Updated 9:29 p.m. Aug. 15, 2016: The Coast Guard stopped looking for Arnold Skeek, the missing 27-year-old fisherman from Kake, early Monday afternoon. Authorities believe he fell from the Beaufort Sea, 60-foot fishing tender, into Auke Bay on Sunday. Skeek’s family presumes he is dead.
Posted 1:02 p.m. Aug. 14, 2016: The Coast Guard is searching the Auke Bay area for a 27-year-old mariner who fell overboard from 60-foot fishing tender, the Beaufort Sea, on Sunday. Operations Specialist 2nd Class Brandon Daves said the report came in at 11 a.m. Sunday.
“They’d seen one of their crewmembers who was on deck sleeping at approximately 6 o’clock in the morning; (it) was the last time he was seen,” Daves said. “They awoke at about 11 o’clock to find him missing and not aboard the vessel, and the next logical assumption was that he had fallen overboard.”
Authorities have not named the crewman. Daves said the Coast Guard dispatched three cutters, a helicopter from Sitka, and a 25-foot vessel from station Juneau. Alaska State Troopers have also joined the search as well as local mariners fishing in Juneau’s 70th annual Golden North Salmon Derby.
No one reported seeing the crewman fall overboard, but Daves said that is the most likely scenario.
“They were anchored out far enough away from shore that suspecting that he had gone to shore was not a likely scenario,” Daves said. “At first, we were kind of thinking that might have been a possibility, however just based on the (crew’s) reaction to this person being gone — they were very shaken.”
Daves said the missing man’s condition will determine how long they search.
“We’re looking as best we can and we’re going to do so as long as it is apparent that we may be still searching for someone who is still alive,” he said.
When he was last seen, the missing man was wearing a dark-colored sweater and dark jeans. Daves said it doesn’t look like he was wearing a life jacket.
