Captains rescue diver in the Bahamas

Dorie Cox -

Three yacht captains used their nautical expertise to find an overdue scuba diver in the Bahamas on May 22.

Capt. Baron Rohl and Capt. Mike Galgana, of M/Y Texas Star II, were joined by Capt. Russ Grandinetti, of M/Y Jade Mary, in a search near Bimini in response to marine radio calls for assistance. Sara Cesbron had called for the U.S. Coast Guard about 4:30 p.m. in reference to her husband Jean Jacques' failure to return from a dive.

"She was on the radio and calm, but you could tell she was getting frantic," Grandinetti said.

Grandinetti said his crew on Jade Mary was monitoring the communication about the missing diver on the radio. When he heard a request for boats in the vicinity to join at a specified area to begin a search, Grandinetti jumped in the tender and headed toward the area requested by the voice on the radio.

When he arrived at the rendevouz spot, he found the organizer Capt. Rohl, a long-time friend. The two had known each other for more than 20 years.

Rohl and Galgana defined the search area using location and conditions. The calculations were made from the coordinates of the diver's anchored vessel, the Jacques Angelo, between Turtle Rock and Gun Cay, about two miles off of Cat Cay.

To simulate in which direction the diver might have drifted, Rohl filled a water bottle filled with sea water and enough air to keep it above surface and tossed it in the water. Grandinetti used the same idea to verify the wind was pushing his tender south as the drift headed north. Rohl and Galgana determined the gulfstream was flowing about three knots to the north and organized the search at the south end of South Bimini.

Each of the searchers had many years at work at sea and on boats and they pooled their knowledge. Grandinetti said they had limited radio contact between the tenders because of technical issues, but that the three made the right decisions in how to proceed with the search.

"We all knew what had to be done," Grandinetti said.

Rohl and Galgana ran their tender parallel to the beach a mile from shore and searched with binoculars while Grandinetti ran a zig-zag from shore to their tender and back to shore.

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