Floating bodies

A week ago, a missing man was found dead, floating in Mare Island Strait near the Vallejo marina.* Just today, a group of Calif. Maritime Academy cadets found another body in the strait about a half-mile south.

Hope this doesn't become commonplace.

Friends of mine took a trip to another city and were staying at the city marina. A dead body floated up and was caught on his boat in the marina. He called the police and they delayed his departure for several hours while they investigated.

Sometimes it doesn't pay to get involved.

If and when you come across a "floater" don't latch on to it or otherwise stop/catch it. Report it to the police or Coast Guard and stand by. Your potential problems start when you are involved as a recipient.

Another one (the third): a body of a man was found in Sandmound Slough in the Delta this last weekend.* None of the reports indicated the three incidences involved boaters.

On the one hand, you would hope that anyone who finds your or a loved one's body on the water will report it and stand by.*

Once this happens, you are involved and this can ruin your day.* You will be waiting for the authorities to show up, you will be answering a lot of questions, and filling out a lot of paperwork.* I doubt you can decline to hang around.

It could really throw off your schedule.

Sailor of Fortune wrote:
If and when you come across a "floater" don't latch on to it or otherwise stop/catch it. Report it to the police or Coast Guard and stand by. Your potential problems start when you are involved as a recipient.

Click to expand...

*+1

This is the wise yet responsible thing to do.

When I was a crew boat captain in the Gulf of Mexico, that is exactly what we were told to do. Especially with suspicious floating objects such as bales.

It is OK to latch onto a body but do not bring it aboard. It is not OK to latch onto a bale unless of course, you let that one go unreported. LOL

I heard a radio conversation on Galveston bay one day. The guy who reported didn't want to hang around. The USCG wanted him to affix a float or buoy to the body, maybe with a fishhook. He didn't want to touch anything. Another boater finally radioed in that he would hang around until they got there. It sounded more like they just wanted to be able to find it when they got there.

rwidman wrote:
........*A dead body floated up and was caught on his boat in the marina. He called the police and they delayed his departure for several hours while they investigated.

Sometimes it doesn't pay to get involved.

Click to expand...

*Sorry to hear that your friends trip was delayed by a few hours. I might be sticking my neck out here by assuming that the victims plans also had a slight kink in them.

Regardless of the victims circumstances, he/she might have someone that loved them dearly like a mother, children, etc. and now they have closure rather than a 'missing person' in their life.

So, how tragic was your friends trip delay that it didn't pay for them to get involved?

Just curious.

Hmmmm, three bodies, and no one reported missing. *Let's see what could be going on here? *Don't suppose any fowl play could be involved here. Could it?

I have no idea the distance involved in the location ot the 3. *It sure sounds like a fishing or hunting accident. *Concrete blocks are fairly cheap. *If they were systematicaly done away with, it would probably have been with a little more cosideration of them floating to the top.

markpierce wrote:
A week ago, a missing man was found dead, floating in Mare Island Strait near the Vallejo marina.** *

Click to expand...

*I kept a sailboat at the Vallejo Marina many years ago. I would drive down from Sacratomato and spend the weekend on the boat. I got up early one quiet Sunday morning and went out for a jog (way back when my knees actually worked like real joints).* When I got to the marina entrance I saw a bunch of cop cars with their lights all blazing. I walked up to one officer and asked him what was going on. He said someone had called in that there was a body at the marina entrance. When the cops got there they found this dead guy lying on the sidewalk. The cop said he had been shot.* I told him that I hadn't heard any gunshots during the night. He said he was probably shot somewhere else and dumped*there.

*I moved my boat a couple of months later.******** KJ

Having had the unfortunate experience of coming across a body, I can tell you that it is not pleasant.

In our case we were crossing Georgia Strait with three small children in our Albin 25 when we came upon a scene where a boat had capsized; one person had been rescued by the first vessel to arrive while a second person was missing.

After a few minutes of searching we found the body floating face down. The tasks of informing the Coast Guard of our discovery, keeping the children out of eyesight, getting into the dinghy, and latching on to the body may sound easy to do, but in the stress of the situation it was not. My wife was wonderful by the way, in seamlessly taking the helm and corralling the kids.

The worst part was not knowing if anything could be done for him - he was over 200 pounds so could not be retrieved into the dinghy, and going into the water to do any CPR stuff was out of the question (it was not a millpond.)

Eventually the Coast Guard hovercraft came and retrieved him. By that time we were surrounded by circling looky-loo boats that did nothing to calm the seas.

If it happened again, I would not handle it any differently.

Tony B wrote:rwidman wrote:
........*A dead body floated up and was caught on his boat in the marina. He called the police and they delayed his departure for several hours while they investigated.

Sometimes it doesn't pay to get involved.

Click to expand...

*Sorry to hear that your friends trip was delayed by a few hours. I might be sticking my neck out here by assuming that the victims plans also had a slight kink in them.

Regardless of the victims circumstances, he/she might have someone that loved them dearly like a mother, children, etc. and now they have closure rather than a 'missing person' in their life.

So, how tragic was your friends trip delay that it didn't pay for them to get involved?

Just curious.

I've been around long enough to know that you're not "sorry to hear about ......... " and you're not "just curious", you are trying to make a point.

I don't really know how tragic my friend's delay was.* He didn't say.

As for the "victim", she jumped off a bridge on purpose so her plans went just fine.

*


-- Edited by rwidman on Thursday 1st of March 2012 07:42:33 AM

My GF was out walking the dog with her young niece and nephew one Sunday morning, behind her apartment building. Came across a kid who had hung himself on the chain link fence - was not easy to do, he had to tie the rope about 6' off the ground, put it around his neck, and then squatted down until dead.
She kept walking. This is South Boston, after all (Whitey Bulger is still seen as a hero here).

Another floater.* This time in Berkeley waters.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/03/17/BA2K1NMGF0.DTL