Tourists feared being eaten by sharks when boat sank off West Bay

An American tourist feared being eaten by sharks when she found herself floating in chum-filled waters off Barkers in West Bay after the vessel she and her friends had chartered for a snorkelling and fishing trip sank suddenly.

Julianne Lis, 32, told the Compass: “The main reason I was scared is I’ve never liked dark deep water, especially when the sun’s going down, and since the boys had been fishing we had dead chopped-up fish floating around in the water with us.

“I’m not familiar with the shark species around there, but I know they feed at dusk, so us floating there with dead fish wasn’t the most reassuring thing – it was very scary.”

The vessel sank on the evening of 28 Feb. amid “nerve-wracking screams” from a member of its own crew, who had twice called her boss instead of emergency services, before eventually dialling 911 at the insistence of one of the passengers.

Lis, her fiancé and their four friends, along with the skipper and deckhand, were rescued by fast-acting Cayman Islands Coast Guard officers, but not before their 24-foot craft had capsized and sunk almost beneath the waves just east of Barkers, at around 6pm.

It brought to an end what had been a lovely day for the three 30-something couples, from Salt Lake City, Utah, who were in the middle of a week on the island, staying at the house of a friend.

“It was honestly a great trip, outside of the period of time that we spent panicked and in the water. Everyone was so friendly,” Lis said.

Halfway through their holiday, the six Americans booked a boat with skipper and deckhand through a Cayman-based broker.

The Compass has taken the decision not to name the brokerage company, nor the owner and crew of the boat.

The tourists embarked from Kaibo at around 2pm that Wednesday but received no safety briefing which, in light of later events, Lis said was a concern.

“Afterwards we were discussing how the captain had said he’d had an older woman and a 4-year-old on the boat the previous day.

“When we got on, they gave us no rundown on safety protocols or where the life jackets were.

“Tourists may not be familiar with the water. Boat crews should really get people up to speed with what to do if something arises.”

After a trip to two snorkelling spots and the Stingray City sandbar, the captain moored in slightly deeper waters, a couple of miles off the east coast of West Bay, so the holidaymakers could fish.

They first noticed something was wrong at around 5:20pm when the skipper returned from freediving for conch to use as bait, and saw water collecting by the outboard motor. It later emerged there was a problem with the bilge pump.

Over the next few minutes, they were ordered from the front, to the back, to the middle of the small boat – a 24-foot Sunfox about 6 feet wide with cushioned seats fore and aft, and a small canopy to keep the sun off – in an attempt to compensate for the listing caused by the incoming water.

The deckhand called her manager on land, requesting he come and pick up the passengers and crew, but she did not notify emergency services.

‘Filling up with water’

Lis said, “I started getting our stuff together, thinking we’d just step off this boat onto another one. I wasn’t realising how fast everything would happen. Then the boat started filling up faster, and you could see water coming up from the drains on either side of the boat.

“That’s when I think the deckhand called her boss again and said, ‘You need to get here right now’, and we realised, ‘Oh, this is not good’.

“And that’s when one of my friends asked her to call 911, which she finally did.

“That’s kind of when panic set in, especially for one of my friends who is born and raised in Utah, a landlocked state, and had never spent much time in the water, and had an injured shoulder – so she was definitely panicking.”

By this point, water had risen up through the deck to ankle depth, floating the top off the compartment containing the life jackets. The six visitors donned the soaking-wet vests.

“I was feeling pretty calm, only because I know panicking is not going to help anything,” Lis explained.

“But the deckhand was screaming and panicking which was rather nerve-wracking, she wasn’t saying anything, just letting out yelps and screams, and telling us to grab her bag that had her stuff.

“Very quickly it went from four inches to up to our thighs. We were wondering whether this is the time to get out – the edges were underwater, and we didn’t know whether the boat was going to sink to the bottom, whether it was going to capsize, what was going to happen.”

One by one, the tourists got into the water.

“I’m not a boat person. It took me a moment to realise it wouldn’t keep floating. It took some coaxing to get me out,” Lis said.

She and her friend Vanessa held tight to the vessel’s one life ring, while all six tried to keep their most necessary possessions, including phones and wallets, held aloft out of the water.

Growing panic

With sunset approaching, they attempted to stay as close to the now-overturned boat as possible, and fight their growing panic.

“It’s so hard to tell how far you are from land,” Lis said. “So considering the boss had been called twice and hadn’t shown up, we were not sure how long the Coast Guard would take because they’d been called last.”

In fact, the Coast Guard arrived within six minutes, and 20 minutes later, with darkness falling, the tourists were back on the dock outside Kaibo.

“The Coast Guard were awesome,” Lis said. “I don’t think they realised the boat was fully out of commission by that time. They weren’t expecting to find us in the water with stuff floating everywhere.”

It was not until several minutes after the Coast Guard arrived, with all six tourists already out of the water, that the boat’s owner appeared on the scene.

“I’m happy the Coast Guard showed up so soon. I wouldn’t have wanted to be in the water any longer than we were,” Lis said.

Vessel in distress

An officer told the Compass they received a report of a vessel in distress and arrived at the location within five minutes.

In response to suggestions reported elsewhere that the vessel had become a hazard to shipping, he explained, “We tended to the people, we weren’t worried about the vessel.

“But we broadcast on channel 16 to all mariners, informing them a vessel had sunk in the area so to be cautious on the vessel.”

Bradley Johnson, acting deputy director at the Department of Environment, said the DoE has since assessed the wreck for risk of oil or gas leaking into the sea and determined this was not an issue.

He said the boat did not damage the environment when it hit the sea floor, and has now been removed.

A spokesman for the charter company told the Compass an investigation had “revealed some shortcomings in the response to the unfolding situation, highlighting a possible underestimation of the severity by the crew”.

He called the incident “a sobering reminder of the continuous need for improvement” and said the company was enhancing its training materials and ensuring the boat’s owners implemented those procedures.

“All parties involved are committed to this initiative and are actively collaborating on these improvements,” he said.

Asked whether she would come back to Cayman, Lis said, “I’d love to come back, it’s a beautiful place.

“And I love the water and I grew up around the ocean, but I don’t know how soon I’d step back on a boat – and I know I’d have a few extra questions before getting on.”