FORT DESOTO, Fla. – The Coast Guard has suspended its search for a possible missing boater in the vicinity of Fort Desoto, at 10:30 a.m. Friday.
Watchstanders at Coast Guard Sector St. Petersburg, Fla., received a call from a Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office marine unit at about 10 a.m., Thursday, reporting that they had located an unmanned, overturned, adrift, 16-foot blue ganoe in Bunces Pass, in Fort Desoto.
The Coast Guard searched more than 200-square miles with a 25-foot response boat crew from Station St. Petersburg and an HH-60 Jayhawk rescue helicopter crew from Coast Guard Air Station Clearwater, Fla.
The Coast Guard has received no reports of overdue or missing persons, and the case has been suspended pending further developments.
Crews from the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office, Pinellas County Fire and Rescue, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, St. Petersburg Beach Police Department, Eckerd Search-and-Rescue, Florida Highway Patrol, Fort Desoto Park Rangers and the Pinellas Bayway toll system also aided in the search for the possible missing boater.
