Volunteers this week recovered three bodies from a boat that capsized in Kachemak Bay last summer. Four members of a Texas family were presumed dead after the boat sank about 14 nautical miles west of Homer.
The family was on a private boat with friends when it capsized. Good Samaritans rescued four passengers, but after 24 hours, the U.S. Coast Guard called off the search for the Maynards: 42-year-old David, 37-year-old Mary, 11-year-old Colton and 8-year-old Brantley.
Then, earlier this year, a group of divers, seafloor mappers and underwater inspectors took matters into their own hands.
It had been about eight months since the boat sank when Dave Mastolier saw an article from Alaska's News Source about a barbeque in Texas held to raise money to find the boat. Mastolier is the president of Support Vessels of Alaska, Inc., which helps companies make maps of the ocean floor. After reading the news story, he felt confident he could help find the wreckage – and do it for free.
"Seeing that they were trying to continue the search, then I knew we could help," he said.
With the blessing of family members of the Maynards in Texas, Mastolier's team set out to find the boat. Within two weeks, he says they found it. The boat had dropped anchor before it sank, he said, so the wreckage was close to its last known position.
Mastolier brought in Benthic Geoscience Inc. to help find the boat. The company measures and maps the sea floor and has experience both working in Kachemak Bay and locating shipwrecks.
"We kind of did the research, found out the last numbers that they were known, and gave it to our boat captain," he said. "He drove the boat right to those numbers, and they put their equipment down, and there it was."
David Oliver, a geophysicist with Benthic Geosciences, says that before coming to any conclusions, they needed to verify the boat they found was the one they'd been looking for.
That responsibility fell to Joshua Hankin-Foley, the general manager of Vision Subsea LLC. The company specializes in sending tethered robots to take high quality pictures and videos of objects underwater. After verifying the boat's registration numbers, Hankin-Foley says they sent their robot inside the boat's cabin. Before heading down, divers reviewed the footage to get a better sense of the boat's layout and any safety concerns.
That's where Jeremy Lilly's team came in. He's the founder and president of the volunteer-run Alaska Dive Search, Rescue and Recovery Team. He says divers faced tough conditions while ferrying between the wreckage and the surface – strong currents and bad visibility.
Lilly said divers went hand-over-hand down 180 feet of rope to get to the ship, where they navigated mainly by touch. Lilly said they've cleared the boat's main cabin and found three sets of human remains, but they plan to keep looking until everyone is recovered.
"The time frame will be based on the weather and when team members can get free from their paid jobs," he said.
Last October, a Homer jury issued presumptive death certificates for all four members of the Maynard family. Everyone involved says they hope finding the boat and recovering the family's remains can bring closure to the loved ones they left behind.
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