Fishermen rescued from Gulf of Mexico after boat goes up in flames
Clearwater, Florida - The U.S. Coast Guard rescued two commercial fishermen Sunday morning. John Garrett and Greg Arcond had been out in the Gulf of Mexico fishing since Tuesday. On Sunday morning, they ran into trouble.
Garrett says he originally called the Coast Guard when he first ran out of gas, but it wasn’t until later when he actually needed them. The men were trying to transfer gas from another tank into the engine, when the fire started.
John Garrett, Fisherman:
“I’m on deck, he’s on the back and flames come out of the doggone engine room. I mean, they went to the ceiling.â€
Garrett yelled for help on the radio. After they jumped into a raft, Arcond discovered sharks in the water.
Greg Arcond, Fisherman:
“They were hitting the bottom of the raft, tapping with their noses. That’s the first thing a shark does before it attacks, it hits with its nose.â€
When the Coast Guard arrived in a helicopter, rescuer Brett Durham jumped out into the water and saved the fishermen. Both are grateful to be alive.
Source: tampabays10.com
Mexico rescues 18 Cubans adrift in flimsy boat
The Mexican Navy rescued 18 Cubans adrift in the Caribbean Sea on a flimsy vessel that was blown off course in a failed bid to reach Florida, the immigration department said on Monday.
A one-year-old baby was among the passengers in the boat, spotted floating off the Isla Mujeres island near the resort of Cancun on Friday.
“A boat spotted them and passed this information on to the Navy, which rescued them,†said a spokeswoman for Mexico’s immigration institute in Cancun.
The Cubans left their homeland on Dec. 27 in a bid to reach the
Grouper fight flares in Gulf of Mexico:-
Recreational and commercial fishermen are being pitted against each other by a plan to limit hauls of red grouper in the Gulf of Mexico.
Federal fishery management officials have proposed closing Gulf of Mexico grouper fishing to recreational fishermen, allowing commercial boats to continue their catch, the Christian Science Monitor reported Friday.
Florida state officials have said they do not intend to enforce that ban, since tourists pay $26 million a year to Florida charter boats to fish in the gulf.
The Monitor said recreational fishermen pull in about 18 percent of the 5.3 million pounds of
Two D.C. Teens Rescued Off Coast of Mexico
Two young men from the District are lucky to be alive after nearly drowning in Mexico on Christmas Day.
Police there say 17-year-old Carolos Rivera and 18-year-old Antonio Rivera were pulled from the water more than 800-feet away from the beach at a Puerto Vallarta resort.
The pair were swept out by a powerful undercurrent.
Both were rescued along with a Mexican teen, and were taken back to shore in a motor boat. None of the three suffered serious injuries.
More: wtopnews.com
Local agents help Mexico in rescue
Border Patrol agents rescued a man from rising waters during the heavy rains Thursday.
A press release sent to the News-Herald from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Office of Public Affairs states that around noon Thursday the Border Patrol received a telephone call from Mexican authorities requesting assistance with the rescue of an individual in the Rio Grande.
According to the release, agents responded by launching the agency’s airboats into the “very high and rapidly†flowing river.
Once they located the man, who was clinging to a tree branch in the middle of the river, it was
Two starved to death in epic Mexico sea voyage
Three Mexicans who survived for nine months as their small fishing boat drifted across the Pacific Ocean tossed two other men overboard after they died of starvation during the journey, officials said on Thursday.
The three were rescued last week by a trawler more than 5,000 miles from Mexicos Pacific Coast fishing village of San Blas, where they left for what was supposed to be a routine shark fishing trip last November.
Stranded on the high seas for nine months, they stayed alive by eating raw birds and fish and drinking rain
Mexicos lost fishermen reunited with families
The three Mexican fishermen who say they survived nine months adrift faced another storm on arrival in Mexico City -- this time of raucous welcomes and throngs of reporters asking for the lurid details of their odyssey.
From the moment the men appeared at the Mexico City airport on Friday morning -- the last leg of a series of flights that brought them from the Marshall Islands -- the three men issued vehement denials when reporters asked whether they had been involved in drug smuggling or had resorted to cannibalism to survive.
Despite having nearly
Isla Aguada
Eleven kilometres beyond Carmen is the Rancho EIFfriix, with an interesting iguana (lagarto) hatchery. Highway 180 runs northeast along the Isla del Carmen and crosses the bridge to Isia Aguada (C Hotel Tarpon Tropical. D Motel La Cabana and Trailer Park at former boat landing just after the toll bridge. Full hook-up, hot showers, laundry facilities, quiet, US$12 for vehicle and two people), actually a narrow peninsula with more deserted shell-littered beaches on the Gulf shore. The road then undulates its way northeast through tiny fishing villages towards Campeche; there are many offshore oil rigs to be seen. At
Oil Production Down 78 Percent in Gulf of Mexico
The U.S. government says oil production in the Gulf of Mexico was nearly 80 percent below normal as of Saturday, five days after Hurricane Katrina tore through the region.
A report from the U.S. Minerals Management Service said Katrina had cut oil production in the Gulf by about 1.18 million barrels of oil per day. It said more than 280 offshore oil-drilling rigs and platforms remained evacuated.
The figures represent a slight improvement from Friday, when oil production in the Gulf was nearly 90 percent below normal.
Katrina's disruption to Gulf-area oil production and refineries
Shell, BP evacuate Gulf of Mexico workers due to Hurricane Katrina
Royal Dutch Shell PLC and BP PLC have evacuated workers from their platforms in the Gulf of Mexico as Hurricane Katrina heads towards the area.
Shell, in a statement, said it will evacuate around 120 non-essential staff from the eastern part of its Gulf operations as a 'precaution'.
A BP spokesman said it will also evacuate a still undetermined number of workers.
Both companies said the move will not affect their Gulf production.
Katrina came ashore in Florida on Thursday, killing at least three people and leaving about 1.5 mln
S. California crews rush to fight Mexico fire
A day after Southern California crews made progress against two wildfires and helped Mexico battle a blaze, a new fire was burning in remote terrain a few miles north of the border and the forecast called for more hot, dry weather on Friday.
The National Weather Service forecast for Friday called for more temperatures in the 90s, with low humidity and light winds.
In San Diego County, a 4,000-acre fire burning in a rugged area along the U.S.-Mexican border was 30 percent contained Thursday night. Winds had died down and were forecast to be light
