam over there, and they were the ones that
did the rescue, shortly thereafter.
>
>> Tell us more about what the CREW were doing during these 45
>> minutes. When and how were you finally rescued?
>
>See my response above.
>
[DD] I am sorry for any confusion caused by my original statement.
[DD] I hope this clears things up. My estimate of the quickness of the
[DD] capsizing was intended to provide insight into the reason for so
[DD] many deaths and the absence of life jackets on the passengers.
>>
[RFL] Indeed, it clarified the picture considerably, for ME. But at the
[RFL] same time, it raised more questions. Have we ruled out the
[RFL] possibility that SOME passengers got out of the salon without any
[RFL] life jackets and were drowned some time during the next 45 minutes
[RFL[ or until the rest of you were rescued?
>
>I can not rule out anything. I was inside a flooded boat without
>light, trying to get out, and then I was with the others huddled in
>a raft in high winds and driving rain with diesel fuel in my eyes.
>I am told that only one body was found in the water; all the others
>were found either in the boat or in the mangroves.
Yes, but those in the mangroves must have been in the water before
they were blown there. :-) More to the point would be, "how many
were found to have been drown in the boat?" I know of only one
SURE COUNT, reported to have been in a cabin.
>It seems unlikely
>to me that any of the passengers -- all of whom were divers, and
>therefore pretty good swimmers -- would have drowned while
>conscious and on top of the water in those conditions.
Ah, but obvious you haven't met Giovanni or Confucio! :-)
More seriously, some may have been drowned after they were knocked
by objects AFTER they escaped the capsized boat or having struggled
shortly before the raft and Captain/crew went to the other side
of the capsized boat looking for them, or may have blown/drifed off
during the fiercest part of the storm which overturned even the BOAT!
>Although the wind was raging, the water itself was quite calm below
>the storm. The crew who circled the overturned boat while we were
>in the raft returned with neither survivors nor bodies.
I don't find that contradictory to my preceding paragraph.
Dave, my deepest thanks to you, again, for your role in providing us
with the most detailed INFORMATION we have seen to date, by ANY
survivor of the Wave Dancer, and you did so in such a manner that
we can all see the SIGNAL without any of the usual NOISE.
That, in turn, enable me to resume my role in the discussion, in
kind, with just a light sprinkle of my characteristic humor.
This (and the other) list would have been a much better place for
EVERYONE had there been more discussants like you, instead of those
busy pointing their fingers at ME, while derailing many of the
threads in which I participated. Glad you brought THIS ONE back
on track!
-- Bob.
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