© Barbados Coast Guard
The French Navy alerted the Barbados Coast Guard on Saturday, July 7, 2019, they had located the jet ski used by two Americans when they went missing last month.
The French Navy alerted the Barbados Coast Guard on Saturday, July 7, 2019, they had located the jet ski used by two Americans when they went missing last month.
French Navy officers found the missing jet ski hundreds of miles away in Guadeloupe on Saturday, nearly two weeks after Magdalena Devil and Oscar Suarez, of New Jersey, vanished at sea, authorities said.
There were no signs of the missing couple.
The pair disappeared on June 24 after renting after a jet ski at Holetown Beach on the western coast of Barbados, authorities said.
The jet ski operator became concerned about 30 minutes later and asked other operators to be on the lookout for them, according to the Royal Barbados Police Force. They notified police later, telling officers that the couple appeared to be lost at sea.
Authorities suspended an intensive search for the couple on June 30 after the U.S. withdrew its assisting aircraft, according to local news outlets.
Local authorities said the couple's families would be informed of the discovery soon.
Mia Mottley, the island's prime minister, said she met with the pair's families last week and offered to fly them to the Barbados, her office said in a statement Sunday.
"Last Monday Prime Minister Mottley met with the families of the missing couple at Ilaro Court and expressed regret at the unfortunate events and invited them to return to this island anytime over the next year at Government's expense, if it would assist them in bringing closure to the matter," the statement said. "Prime Minister Mia Mottley and Minister of Tourism Kerrie Symmonds have been informed of the discovery and local authorities will make immediate contact with the families to inform them of the development."
Investigators said Suarez and Devil checked into their shared room at Discovery Bay Hotel in St. James on June 22 and were scheduled to depart the following week, according to the hotel.
Or, perhaps one fell off and the other stupidly jumped off to help, while the jet ski slowly ran away. There's a shitty feeling.
One thing surfers learn quite early is that Mother Ocean doesn't care for or about you. She's a phenomenal wonder, and a simply pure killer. Whenever you're out there, you're at her mercy - or lack thereof.
Once, at around age 17, I had to swim for over 50 minutes to get to the beach due to outgoing tide and multiple rip currents. Also, I had so little body fat that I could take a huge breath and still sink down six feet... IN SALT WATER!
So if I stopped swimming, I was 'done for'. When I got to the beach, I literally crawled up past the water line and lay down, thanking God, et al. for my somehow surviving. (All true surfers has stories like that.) I can remember two or three other times of crawling onto the beach.
But I'm still here, baby.
R.C.