Fishermen attacked by Spanish-speaking pirates

Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­[email protected]

With on­ly their love, de­ter­mi­na­tion and a cool­er cov­er to keep them afloat, a fa­ther and son sur­vived a gru­elling, al­most eight-hour swim to shore af­ter an armed at­tack at sea left them fight­ing for their lives in the dark depths of the ocean.

Wip­ing away tears while be­ing com­fort­ed by his son Re­nal­do yes­ter­day, Rakesh De­o­dat re­called bat­tling ex­haus­tion and se­vere mus­cle cramps as they swam for hours to­ward shore, at times fear­ing they would drown.

De­spite mo­ments when they felt like giv­ing up, the fa­ther and son said they drew strength from one an­oth­er, en­cour­ag­ing each oth­er to keep swim­ming un­til they even­tu­al­ly reached shore at La Brea.

Grate­ful they sur­vived, De­o­dat, 49, said it was the first time in his 28 years as a fish­er­man that he had ever ex­pe­ri­enced such a har­row­ing or­deal. He said they left the New Cut Chan­nel Riv­er in Wood­land around 4 pm on Mon­day in his 28-foot pirogue to fish. They had cast their net about three miles off Mos­qui­to Creek in the Gulf of Paria and were asleep around 2.30 am on Tues­day, when they heard a gun­shot and were ac­cost­ed by four masked, armed men. He said three of the men spoke Span­ish.

“Four armed ban­dits ap­proached the boat, shoot in the air, wake me up, and tell my son, ‘Rapi­do.’”

He said when the ban­dits flung the cov­er of his cool­er in­to the ocean, his son jumped over­board and he fol­lowed. They be­gan swim­ming as the ban­dits sped off with their boat, leav­ing them to fend for them­selves in dark, deep wa­ters. For­tu­nate­ly, they could swim—and they had each oth­er.

“When this hap­pen­ing, I say, Lord, just don’t let them shoot me. I want to see my fam­i­ly again. I’m cry­ing, I’m cry­ing, in my mind I’m cry­ing. I say don’t want to die to­day and not my son. Al­lyuh done take it (the boat), leave we.”

An emo­tion­al De­o­dat re­called en­dur­ing se­vere cramps.

“I cramp so much I had to let go com­plete­ly of the cov­er and hold my chin to the cov­er to rub out the cramp. If it wasn’t for that cov­er, we did sure go­ing un­der­neath.”

De­o­dat said there were mo­ments he felt like giv­ing up, but his son en­cour­aged him to con­tin­ue. Ad­mit­ting that at times, he too had to push back his fears that they would drown, Re­nal­do, 24, said he was not pre­pared to lose an­oth­er par­ent, as just two years ago, his moth­er died.

“I was not let­ting him go. Even if I was good, I was go­ing be­hind him. This is all that I have now. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t have made it. If it wasn’t for me, he wouldn’t have made it,” said Re­nal­do.

When they fi­nal­ly reached Point Sable Beach in La Brea, De­o­dat said he was cry­ing and laugh­ing be­cause he could not be­lieve they had sur­vived. They were al­so ex­haust­ed and in pain and had to rest be­fore seek­ing help.

Even if they re­cov­er his boat, De­o­dat, who has two oth­er chil­dren aged five and 28, said he is so trau­ma­tised that he is not sure if he will be able to go back out to sea.

“I fear for my life,” he said, adding the boat was his on­ly form of in­come.

He es­ti­mat­ed his loss­es, in­clud­ing the boat, en­gine and nets, at $150,000.

De­o­dat called for in­creased Coast Guard pa­trols and for the au­thor­i­ties to es­tab­lish a sys­tem for fish­er­men to check in and out when they go to sea so their move­ments can be mon­i­tored in case of an emer­gency.

Mean­while, Siparia May­or Dood­nath Mayrhoo, who met the men yes­ter­day, promised to li­aise with Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Ravi Rati­ram to de­ter­mine what as­sis­tance can be giv­en to the fam­i­ly. Mayrhoo al­so called on Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der to en­sure in­creased Coast Guard pa­trols to safe­guard fish­er­men while they ply their trade.