Gabriolans took part in dramatic ferry rescue
As BC Ferries’ Queen of Oak Bay slammed into boats moored at Sewell’s Marina in Horseshoe Bay, eventually running aground with 600 people and vehicles aboard, at 10:10 am on Thursday, June 30th, broadcast media went on-air live from the scene for several hours, reporting on the incident, sending unforgettable images around the world, mesmerizing millions of people who tuned in.
At LeBoeuf Bay, on Gabriola Island, headquarters for Vessel Assist, Captain Paul Gray heard a call from Victoria Coast Guard radio and immediately put his emergency response and salvage team on scramble time.
Loading his Vessel Assist Georgia Strait and dive boat Bottom Time, with a portable compressor, 12 dive tanks, booms, environmental pads, salvage lift bags, underwater video equipment and other miscellaneous gear, he proceeded to the site with his sons, Jonas and Tyler, also both Transport Canada licensed captains, able-bodied seaman Daniel Kennedy, a local dive-master, and underwater photographer Pierre Gagnon on board.
Arriving at Horseshoe Bay about 90 minutes later, the Gabriola crew were the first civilians permitted in the closed area being patrolled by police and they began their assistance by employing environmental spill kits.
“It was a privilege and an honour to be asked to contribute our professional expertise along with military, RCMP, Coast Guard and BC Ferries personnel,” he said in an exclusive interview with the Sounder, which also included access to more than 120 photographs and underwater video shots for investigators and BC Ferries, none of which is being made available to the public, despite requests made by other media for images and interviews. The presence of the Gabriola-based Vessel Assist boats and crew were being watched on TV from as far away as the organization’s headquarters, Boat U.S. in Washington, D.C.
“As we arrived, the Navy dive team had searched for survivors and bodies and RCMP divers were setting up,” he reported.
“We were permitted to monitor communications and the live camera to assist us in mapping out underwater hazards to navigation and we helped the RCMP dive team on numerous occasions to free their umbilical cord when it became snagged on broken docks and debris.”
Surveyors were eventually permitted in the area and approached Vessel Assist Georgia Strait to photograph damage to the marina and dozens of boats.
“After a debriefing by the RCMP dive master we were advised that no underwater video had been taken and I instructed our dive team to locate and attach buoys to any underwater dangers and to videotape the steel pilings, sunken boats and the channel which the Queen of Oak Bay had dug in.”
“At this time we also ferried surveyors and distraught boat owners to otherwise inaccessible floats to inspect the damage that had been done. Eventually, the Canadian Coast Guard cutter Mallard, Vancouver Police Boat and several RCMP vessels lifted the "No Pass" zone and left us in charge of directing marine traffic into Horseshoe Bay.”
“Our dive team was underwater from 18:25 to 19:45 hours. During this time many pleasure boats were entering the area and we directed them on how to safely proceed and not interfere with dock clean-up crews, the dive team and the damaged vessels being towed out of the area where the incident had occurred.”
“Vessel Assist divers marked bent pilings and underwater hazards with poly lines and floats and we videotaped underwater scenes. However as ferry traffic resumed there was a great deal of turbulence.”
“By 21:30 hours we had completed our work and secured our vessels, had dinner and slept on board. The next day we picked up the environmental pads, secured dive compressors and stored miscellaneous gear, including lift bags, containment booms and dive gear and returned to our base at Silva Bay at 13:45.”
Sounder readers are familiar with the work of Captain Gray and his Vessel Assist crew from previous stories on the massive salvage of the Washington Marine Flagship Coastal Express, and also an oil spill, the most serious in island history, earlier this year in Silva Bay. Obviously, the police and Coast Guard are also aware of the well-earned reputation of Gray and his crew, which is why they were asked to assist in the biggest marine incident in years on Canada’s west coast.
He reports that he has been called out to assist boats in the Georgia Strait on about 10 serious Mayday calls in the past two months, alone.
However, these 26 hours were remarkable in Gray’s 25 years at sea, including 15 years spent in commercial assistance and salvage in the region. “Unprecedented in my experience,” is how he described the event.
The underwater video is graphic: steel pilings a metre in circumference are sheared off and bent like straws, deeply scarred by the underside of the ferry, scraped clean of barnacles and mussels, several sunken boats are broken beyond recognition and the water filled with debris as divers hung on to structures in the amazing power of the force of the underwater turbulence caused by ferries as they resumed service.
“We were thankful to have the opportunity to serve,” he says. “The captain and the quartermaster are to be commended for the decision to turn right of the wing wall out of the ferry slot.
“Unlike the area around the marina, the ferry slot has been dredged and by steering the ferry to run aground in the soft mud, lives and injuries were spared, along with millions of dollars in damages which could have resulted in the closure of the Horseshoe Bay ferry terminal.”
Gray recently installed a remote control which enables him to drop anchor from the bridge of his vessel, but given the current system on large ferries he doubts that it would have been possible to drop anchor in the four minutes between losing power and impact.
“The roar that went up from the crowd as they walked along the gangplank after a 10-hour wait was like hearing a stadium full of people cheering for a winning touchdown,” he recalled.
During the interview Gray also announced his intention to secure a boat designed and dedicated as an ambulance for Gabriola, that will be available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and to provide the service - which he estimates will take nine minutes from the island to Nanaimo -as inexpensively as possible. We will have more information in an upcoming issue of the Sounder.
In the meantime, “God was smiling on Horseshoe Bay on June 30th, 2005,” concludes Captain Paul Gray.
By Bruce Mason - Gabriola Sounder
- July 2005