Missing fishing boat found underwater off Cape Cod, 2 bodies recovered
Two bodies were found in the fishing boat Seahorse that went missing off Cape Cod earlier this week. It's a tragic ending to a search that had been ongoing. The sunken white hulled boat was spotted about two miles off Brewster beaches by a recreational boater just before 2:00 Wednesday afternoon.
The Coast Guard said next of kin were notified, but did not release their identities.
Captain Shawn Arsenault, 64, left his slip at Rock Harbor marina in Orleans Sunday morning to go clamming with his girlfriend, who family identified as Felicia Daley. They never returned.
"He's been a fisherman all his life. He's ran many boats from New Bedford to Provincetown," the captain's brother Paul Arsenault told WBZ on Wednesday. "He told me he wasn't coming back until he got his 30-bag limit."
That usually takes only a day, but when his white Ford pickup truck was still in the marina parking lot two days later it raised concerns, including reports of unusual behavior the day he left the harbor.
"The fact that he didn't come in with the tide that evening wasn't necessarily alarming. The curious part was that the day he left the harbor he was discarding waste off the side of the boat," said Orleans Harbormaster Nathan Sears.
Discarded radar dome, GPS
That waste included a radar dome, and a GPS found on a nearby beach. The harbormaster says his boat had recently been running rough, but repairs seemed to put him back in business. Now an investigation into how the 30-foot fishing vessel Seahorse went down will answer many questions.
"These are quahog draggers, they're dragging big steel cages behind the boats. If they get hung up on the bottom, especially if you're fishing in the dark, they can roll the side of the boat and go down pretty fast," said Sears.
Cape Cod community mourning
The empty slip at the marina has been an eerie sight this week, and neighbors at his Orleans housing complex say they've been shaken by the news.
"The community has been reaching out, giving hugs and saying prayers. We all just miss him so terribly," said Melissa Phillips.
Friends to both Arsenault and Daley are heartbroken.
"If you had her as a friend, you had a good friend," said Scott Amerault, who said he has known Daley since high school. "I know he was a good captain, and he always took care of what he needed to do, he was good at what he did."
"It kind of hit me hard because both of those people I had actively hung out with in the past," said friend Patrick McLaughlin.
They say the Cape Cod community will be left with a void, and many questions about how the Seahorse went down.
"I just know that two good people on Cape Cod are gone. It's not good," McLaughlin said.
