SAFETY TIPS AND EVENTS

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U.S. Coast Guard - 13th District
13th District Public Information Site

Around 5:30PM Saturday August 11th a visiting rental kayaker, Vishal Bhagt, 30, of Seattle, drowned in Port Townsend Bay. According to the August 15th Port Townsend Leader article, the double kayak was inexplicably capsized and Bhagt and his companion spent approximately one hour in the water before being rescued by the crew of the ferry KLICKITAT. By spooky coincidence, the August 16th edition of the The Stranger, the Seattle weekly newspaper, ran an article by Charles Mudede called Killer Bodies: Death in Seattle's Watery Parts. Quoting a Seattle Harbor Patrol officer, Mudede writes "There are more drowning accidents in Seattle than in most other cities because, as the second officer pointed out, Seattle is the boating capital of America, 'More boats per person here than anywhere else.'" A follow-up post to the The Stranger's website by 'Rain Monkey' August 16th offers a sobering first person account of our visiting kayaker's drowning:

Last week, I was fishing from a pier in Port Townsend. The ferry to Whidbey Island came and went on a regular pattern all day. Nice people in rented kayaks went by all day and asked how my luck was. Not much luck, I told the people in the kayaks, I had caught the biggest starfish I'd ever seen in my crab net, but that wasn't what I'd come for, so I threw it back, I told them.

Late in the day, as I was packing up about six, the ferry looked funny. It wasn't doing what it had been doing all day. It seemed stalled in the water and drifting. I heard sirens. The cops by the police station in town had binoculars on the ferry. I had binoculars in the truck, and when I looked, all the people on the ferry were looking into the water from the deck. I couldn't see what was up, but something had gone wrong for sure.

I saw the bright orange zodiac from the ferry racing at top speed for the marina, an attractive woman ferry worker at the wheel.

A rescue unit and aid car came to the marina as a second small boat came racing from the ferry to shore.

The paramedics lifted a body, completely limp and soaked, onto a gurney and hustled the victim to the aid car. They closed the door on the aid car, which seemed to be rocking with the motion of CPR. The second victim in the second boat was conscious and talking to the paramedics.

About then a car drove up and some nice looking people got out, dressed in their summer clothes. They seemed to be looking, increasingly frantically, to be reassured that their loved ones were okay. They found the one the dock, talking to the paramedics. They went to the other aid car, with the closed doors. The cop at the back of the car would not let them in, and seemed to be speaking grimly.

The family was clearly not reassured about their loved one in the aid car.

After the flashing lights left the scene, and the ferry got back to the dock, the orange zodiac returned to it, with the hard working bosun looking tired.

A rescue boat dragged a shiny, bright yellow kayak to the beach, empty.

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