I am one of the members of a dive team that was hired by one of the family members on the ERIK. We have been searching for the wreck for some time now
and Im sure many of you are aware that it was located a few months ago.
After that the Son of one of the missing, Mr. Joe Jacinto organized the dive team consisting of Capt. Wings Stocks, KC Stocks, and myself to dive on
and penetrate the wreck of the ERIK and search for any remains of the 7 missing.
The wreck is located in aprox 160 ft of water sitting on its keel leaning to starboard. It is covered completely in shrimp trawl nets to the point
where net had to be cut free in order for us to access the work areas. The wreck itself is highly overgrown already with lots of scallop colonies on
it. There is also a massive amount of rope, cord, line, as well as the net that is in different levels of suspension above and around the wreck. To
make it clear, its a very dangerous place to dive. Combine that with the ripping current at the location and aprox 4 ft of vis at the bottom in the
dark and you can understand the difficulty. Due to its location, depth and technical difficulty as well as total lack of any decompression or medical
facilities make this type of dive operation extremely high risk. This dive was done using a remote gas mixing system that we were able to deploy and
operate in our remote area. Without a system such as this and skilled operators this dive is not possible.
We received full cooperation from the Mexican Govt, Mexican Military, US Consulate in Mexico and the Mexican Board of Tourism. I would like to thank
them for the considerable amount of time and resources that they put at our disposal for logistics and security.
In addition I would like to say thank you to all of you here at BD and to everyone that supported this effort to bring back these United States
Citizens. I have been waiting for someone to make an announcement but for some reason the Find Our Fathers organization has chosen to remain quiet.
After several dives to clear the work area, string safety lines, and stage emergency gear we were able to breach the ship and investigate the actual
cabins where some of the passengers would have been. We were able to discover the remains of 3 individuals (RIP). These remains were turned over to
Mexican Authorities who are still in the process of an investigation. We were escorted by Military for the duration of the operation and all
international protocols were followed. We believe that there are still more remains inside the wreck that we can recover. We ran out of weather and
money. Currently Mr. Joe Jacinto has been financing these operations out of his private money, and then getting reimbursed from the Find Our Fathers
organization afterwords. As far as I know it, this last operation he paid for entirely out of his own pocket.
The reason for this post is to let everyone know that something was done about this, and that there is still some more work to do. DNA testing on the
remains is still being done in an attempt to identify the names of those recovered. Currently we are waiting for further information and direction
from the Find Our Fathers Organization to see if they want to use the money that was donated to do another operation to recover the remaining victims.
From what I understand the Find Our Fathers Organization is still accepting donations to fund further dive recovery operations. At this point I have
no information as to if they actually intend to do an operation to get the other remains we expect are in another area of the vessel.
Why there was no announcement on this I have no idea, I can only expect it has something to do with the very hard news and finality that hits home
when a recovery operation is through. And the unwanted attention that it may bring from the media. Loosing a loved one is a terrible thing and I cant
imagine the emotional rollercoaster that these families must have endured.
RIP to all those who we found and those still trapped inside.
Thank you gonetoBaja for all of you devoted help. Thanks for having the Balls to put yourself in Danger while helping out the unfortunante.
We need more of your Kind in this old World !!
Thanks again Skeet/LoretoFamily Guy - 11-5-2012 at 05:01 PM
Thanks for posting. Hopefully this will bring some sense of closure for their families. I met a few of them at a local restaurant during a
fundraiser for the search effort. Great folks and my heart goes out them.capt. mike - 11-6-2012 at 10:12 AM
great work Dale. miss you here amigo.gonetobaja - 11-6-2012 at 01:15 PM
Its good to reconnect with you guys Mike! Ive been kind of off line somewhat.Geo_Skip - 11-8-2012 at 08:34 AM
gonetobaja, your act of compassion and bravery deserves recognition and thanks.
thank you!
News about the recovery from the Erik, March, 2013
David K - 3-26-2013 at 09:00 AM
This came to me from Dale ('gonetobaja') this morning:
Amazing effort and details. Thanks for the links.
We`ll never have all questions answered, but Pat is doing some great reporting.
For the victims, RIP.
