Coast Guard Rescues Boaters, Child In Louisiana Marsh
Published: August 13, 2005
Three southwest Mississippi fishermen and a young child were headed back home Friday after being rescued from the marshes of southern Louisiana by the U.S. Coast Guard.
The Rev. James Kenneth Rockco, 54, his 5-year-old grandson Dakota Rockco and the Rev. Mike Dykes, 54, all of Jayess, and the Rev. Billy Smith, 65, of Foxworth, were rescued by helicopter Thursday night.
Dykes is the pastor of Powell’s Grove United Pentecostal Church. Rockco is minister at Pine Grove UPC. Smith is retired.
The four left Breton Sound Marina at Shell Beach east of Chalmette, La., on Thursday to go fishing. They had good luck catching redfish with shrimp - 30 to 40 fish, four of which were in the slot limit, said Rockco.
Rockco said he had checked tidal charts but got off-course in the grassy maze that reaches more than 20 miles out toward the Gulf of Mexico.
“I just wound up getting off and I didn’t have my GPS with me,” Rockco said. “I have one but didn’t have it with me. I had my map and everything. If you know the channels you can get through there.”
Their problems became worse when he burned up his 150 Evinrude motor trying to force the Stratus 282 bass boat through the shallows. They used the trolling motor and a paddle to get to a 5-foot-deep channel near Lake Eugene and tied to an old piling.
The men said they would have toughed it out except for the presence of Dakota.
“We would have spent the night out there,” Rockco said. “We’ve done that before. We’ve had that happen; the engines messed up.”
Instead, they called 911 on their cell phones. The call was routed to the Coast Guard.
Rockco admitted he felt frightened “whenever the batteries on the cell phone went out and us with a 5-year-old child. All we could do was just wait until I heard the chopper coming, and I told the guys, ‘I hear them coming.’ I had my flare gun ready. Soon as I sighted him I fired off two.”
The chopper airlifted Rockco and his grandson to Belle Chasse, La., then came back for the other two. The group stayed in a motel in Chalmette on Thursday so they could retrieve their boat Friday, using a friend’s airboat to tow it.
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