A miracle at sea saved five fishermen whose vessel, Crystal Eye, sank in the frigid waters on the west coast of Tobago in the Caribbean Sea on Sunday. According to Trinidad and Tobago Newsday, the rescued crew are passionately thanking God for saving them. Drifting for nearly two hours wearing life jackets in the rough waters, the men were rescued by a Bahamian vessel which dropped a lifeboat into the water to take the men back to port.
Newsday reports that the Crystal Eye sent out distress calls before the boat was fully under water, but the signal was not strong enough. The president of the All Tobago Fisherfolk Association (ATFA), Curtis Douglas, explained that the calls from the vessel, which they received just after midnight on Sunday morning, were “muffled” and it was difficult to understand the words that were being said. Douglas shared that he has been trying to obtain two rescue boats to respond to these types of calls as well as satellite phones to help “modernize the fishing industry in Tobago.”
The Bahamian crew, which rescued the men around 2 a.m., ensured that the men they saved were taken care of after being in the cold water for nearly two hours. One man was suffering from hypothermia, but received proper treatment and recovered. At Port of Spain, they were greeted by family members who were contacted about the situation.
One of the men who was saved, Jerome Nicome, told Newsday, “Thank God, all the honor and glory and praise. Anybody who hearing me now, trust Christ…because He is the one that saved us. God allow us to drift into the vessel that saved us. Nobody was seeing us out there.” Nicome is not the only member of the crew to thank God for their rescue; all of the men agreed that God heard their prayers and answered them. With weak communication lines, happening to come upon a vessel, and surviving after being submerged in frigid waters, their rescue was a real miracle and one that only strengthens faith and trust in God.