34 Divers Perish in Boat Fire off Santa Cruz Island
By Fred Owens
That's the headline. It's a $500 story and all I have is a 50 cent typewriter -- meaning I don't think I can give those 34 lost souls the respect they deserve and the silence which is their due.
The first responders have recovered 33 bodies. There is one missing. But they don't say it's missing they just say it's not recovered. So we wonder, who is this 34th diver, and is he or she missing and adrift at sea, or trapped too deeply in the wreckage?
We saw the FBI Dive Team unloading their scuba gear at the loading dock in the harbor. The Conception docks nearby, next to her sister ships, the Vision and the Truth. The FBI team and other divers from afar are charged with retrieving the bodies, submerged in 60-feet of cold sea water. The boat lies upside down. Do you think that's an easy job, even if it's people you don't know? And the coroner said they all died of smoke inhalation. That might not be true. Sometimes the coroner might say that smoke inhalation was the cause of death because saying they burned to death is too harsh on the families. As it was, the bodies were burned by the flames and could not be identified without DNA testing.
Santa Barbara Sheriff Bill Brown was present at the vigil on Friday in memory of the departed ones. He and Coast Guard Captain Monica Rochester bore the flower wreath in procession. Think of Sheriff Brown's duty. He did not expect this terrible tragedy. Maybe on the dawn of Labor Day, before he heard the alarming news, maybe he was day dreaming of some upcoming fishing trip and a few days off. He had a tough week. No rest for the wicked. No rest for you and me.
We went out to the breakwater the next day to see the wreath on the memorial plaque, surrounded by many bouquets of white carnations. We walk out on the breakwater quite often, only this time in silence, "in memory of those lost at sea," as the plaque reads.
Keep in mind this is such a familiar place -- like many Santa Barbarans we are at the harbor and the waterfront and the beach almost every day. We see the island out there, 26 miles at sea, but looming large, if you can see it and the sky is clear. When the fog rolls in, what they call the marine layer, then you can't see the island.
I wondered if anyone was walking the beach at 3:30 a.m. on Monday, because if the air was clear, that person might have seen the flames from the burning boat, leaping thirty or forty feet into the sky.
The investigation is underway to find out the cause of the fire. The insurance companies and lawyers are getting to work and filing papers. Maritime law creates a special liability for owners of ships at sea. The owners of the vessels and the surviving crew members will be interviewed within in inch of their lives. I pray for their comfort, because because nothing can bring back the lost souls.
Santa Barbara is not a big city. Everybody knows somebody. Anita Dominocielo-Ho, my friend at the Kiwanis Club, reminded me that her husband Victor teaches at a private school. She said, "Victor and his ninth-grade class booked the Conception for a dive trip later in the month. It could have been him and all those sweet children on that boat." Stories like that are common around town.
Most of the victims came from out of town, but it still hurts really bad. That's our island out there.
We will keep taking walks on the beach, but the island will never look the same again.
This morning I was awake at 5:30. I heard the hoot owl give a rhythmic chant as the darkness slowly faded.
That's all for this week,
Fred
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