TEQUESTA, Fla.—Coast Guard and state officials visited the Florida home of one of two missing teenage boaters Wednesday, and a spokesman told news reporters the search for the boys is still “active and open.”
Capt. Mark Fedor of the Coast Guard said, “There’s been a lot of rumors that the search has been suspended. I just want to refute that. The search has not been suspended.”
The Coast Guard and Florida Fish and Wildlife officers were at the home of 14-year-old Perry Cohen for almost an hour Wednesday afternoon.
As they left, Fedor offered no further comment and didn’t take questions.
Earlier, a U.S. official in Washington had said the Coast Guard was suspending the search.
teeCrews have been searching for Cohen and Austin Stephanos for six days.
The teens’ capsized boat was found Sunday, and the Coast Guard said it was searching the waters from Daytona Beach, Florida, to South Carolina.
The Coast Guard’s relentless hunt for the young fishermen had entered its sixth day with questions growing over how long it could go on. Decision-makers were juggling a mix of “art and science,” Chief Petty Officer Ryan Doss said, trying to balance the knowledge of how long people can survive adrift with the unknowns on whether the boys had flotation devices and drinking water and what their physical condition is.
Mostly they saw vast expanses of water - some of it murky, some so clear turtles could be seen swimming 50 feet below the surface.
Occasionally, they spotted something and looped around, sometimes dropping flares.
A white rectangular shape that looked like a pillow. A box. Something greenish. But none of the items turned out to be worthwhile clues.
“Frustrating,” one crew member remarked on their headset.
“Very,” said another.
After nearly 10 hours of flying, without success, the crew looked bleary and tired as it diverted the plane around a lightning storm on its way home. Even without any major break in the search, the crew knew the importance of their work.
“You search like it’s your mom out there,” Petty Officer Garrett Peck said.
The saga of the two boys from Tequesta, Florida, began Friday. Their parents believed their fishing outing would take them to a local river and waterway, as was the rule in previous solo trips, not the deep waters of the Atlantic. A line of summer storms moved through the area that afternoon, and when the teens didn’t return on time, the Coast Guard was alerted. Their 19-foot boat was found overturned Sunday off Ponce Inlet, more than 180 miles north of where the boys started.
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