`ANGRY' SEA IN MENDOCINO COVE TOOK SEASON'S FIRST VICTIM
Published on April 28, 2007
© 2007- The Press Democrat
BYLINE: DEREK J. MOORE
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
PAGE: A1
Memo: Danger on the Coast
Nobody saw it happen.
One minute, Arthur ``Sam'' Boyd was standing in seawater up to his shins, poking in the crevices of the well-worn rocks with a prying tool for abalone.
The next minute, the 70-year-old retired high school teacher and father of five from Atascadero was floating face down in the Mendocino Coast cove, his body, clad in a wet suit, rising and falling with the incoming swells.
Boyd's death April 18, the first of four this month to begin the 2007 abalone season, reflects many of the issues surrounding the sport's safety, and whether more should be done to try to prevent such tragedies.
Some will view Boyd's age and the fact he had, according to his family, undergone both heart and gastric bypass surgeries as evidence that he shouldn't have been in Cantus Cove.
Reaching the rocky shore of the sheltered enclave between Mendocino and Fort Bragg requires a steep walk down a 30-foot cliff, no easy task for a man who had had reconstructive surgery on both knees.
Boyd's widow said she considered him physically fit for the journey, despite his medical history.
``I had absolutely no qualms about it. None,'' Hazel Boyd said.
She said her husband had been around the ocean his entire adult life, fishing for salmon in Morro Bay aboard his boat, The Barney C. He'd also been abalone hunting before on the North Coast.
``He was not a risk-taker at all,'' she said.
The conditions in the water on the morning of his death weren't ideal. Bob Gannon, a CHP officer who'd known Boyd for 35 years and was no more than 50 feet away from him when he died, called it an ``angry ocean'' that day.
The water appeared calmer inside the cove, but Gannon, 48, said he still felt the surge of incoming waves, which broke onto the shore where Boyd was standing.
``What I thought at the time was that he probably got tumbled by one of those big sets of waves that came through,'' Gannon said.
Moments before the grim discovery, Charles Cabassi, 69, had paused while rock picking to check on Boyd. In all, four of Boyd's closest friends, including his future son-in-law, were with him that day.
Cabassi, who grew up in Manchester and had recommended the cove, said he was concerned to see his buddy off on his own, away from the others.
``I gave that some concern, like maybe I should go get him,'' Cabassi recalled. ``But I thought, `He's going to be next to Bob. That should be OK.' It turned out not to be OK.''
In hindsight, Cabassi said he should have relied more on the buddy system.
Shouts from other abalone divers alerted the men to trouble. Gannon, who is trained in emergency medicine, was the first to reach his stricken friend. He said there was nothing he could do.
Cpt. Kevin Broin with the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office said Boyd may have suffered a medical emergency prior to drowning. The coroner is awaiting the results of more definitive tests before issuing a final ruling.
In the meantime, Boyd's friends and family gathered this week to spread his ashes in Morro Bay.
.
You can reach Staff Writer Derek J. Moore at 521-5336 or derek.moore@pressdemocrat.com.
PHOTO: mug: Arthur ``Sam'' Boyd
Keywords: OCEAN DROWNING DEATH FISHING
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