After a weekend of prayer and panic, relatives of Christina Maharaj breathed a sigh of relief when word arrived that she and 12 other people who were lost at sea since Friday were safe in Venezuela. Yesterday, T&T Coast Guard communications officer Lt Cmdr Kirk Jean-Baptiste said the missing pirogue, Davi Ann, bearing the registration number PFZ 94, and all crew members were found floating off an island, Los Monjes, off the Venezuelan mainland, by Venezuelan fishermen and taken ashore.
At their Bayshore Avenue home in Marabella yesterday, Maharaj’s brother, Oneal Maharaj, said their brother Ricardo Sinwasee went to church on Sunday and prayed for the safe return of the group of friends. “I felt relieved a bit after the information was divulged that they were safe. We thought all kinds of things happened when they went missing.
“I had feared for the worst and my family was not too pleased either. With the effects of the sea, we really could not tell what had happened. My brother went to church on Sunday and prayed for them,” Oneal said. He said the group, consisting of neighbours, friends and relatives, left the waterfront along the old Marabella train line around 4 pm Friday to lime at Pigeon Point beach, Tobago. He said when they almost reached Tobago, the boat stalled and drifted away.
He said no one had been able to contact crew members and were unsure when they would return home. He said it was the first time his sister took a pirogue to go to Tobago as she would usually use the ferry service. Also on the pirogue were their neighbours Hendy Scott, 55, the boat’s owner, and Keston Moraine, 42.