In a race against time, Cayman Brac father Carlton Lenaris Ebanks led a group of boaters on a mission Sunday afternoon to rescue his stranded son Terrell, 21, and his friend Andre Nixon, 38, after their boat engine died while out at sea.
Now, the men are being lauded for their actions in rescuing the pair, whose vessel had been drifting at sea for about six hours on 26 June.
Engine trouble off Pickle Bank
It was a call to Nixon’s brother Craig Smith in the US that triggered the rescue mission, as Nixon said he was unable to raise anyone on his satellite radio around 10:30am Sunday, when he encountered engine trouble just off Pickle Bank.
“To be honest, I wasn’t worried because my brother… if it’s one thing I know about him, he would make sure, no matter what it took, that I got help. It boiled down [to]… as a father, Mr. Lenaris Ebanks just didn’t wait for the authorities to try and do [something],” Nixon told the Cayman Compass Wednesday morning in a telephone interview.
Some in the Brac community, over social media, were critical of the timing of the response of the Coast Guard and the RCIPS helicopter. They also took issue with how the authorities reported the incident, which indicated they had participated in bringing the men ashore.
However, the senior Ebanks, a firefighter on the Brac, said he would not be tearing down his colleagues in the other uniform services for their actions on Sunday.
He said he would have made the same decision to divert resources, as his son and his friend were already assessed as safe before the police helicopter proceeded to a medical evacuation and the Coast Guard was occupied with a potential life-and-death event at the time.
“As a firefighter, even though that was my son, I would have made the same calls… he was drifting, but he was ok. There was a person here [on the Brac]… their life was on the line, so obviously, I think the helicopter made the right call as to come along and deal with that,” he said in a telephone interview with the Compass.
The RCIPS issued a clarification Wednesday, correcting information it had released the day before which had indicated the Cayman Islands Coast Guard had escorted the vessel to safe harbour.
In a statement, the RCIPS said, “It has since been established, that although this was the instruction dispatched by the Operation Rescue Coordination Centre to the CICG, by the time their boat reached the Brac, the vessel in distress had already arrived back to shore.”
It added, “The delay in reaching the vessel in distress was due to the CICG completing a response to another vessel in distress, and then attending to a mechanical issue that they rectified on the way to the Brac.
“In addition, when the police helicopter located the vessel in distress, and established that the persons on board were in good health, they provided coordinates of its location for the rescue efforts and confirmed assistance was on the way, before continuing on its medivac journey.
“The RCIPS apologies for any confusion caused by the earlier report, and wishes to thank the members of the Brac community for their efforts in the search and rescue response.”
A radio message prompts a father’s response
Nixon, who said he regularly goes fishing in his spare time with the younger Ebanks, said when his boat battery died, he called several people on his satellite radio to no avail, then eventually his brother Craig Smith picked up in the US.
“[Smith] did contact a couple of people and then he contacted the Coast Guard. I sent him my coordinates through the [satellite] phone because it has that feature. So, after that, I turned the sat phone off, [then] every 45 minutes to an hour, I would turn it back on and send him the [new] coordinates and call him. He told me that they were coming, so I said OK, waited another 45 minutes,” Nixon explained.
That wait would extend into hours. Nixon said he was disappointed by the delay from authorities.
Meanwhile, on shore, Ebanks’ father was getting ready to mount his own rescue before light faded.
He was on duty at the Cayman Brac fire station when the call first came in about trouble out at sea.
“One of the other firefighters heard [a message about a boat in distress] and alerted me,” he said. “I started to make some inquiries [and] finally got it clear from the police helicopter – which was on the way here for medevac – that they had diverted and found the boat. It was a red boat with two people on board, which automatically [tipped] me off that that would have been the boat that my son was on,” Ebanks said.
He said, earlier in the morning, when his son set off for the fishing trip, he spoke with him and he reported all was well. That was around 5:45am.
After hearing the message about the boat in distress, he said he tried to call Terrel again and did not get hold of him.
“Hearing it first was not a good feeling, to be honest with you, because, you know, we only got the message the boat was in distress; we didn’t get what the problem was. So, of course, as a parent, that was not a good feeling because I’m not sure whether the boat was sinking, or what was happening – we only heard the call the boat was in distress, not drifting. If I had heard the boat was drifting, I would have looked at it a little bit different,” he said.
Ebanks said he knew where they were, based on the coordinates that the police helicopter gave, so he gathered his friends for the rescue mission after he handed over duty to another fireman of the same rank.
He said he was concerned for both men.
Together with boaters Keshan Ritch, Tate McFarlene, Garfield Ritch, Dennis Bodden, Evol Dilbert and Luciano Lazzari, in different vessels, Ebanks headed out to bring his son and Nixon home.
Shipmaster Raymond Scott also enlisted the support of a passing vessel to keep watch over the men until help arrived.
Ebanks said it was a comforting feeling when they got to the boat and he saw his son was safe.
“We [tried] to get in as fast as possible while we had as much light as possible,” Ebanks said, adding that one of the other boats, which was faster than his, got there first and radioed back to say that the two men were safe.
“I was definitely relieved that [they were] ok,” he said.
Ebanks said, while he understood the community’s concerns, as a fireman he knew there were protocols to be followed and he would not “bash” his colleagues.
However, he did say his “one gripe” was that the helicopter should have returned after the evacuation to ensure everyone was safely ashore.
He said he now plans to spend some quality time with his son.
For Nixon’s part, he was grateful the boaters on the Brac responded in the manner they did.
He also said he was relieved the situation ended positively, as he would not have been able to carry on if something untoward had happened to his friend.
“Because, if it was just me, it wouldn’t have been so bad, but when you have another person on board that you are responsible for, you know, it’s a kind of a messed-up feeling,” he said.
Nixon, who was able to get the boat back to shore after getting a boost, said he plans to head out fishing this weekend and has replaced his batteries so he is sea-ready.
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