High Drama on the High Seas of Belize

We have been having a fabulous time in Belize, hanging out in Placencia when the weather is bad and travelling to the out islands when the skies clear.

Last week the weather was particularly bad on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday with strong winds and torrential downpours. When it clear on Friday morning we took off for the Sapodilla Cays, a wonderful marine preserve with fantastic snorkelling and beautiful deserted islands.

About fifteen miles out we heard a strange noise and looked all over the boat trying to determine its source. Then it became louder and we realized it was someone shouting. As I scanned the water I saw someone about 250 yards away hanging on to some whit flotsam. We quickly dripped sails and deployed our lifesling (good thing we had practiced man overboard maneuvers years ago) and brought him on board our dinghy (we couldn't hoist him into the boat because he was too weak to secure himself properly in the lifesling and too weak to climb the ladder.

When we got him into the dinghy I did a quick lay person's assessment of his condition and could see he was dehydrated and in some shock. His foot was badly swollen and he told us he had stepped on a rock. We gave him dry clothes and a blanket, water, food, and Neosporin, but he was clearly in significant pain that we couldn't do anything for. He said his boat had been swamped by a ten foot wave three and one-half days earlier and he had been holding on the the lid of his cooler for that entire time. No land was visible in any direction, but we suspect he had drifted southwest with the current from about forty-five miles northeast.

After about one hour of trying we finally got good radio communications with the Belize Coast Guard. We continued on our route to the Sapodilla Keys and the coast guard picked him up in their launch about 10 minutes after we anchored there.

The next day we learned that he had been with another fisherman who had not yet been rescued. We gave the Coast Guard our man overboard GPS position and our sailing course and they sent out a search plane for a couple of days, but to no avail.

Yesterday we learned that the man we had rescued died of toxic shock from his foot wound. The story is a bit murky but what we've heard is that the coast guard brought him to Placencia and the clinic said he needed to go to the hospital. The Placencia police drove him to the hospital in Dangriga (about 30 miles away) and they wanted to amputate his foot, or possibly his leg and the hospital fee was going to be $7,000. The family was trying to get the money together they transported him to the hospital in Belize City (a much bigger town) and while they were trying to get the money together he just lay on a gurney in the Emergency room and died with no one in attendance. I'm not sure if that's the real story of what happened, but it is such a sad ending to such a miraculous rescue. The coast guard said this is the first time in memory someone has been rescued by a passing sailboat. His name was Kareem Ely, he was 33 years old, and very brave.

We're off now to Wipari Cay for more snorkelling and swimming. More soon....