The sister of the Sandy Bay man who has been missing at sea since a boating mishap at Kramacou Bay Sunday night says she believes he has died but is hoping that his body would be recovered.
Kramacou Bay is located between Owia and Fancy on the northeastern coast of St. Vincent, which has rough seas, strong currents and rocky beaches.
Police said on Tuesday that the man, Kenson Browne, 25, was among 18 passengers on a fishing boat that capsized on its way from Baleine, located towards the northern tip of the island.
On Tuesday, Browne’s sister, Denicesa Browne, told iWitness News, in Owia, that she was “hopeful for his body but not alive”.
For a second straight day, Browne had travelled from Sandy Bay to Owia, the village nearest to where the incident occurred, hoping for some news about her brother.
She told iWitness News that she, along with relatives and friends, conducted a search along the rocky shoreline but it had turned up nothing.
The woman said she did not know much about the incident and that she was “just hearing some rumours from people” that the boat capsized and her brother went to rescue others.
She said she learnt that he was able to save two lives, after which no one saw him again.
Browne told iWitness News that she first learnt of the mishap when a friend called her around 8 p.m. Sunday saying the boat had capsized.
“I didn’t think anything bad,” Browne said, adding that the friend called again later saying that all of the occupants of the boat were accounted for except her brother.
“That is when my whole world turned over,” Browne told iWitness News.
She said that Kenson (photographed left) and his friends had been going on a cook every fortnight. On Sunday morning, she sent him to the shop and when he came back, he said he was leaving soon, Browne said.
“And that was the last time I saw him. It was around after 10 when he left home.”
Browne told iWitness News that after she got word that her brother was missing, she made her way to Owia, where she met her cousin and a lot of people at the wharf.
“I was looking, looking for him; searching … nobody answers,” she said, adding that she met her friend who again told her that Kenson could not be found.
The area where the boating mishap occurred is uninhabited and there are no streetlights nearby.
Journalist Rochelle Baptiste, reporting live Sunday night from the Owia Fisheries Complex, the home port for fishing boats in the area, spoke about how dark it was in the area where the boat capsized.
Baptiste said that when she visited the area, she heard voices in the sea but could not see anything.
The journalist further said that while it was very crowded at the wharf in Owia after news broke, it was very difficult to see what was going on as the area is not lit.
Browne told iWitness News that on Monday and Tuesday she searched the shoreline from Owia Big River to Rock Gutter, which was the scene of a minibus crash in 2015 that claimed the lives of seven students, including two whose bodies were never recovered from the rough seas.
“I am not giving up. Even though he might not be alive, I still want his body. I am not giving up,” she told iWitness News.
She said she went on foot and searched between rocks along the coastline “in case he is there”.
Browne said that the Coast Guard was still searching and was doing so off Fancy, the northernmost village in St. Vincent, on Tuesday.
He told iWitness News that “words can’t explain” how she feels about thinking that her brother is dead.
She said he was “a very loving, kind-hearted person.
“He wasn’t a troublemaker; he was helpful to any and everybody. He was my all; he was my best. He was a very good person.”
She said her parents were struggling to cope with the situation, with her mother “off and on, crying … but my daddy is really the one not taking it on properly. He is taking it on really bad.”
Browne said that her father only has two children — she and her brother.
She said the communities of Sandy Bay and Owia were very supportive and were sending them a lot of comforting words.
Praying he still alive.