The U.S. Coast Guard has suspended its search for four missing boaters Sunday near Bodega Bay, the federal agency said Sunday evening. Officials say that there were six people in total on the boat, but so far four of those individuals have not been located.
One person died and a boy was found alive but in need of medical attention after a recreational crabbing boat went missing in Sonoma County Saturday night.
The Coast Guard said Sunday night that the search was suspended, pending the development of new information.
Rescue crews searched approximately 57 combined hours and covered more than 2,100 square miles.
The Sheriff's Office first received a call around 10:18 p.m. Saturday about an overdue recreational boat that went crabbing off the coast of Bodega Bay.
Six people-- three adults and three youths-- were on board a 21-foot white Bayliner boat, according to the Sheriff's Office. The boaters were last heard from at about 3 p.m. Saturday and a cell phone ping suggested the boat was last in the area of Carmet Beach.
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The Coast Guard said the group had come in from out of town to go crabbing and had departed from the Westside Marina at around 3 p.m. and were due to return at around 7 p.m. that day. Five of the individuals were family members and the sixth was a family friend, the Coast Guard said.
Deputies began to search with multiple agencies including Sonoma County Fire and the Coast Guard, and the U.S. Air Force later joined to help in the search as well.
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During the search, debris was found along the coast that is believed to be from the boat. The Coast Guard reported finding multiple life jackets during their search on Saturday.
Chief Petty Officer Levi Read with the US Coast Guard District 11 explained that Saturday morning, an 11-year-old who had been on the boat was able to walk himself up from the beach to the highway, where a good Samaritan took him to get help.
"Our last report was the young man was in stable condition and had been reconnected with his family," Read said of the 11-year-old.
A second person was located and was pronounced deceased at the scene, the Sheriff's Office said.
Read noted that at this point it is unlikely that the four remaining people on the boat survived, "due to the 52 degree weather -- the sea temperature --- which causes hypothermia to set in within an hour of entering the water, we’re well past that hour."
"Our thoughts are with the family and friends that are going through this, it’s a tragic day," he added.
Read also said that Coast Guard crews on Saturday had to contend with eight-foot-high swells in the area.
Officials don't know what exactly led to this incident but they said the strong winds and currents this weekend might have played a role.
"As you can see it is windy, which always tends to churn up the ocean, the currents are fairly strong and the waves are fairly big," noted Rob Dillion, Public Information Officer with the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office.
The recreational Dungeness crabbing season in California just opened on Saturday.
Dillion noted that even for experienced boaters, the currents along the Sonoma Coast can become dangerous in an instant.
"You can be familiar with the ocean in that area from previous seasons, but it's never the same, conditions can change really rapidly and can change really significantly," Dillion said.
Dillion expects the Sherriff's Office to have more resources on the ground searching and investigating on Monday.
"We will continue the search process until we're out of search area or out of information, " he said.
Anyone with information about the missing boaters is asked to call the Sheriff's Office at (707) 565-2121.
