…a father tells harrowing tale of son being stranded at sea
By Lakhram Bhagirat
Many times when your parents restrict you from doing something, it means that there is intuition and for some reason, we as children, always rebel. We accuse them of limiting our opportunities to explore the world, to learn and discover and in the end, we rebel.
Sometimes the rebellion pays off and we are exposed to amazing opportunities and sometimes it all goes haywire and we think “I should have listened to mommy/daddy”.
That may have crossed the mind of 18-year-old Adesh Latchman several times while he was drifting with the tide in the Atlantic Ocean for those five days.
Latchman along with his cousins Sahadeo Ramkishun, 19; Anand Sookram, 18; and friend, Manmohan Indar, 19, came to the fore over a week ago when news broke that they were stranded in the Atlantic Ocean and had been drifting for over five days. The quartet left their Dundee Dam, Mahaicony home sometime around 10:00h on Tuesday, June 25, for the Abary koker. When they got there, they loaded fishing boat “Angela 3” and left for the open waters of the Atlantic Ocean to fish.
They were scheduled to return the following day with their catch. Everything went smoothly the first day and night into their trip but on the day they were to return home, tragedy struck. Of the four boys, none have the technical knowledge to deal with their boat engine so when they were preparing to head home and the engine conked out, they had no idea what to do. They tried restarting it several times but the 15-year-old engine refused to buckle.
For Adesh, it was the first time that he went out to the ocean to fish and following that experience, he said it is going to be his last.
Adesh’s father, Bharat Latchman, was not a fan of the idea of his 18-year-old son going to sea because he knows how hard it is. The elder Latchman once owned a fishing boat and would have been through the experience of becoming a fisherman and that was the life he had not wanted for his son.
So on that fateful Tuesday when his son came to him and asked to go out to sea, he insisted on him not going. However, his nephews and his son began begging him to persuade his approval and finally, he relented. Permission was granted and the foursome left.
After his son did not return on Wednesday, the family started to feel uneasy. That uneasiness was further compounded with the lack of substantial information as to the whereabouts of the young men. They were then informed that the vessel encountered difficulties and that they are drifting out in the open waters.
“The family there like them ain’t take it serious and when them [the boys] call back again, it was different area and then them start look. We start fuh search and ask fisherman and so. One Enmore fisherman say that them see a boat at deep ocean and it was around Chateau Margot side and we went and take a boat and went out to search but we didn’t find them. That was the Saturday,” the father related.
The father said he had never encountered such fear because the entire family thought that they were going to lose their son. Adesh is his eldest child and only son and it was especially hard on his mother, who had stopped eating.
She was so worried that she began to feel unwell. She refused to eat because she was sure that her son was out there starving. It was quite sickening for her and when the family received a call around 20:00h that Saturday night, after their search had failed, they were on the edge. They were overcome with joy because they thought that they were going to Mahaicony Stelling to meet their baby boy but life dealt them its final blow before they were granted the chance to experience full joy.
When they arrived at the Mahaicony Stelling, they were shattered to see one of the four boys and that boy was not theirs. Questions started to fire like they were in a battle and they were told that their baby was still out there drifting and would be rescued until the following day.
Adesh’s mother, Finey (only name given), said that she could not sleep that night. She was restless and her hair kept breaking over and over again. She prayed all night for the sun to rise and so that the rescue mission could kick in gear.
At the crack of dawn, the family got up and the rescue mission started.
“When we see he we run and scramble he and start cry. He tell abay that them just sit down in the boat and that the lil food them carry was finished and them got dry macaroni and they eat that salt water. He say ‘if two days more been pass then daddy abay nah woulda mek it’. Them been already confused because one of the boy them been throw away the radio and some oil and so because nobody was coming. Them been can’t make it. When he come back, he was trembling and all he eye gone in and he was suffering,” the elder Latchman said.
The family got him treated at the hospital and he was so traumatised that he needed medication to be able to rest. After that experience, the young man expressly stated that the adventures on the open waters are not for him.
