Coast Guard officials informed that two men from the Central Valley died on Wednesday after their boat capsized in heavy surf off Point Reyes National Seashore. Two friends who were with them are missing. Robert Rodriguez, one of the organizers late Wednesday at the town’s Westside Campground, said that those men were part of a group of more than 40 fishermen and their families who have come to Bodega Bay for the past 20 years.
The four victims were not commercial fishermen but seasoned and were in a 24-foot, yellow-hulled sports fishing boat. Sonoma County Sheriff’s Lt. Steve Brown told that at noon Coast Guard officials received a distress call from a boater who reported that a large wave had hit the side of another boat, which capsized about 150 yards offshore of 10 Mile Beach.
According to the eye witness three or four adult men were clinging to the boat’s hull and that heavy surf prevented them from aiding them. Coast Guard Lt. Laura Williams in San Francisco, informed that six-to-eight-foot waves caused rough conditions at the time the boat capsized. A Coast Guard life boat pulled the two men unconscious from the water. Neither was wearing a life vest, officials said. Rescue crews were unable to reach the person spotted in rough, shallow seas close to the shore near Abbotts Lagoon on 10 Mile Beach. Crews were still searching for the fourth person.
