Two Canadian tourists had quite the sailing experience in Los Cabos over the weekend when the boat that they were traveling on caught fire. The Harbor Master in Cabo San Lucas received a distress call alerting him that the ship called, “Oceans” had caught fire. The incident occurred about 9km(5.6 miles) from the Cabo San Lucas coast.
The local authorities deployed one of their boats that is known as a “defender” to the spot. The boat was sailing around the area called “Punta de Cabeza de Ballena”. Luckily, this is a rather well known route for all sorts of local ships.
By the time that first responders arrived the two men had already been brought aboard another vessel named the “Blue Moon”. The flames and the dark cloud of smoke that formed around the vessel could be easily spotted from shore. Ironically that may have been what alerted the “Blue Moon”, and saved the Canadian tourists.
In seeing that these two people were in stable condition not much was done to mitigate the fire that was consuming their boat. When it was all set and done authorities declared that the vessel was a total loss. At this point, there has been no official word on what caused the incident.
Also, local authorities have yet to give an update on the health of the Canadian tourists that were rescued from the wreckage. Although, it’s understood that they were taken to the hospital as a precautionary measure. It is within the hospital that they may be questioned by local police. To try and figure out how the fire was started.
This Was Not The Only Fire At Sea Incident In The Region Over The Weekend
On Saturday local marine rescue boats also had to be deployed out to sea for another fire incident on board a vessel. In this case the boat in question was a cargo vessel that was coming into Bahia de la Paz from Sinaloa. Although no official versions of the incident have been released, eyewitness reports indicate that this particular fire was started inside of a cargo truck that was on board the large boat! As was the case with the “Oceans” situation, locals on private boats were the first on the scene. They were able to evacuate the crew of the ship, and get everyone to shore safely.
The Local Fire Department Is Ready To Keep Staff On Hand To Handle Water Rescues In The Coming Weeks
These incidents have been taken as close calls by local authorities. They may be a big reason why the local fire department is making sure that they have staff on hand at all times to handle water rescues. It seems that this effort is potentially aimed more at rescuing swimmers who have a hard time staying afloat. However, the fire crew are equipped with boats that could reach further out to sea, and tend to issues similar to the two that we’ve just described!
The department mentioned that it currently has only 35 active firefighters on duty. They will be taking turns in groups of 10. To make sure that there is always someone patrolling the Cabo beaches. 35 active firefighters may seem like a real low number. Particularly for an area that is home to about 200 thousand people. The issue is that most Mexican firefighters are volunteers, actually 35 is the number of professional firefighters in the force. Which, is sometimes reinforced by volunteers!