In the deadliest start to a crabbing season in decades, two boats went down in rough weather off the Sonoma County coast in a span of 48 hours this week. Only one survivor, an 11-year-old boy, has been found. The body of a teenaged boy was recovered on Sunday and a second body washed ashore on Monday. Five people are still missing.
Late on Saturday—the first day of the recreational Dungeness crabbing season—a 21-foot Bayliner capsized with six people aboard, including five members of a family from Tehama County that had survived a mass shooting in 2017. Winds were high that evening, and the water was churning. The sole survivor floated ashore clinging to an ice chest.
The group set off from Bodega Bay and was last heard from at around 3 p.m. Seven hours later, the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office received a call from a worried family member who had expected them to return at around 7 p.m.
“It was an angry ocean on Saturday evening,” said Willy Vogler, who runs Lawson’s Landing, the Dillon Beach boat launch and campground that was fully booked that night. “It would have been easy to take a wave over the back of the boat, because there were waves breaking everywhere.”
A second boat capsized early on Monday morning off Mussel Point and Bodega Head, with two men aboard. The body of one was swept ashore on Bodega Dunes Beach, and the other is still missing.
Authorities mounted a major rescue effort after the Bayliner went down, with planes, boats and helicopters from eight local, state and federal law enforcement agencies scouring the waters from Point Reyes to Bodega Bay and north to the mouth of the Russian River. They covered 2,100 square miles.
The boy was found on Sunday morning by a motorist on Highway 1 near South Salmon Creek Beach, north of Bodega Bay. The body of 17-year-old Johnny Phommathep II was discovered in the water a few hours later. The search was suspended on Sunday evening, according to U.S. Coast Guard Chief Warrant Officer Michael L. Zapawa.
“The decision to suspend a search is always difficult to make and never done lightly,” he said in a statement. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of the missing boaters during this incredibly difficult time.”
At the time the Bayliner capsized, waves were reported from 10 to 14 feet and the water was in the mid 50s, a temperature at which hypothermia can set in quickly.
“There were still some big, gnarly swells and waves out there,” said Mr. Vogler, who writes a fishing blog. On Sunday morning, he warned people to stay ashore, no matter how enthusiastic they were about the start of the season. “As I write this, there are planes, boats and helicopters searching for perhaps as many as five people that are missing after their boat flipped by Bodega Head yesterday,” he wrote. “I know no details but just want everyone to be thinking safety. No crab is worth your life.”
The Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office echoed his warning on Monday. “The ocean conditions are dangerous right now, with large swells and high winds in the afternoon and evening. We advise everyone to use caution and understand the forecasted conditions.” The National Weather Service issued several small craft advisories in the days before the Bayliner capsized.
According to the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, Sunday’s capsizing was the deadliest boating accident off the Sonoma Coast since 1986, when a 65-foot party boat with 48 passengers on board sank on the first day of salmon season. Nine of the 17 people who fell overboard died. In 2014, a 32-foot vessel called The Frog was capsized by a sneaker wave on the first day of the sport crabbing season, killing four people.