Family members await news of missing crew

FAMILY MEMBERS are waiting anxiously for news of their loved ones who are still missing after the cargo vessel, MV Fair Chance capsized in waters off Trinidad last Saturday.

MODICA ALEXANDER-CHANCE, wife of boat captain Dexter Chance

The vessel is being towed into shallower water where dives will be conducted to assess whether the five crew members are trapped inside.

Among those who are possibly trapped inside is Captain Dexter ‘Gary’ Chance, whose wife Modica Alexander-Chance is waiting on Union Island with faith that she will receive good news about all the missing crew.

Modica last spoke to her husband on Saturday, April 2, between two and three p.m. before the boat left the Trinidad Port. The final thing they discussed before the call ended was organising the payment for the crew members when the vessel docked in St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG). The Trinidad and Tobago(T& T) Coast Guard received a report on 4:45p.m on April 2 that the vessel carrying cargo for Grenada and SVG had capsized in the waters off Trinidad after encountering problems. They are conducting the search and rescue operations.

The working theory is that the cargo shifted while in rough water and caused the boat to overturn.

Two crewmen from the seven crew vessel have been rescued thus far.

Union Island resident, Derrol Small is one of them while Johnel McIntosh of Carriacou is the other.

Modica explained that Small called his sister in Union Island and told his sister to call her. When Small’s sister phoned Modica, she told her that the boat capsized, and gave a phone number for those persons who rescued the two crew members.

“I called and then he (Small) was in tears and he was explaining what happened,” she recalled; she also spoke with McIntosh.

Dexter is from Grenada but he first travelled to Union Island on a fishing trawler where he met his future wife.

He called the Grenadine island home after giving up fishing and marrying Modica in 2015.

He has been operating the Fair Chance between Trinidad and SVG for less than a year.

Modica explained that when she got the news, “I cry, but then I sit down and I think of it that I had some feelings that they are still alive within me.” “That’s my feelings, that they’re still alive,” she said.

She, along with other families on Union are still waiting for news. They have been told that the coastguard are using a barge and tug to direct the vessel into shallow water where divers are prepared to assess the situation.

Modica is hoping for the best.

“I have a lot of faith,” she said.

“ All that I want is that when they get in the boat in the shallow everyone should be alive inside. That’s all.

Everyone should be alive,” the wife noted.

The SVG Coast Guard is liaising with the T& T coastguard but up until nightfall yesterday, the boat was still in tow.