MARIN COUNTY, Calif. (KGO) — Marin County firefighters have recovered the bodies of two canoers who disappeared during a bioluminescent tour on Tomales Bay, officials said.
The men launched before midnight Saturday and were reported missing when they failed to return, according to officials.
Their bodies were recovered Sunday morning. Officials said both men were wearing life jackets.
On Monday, the Marin County Sheriff’s Office identified one of the men as 36-year-old San Francisco resident Casey Flynn Melia. The other man has not yet been identified.
The Sheriff’s Office says that first responders first found the other man unresponsive in the water. He was transported to Bodega Bay in Sonoma County, where he was declared dead.
Search teams later found Melia unresponsive near Hog Island. He was taken to Sacramento Landing, where he was declared dead.
Pamalah MacNeily runs Blue Waters Kayaking.
“The friends of one of the people who died came up and said, ‘Have you seen our friends? They’re in a canoe.’ And he said, ‘No, you better call 911 because we’ve not seen them,’ and the car was still there,” said MacNeily.
MacNeily is descriving what her tour guide on Tomales Bay came across before emergency crews were on scene.
“So my guide came back visibly shaken. This is not the kind of thing that any of us want to see on Tomales Bay,” she said.
Tomales Bay is known for bioluminescent water, but MacNeily says the glowing waves would have been barely visible, if visible at all Saturday night into Sunday, because the moon was nearly full.
Their company runs bioluminescent tours that involve trained guides with several different types of kayaks that does not include canoes.
“We tell people, no canoes on Tomales Bay- please,” said MacNeily.
“You have to have the right equipment and the right training to do it. It’s not something that everybody knows how to do,” said John Granatir of Blue Waters Kayaking.
MacNeily and Granatir say canoes can easily capsize in a bay. They say water temperatures along Tomales Bay have been between 54 and 56 degrees of late. It’s unclear what happened but that is very cold water.
A joint investigation is ongoing between the Marin County Sheriff’s Office, the U.S. Coast Guard, and the National Parks Service.
Battalion Chief Bret McTigue of the Marin County Fire Department warned about the dangers of the waterway.
“The area of Tomales Bay and the mouth of Tomales Bay in particular is one of the most dangerous waterways imaginable in California coastlines, so if you are coming out, you need to do your homework,” McTigue said.
Toxicology reports have not yet been released, and the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office has not released the identity of the second victim.
Fire officials are urging boaters to carry a marine radio and wear a life jacket.
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