An emotional homecoming

By Nancy Willis

FOR THE SOU’WESTER

The remaining crew members of the Prince Edward Island crab boat that sank in the waters between Prince Edward Island and the Iles de la Madeleine early Sunday morning, June 8, arrived back home Tuesday.

First mate Kyle Costain of Elmsdale was visibly shaken as he walked off the Iles de la Madeleine ferry in Souris and into the arms of family and friends.

Costain was part of the harrowing experience that resulted in the loss of his fellow crewman Danny Ellsworth of Tignish. Ellsworth was at the wheel of the 12-metre vessel when it went down shortly after midnight on Sunday.

Costain, boat owner Casey Gavin and another crewmember, Brian DesRoches, were asleep below deck when the boat began to sink.

The men had barely time to get into a life raft and had no opportunity to grab life preservers or flotation suits. As they got into the raft, the crab boat tipped over and started sucking the life raft down, throwing them back in the water.

All but Ellsworth were able to get back into the raft.

“It happened so fast, we don’t know what went wrong or what happened,” Costain said in a brief interview. “We don’t know if a rope was around his (Ellsworth’s) leg and pulled him down with the boat, or if it landed on top of him and forced him down underneath it, we just don’t know.”

The search for Ellsworth was called off by the Canadian Coast Guard late Sunday night.

Police say the waters in which the boat sank are very deep and a recovery operation would be extremely difficult.