With some quick thinking and a little luck, passengers aboard a sinking vessel off Nelson Island were rescued without getting their feet wet.
On Saturday, May 30, Andy Cardiff, owner of the Malaspina Water Taxi, was taking nine passengers from Madeira Park to Quarry Bay on Nelson Island when he got a call from the Coast Guard, asking him to pick up a Nelson Island resident who was having a heart attack.
Cardiff headed full-throttle to the island in one-metre swells, hoping to pick up a doctor who lives in Quarry Bay and get him to the heart attack victim in Blind Bay.
"I hammered the boat. I put it down to 35 knots; usually I travel at 23," Cardiff said. "I was pounding right into a three to four foot [one metre] chop."
The boat stalled and Cardiff discovered it was taking on water. He handed out life jackets to his passengers and called the Coast Guard for help.
Luckily, Jeff Henderson, a friend of Cardiff's, was on his way to fuel up in Pender Harbour when he saw Cardiff giving life jackets to the taxi passengers.
"I could see the boat was full of water and going down really quick. We pulled up right beside and just started hucking people in," Henderson said.
He said once the passengers were safely on his boat, they assessed the situation and realized they would have time to transfer the passengers' luggage and some of Cardiff's equipment aboard.
After about five minutes, the taxi went down, stern first, with its bow sticking out of the water.
Henderson then took everyone to their destination in Quarry Bay and the Coast Guard was able to salvage Cardiff's boat and take it to Madeira Park.
Unfortunately, Cardiff later learned the heart attack victim died shortly after he received the call.
Cardiff said the hull sprung a leak on a fibreglass patch that had been installed 20 years ago when the boat was being modified from drive shaft to an outboard motor.
Cardiff was able to get another boat from his fleet in operation immediately and no scheduled trips to the island were missed.
Cardiff said his passengers remained calm, and when he picked them up the next day, he received nothing but praise.
"I picked them up with another boat the next day, and they were just thrilled. They couldn't thank me enough. They were all happy. They ended up giving me a huge tip as well, so it made me feel good in a bad situation that they weren't upset with me in any way. In fact, it was the opposite. They were quite grateful," he said.
Cardiff said he will continue to respond to every medical emergency the Coast Guard sends to him.
"That's my business. That's what I do, and I'm always there to help. This doesn't change anything," he said.
