This info was sent 9-1-01, but appears to not have posted. The accidents at Columbia River had not happened yet. So here it is... Here is the latest on the accidents on the No. Washington Coast. A grandfather and his 3 grandsons, ages 18-21?, are missing and presumed dead. The boat was a 17' Boston Whaler, which is considered unsinkable. The boat disappeared Wednesday night or very early Thurdsay morning, last. Boat may have had second small outboard. The main engine reportededly had been causing trouble for several days. The boys were reported to be wearing lifejackets, the kapok type. Weather was calm, but dense fog. Boat was found thursday morning just north of the entrance, banged up from contact with rocks. No sign of any of the 4 persons reported on board. Serious damage to boat and engine. No indications they had a radio or GPS. Tonight in Spokane Washington several families are trying to recover from the shock of this loss. No bodies or sign of them had been found as of about 1400 PDT this date. Newspaper reports indicate that the CG searched an area of 40 miles square before giving up the search Friday night. On our way down the coast thursday we conducted a sweep search about one mile west of the beach for 10 miles above the entrance and about 3 miles south. It was too dangerous for us with a 65' boat to go in any closer. When we passed the area, there was at least one helo and 2 boats still searching. Except for some minor debris and the boat, nothing substantial has been found. It is as if the ocean had just swallowed them up. All this occured in very calm conditions. Thursday afternoon visiblity was about 5 miles. This area is full of rocks, rock islands, rocky headlands and beaches that consist of rocks and cliffs. There is more hard stuff to hurt yourself on than almost anyplace on earth. This may not be the end of the earth, but from here "you can see it". About one week earlier a commercial fishing vessel with one person, was lost and the man on it died. He had a survival suit, but may not have pulled it all the way up and zippered it. His death was visually seen, as the local rescue boats watched, but could not get to him. I am told that the helo that tried to save him nearly crashed when caught in a down draft. This happened after dark. He had made it into the entrance and his engine died. He put out the anchor but the rope became detached. Tide was ebbing and the boat drifted back out to sea and around the North end of James Island and into the breakers. This is the CG station that the Coast Guard wants to shut down and abandon. I hope this causes a change of thinking. But, I would trade the base for the lives that were lost, if it would, if I could. The immensity of the tragedy here is hard to put into words. Several weeks ago, my 27 year old niece traded a couple seconds inattention for her life. The truck driver who hit her had lost his daughter recently in a traffic accident. He was hysterical from the shock of it. After the memorial service, I took all the younger kids aside and I told them that the pastor had sugar coated things as he should, but there was no sugar coating the fact that it only takes a few seconds inattention to get yourself killed. And that I did not intend to sit passively by until one of them did something similar. If the fisherman had called for an escort before crossing, he would be alive. If he had not lost his anchor, he would be alive. If he had zipped his suit all the way up, he MIGHT be alive, That's a lot of ifs. Just one of which might have done the job. If the grandfather's boat had had a radio or a GPS or had not gone out in the dense fog, 3 young men, might have lived to see old age. Instead, the friends, parents, brothers, sisters and sweethearts of those 3 young men and one grandfather are crying themselves to sleep tonight. And somewhere someone mourns the commercial fisherman. Of all the accidents, involving small pleasure fishing boats on the Oregon/Washington/No. Calif. coast, a very high percentage occur in dense fog. If you don't have a depthfinder, gps or radio and you are trying to find the beach so you can find your way home, what do you do when the beach finds you first? I can recite accident after accident over 40 years that was caused by or aggravated by dense fog. If you are lost and safe, stay put. If you are lost and not safe, be careful you don't jump from the frying pan into the fire. Call for help, stay where you are safe. If you can't call for help, stay where you are safe. You will be reported missing. If you are safe, they will find you. Better safe and cold waiting for someone to find you than, dead and missing. Small boats in dense fog, near rocky shores on cold water coasts, lacking vital safety gear are prime candidates for serious accidents even in the hands of experienced people. In the hands of amateurs, well you know the answer to that! There is on last thing I would harp on. There is an undercurrent to this boating stuff, that people don't want to look stupid. So, rather than look stupid, or have someone notice that they have made a mistake and might laugh at their mistake, a lot of folks will try to solve the problem without asking for help. You know how it goes, you're lost, you don't want anyone to know, so you don't call and ask for someone to follow home. You make a mistake while trying to dock and instead of backing out and trying again, you keep on and really bungle things big time. Don't worry about whether anyone will think you are stupid. The most stupid thing is ending up dead and the next most is not correcting a mistake without making it bigger. When you are in trouble don't get in a hurry. Hurry is getting ahead of yourself, it does not mean you should not react quickly. A couple of years ago, I pulled a couple of brothers out of the water in the Straits of Juan De Fuca. They had been in the 40 degree water about an hour and would have died in another. We stripped them down and one of them told me, he was embarrased. It would have been a LOT more embarrassing if he had been dead, when I pulled him out. What would have been done to him then would have been FAR more embarrassing. There is a recent movie, the name I can't recall, with Anthony Hopkins and Alex Baldwin filmed in Alaska. Anthony's character comments that after accidents most people die of embarrasment. What he did not get across is that they die of it because they made a mistake they tried to correct by themselves and then got themselves in even more trouble. And the Shock of the mistake and the embarrassment kills them. Sometimes almost instantly from heart attack and in other cases they just give up and die. Such a waste. Be safe, take care. Capt. Mike Maurice Near Portland Oregon.