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B.C. couple's fishing trip turns into nightmare
Woman survives six-hour swim to land; partner's body found 4 km away
Ramona Kappmeier and her husband were at home on Texada Island off B.C.’s Sunshine Coast just after midday Sunday when they saw someone walking unsteadily toward their home.
The woman was wobbling, and she fell to the ground before picking herself back up again and making it to the front door.
“I first thought ‘Oh, my God,” said Kappmeier.
“At the beginning we couldn’t make anything out of her,” she said.
Eventually, the young woman was able to tell Kappmeier’s husband she’d been in a boating accident and her partner was still missing.
Soon the Kappmeiers would learn of the woman’s gripping ordeal that began with a fishing trip in calm waters in the Strait of Georgia and ended in tragedy after the young couple’s boat capsized in a storm, plunging the pair into an overnight battle for their lives.
The story began in Sechelt, where Jordan Patrick Beaudoin, 38, and his partner Shannon McBoyle set off Saturday for the southeastern side of Texada in their five-metre boat, said Powell River RCMP spokesman Const. Tim Kenning. There were blue skies that day, but a bank of dark clouds could be spotted brewing to the west as the day wore on.
When they finished fishing, with the clouds darkening the skies above, the two turned back toward the marina at Halfmoon Bay. But by that time it was too late — the winds and waves had kicked up and the pair found themselves in trouble.
Leonard Beaudoin, Jordan’s uncle, was in a boat himself that night, off-loading a log barge in nearby Howe Sound. He said the conditions were terrible where he was, adding that he could not imagine being on a small boat in a stretch of water he said was notorious for harsh conditions.
“Two squalls came up that night,” he said. “There was rain coming down sideways where I was. Out there, he must have been in huge, horrible seas.”
Beaudoin said he did not know that his nephew, an experienced boater who worked as a deckhand on a tugboat for Lafarge, was out on the water at the time.
After the waters turned angry, Jordan Beaudoin and McBoyle navigated their boat to protection in one of Texada’s craggy coves, Kenning said.
At some point in the night — thought to be around 9:30 p.m. but details aren’t yet clear because authorities are relying on their initial interviews with the disoriented survivor — the boat began taking on water and capsized, Kenning said. Both had life jackets on when the boat went under, he said.
Leonard Beaudoin said he was told the two boaters had been wearing survival suits. But he said only hers had been properly done up.
Hours later, McBoyle finally reached the southern shores of Texada Island, having swum through the night in 10 C water. Hypothermic and disoriented, she climbed up through the rugged terrain and staggered to the Kappmeier home where they called authorities for help around 2:20 p.m. Sunday, according to the Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre.
The call triggered a massive search effort for Beaudoin, whose dead body was eventually found about five hours later on Texada Island, roughly four kilometres from where McBoyle reached land, Kenning said.
McBoyle was recovering from mild hypothermia in Powell River General Hospital Monday morning, Kenning said.
Police don’t suspect foul play was involved in the accident. Kenning said that “ultimately it was the weather” that led to Beaudoin’s death.
Leonard Beaudoin said he returned to work on the water Monday morning.
“It was hard for me,” he said. “I was in tears today. I just about drove in and came home, but what am I going to do … there’s nothing anybody can do now. They found his body on the beach.
“I loved him very much,” he said. “He was a really good guy and a hard worker and he was loved by everybody.”
The family had experienced another recent death when Leonard Beaudoin’s brother died, and the funeral was the last time he recalled having seen Jordan. |
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發表於 2014-4-29 06:43
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