A year after Mexico fishing disaster, still seeking answers

Joelle Bautista did not feel a sense of peace three weeks ago when divers found a sunken ship off the coast of Mexico that might contain her husband's remains.

Instead, the anger that has made it difficult for the Penngrove woman to sleep some nights spilled over into letters she dispatched this week to the presidents of two countries.

"This event has been referred to as a &‘tragic accident,' but in actuality it was not an accident," she wrote to Mexican President Felipe Calder?.

She added: "We hope you value American lives just as you do your own countrymen."

Bautista timed the letters, including one to President Barack Obama, to coincide with the one-year anniversary on Tuesday of the boating disaster that left the mother of two adrift and heartbroken.

Russ Bautista, a retired Pacific Bell worker, was with a group of six Sonoma County men who drove to Baja California last July for what was supposed to be a six-day fishing adventure over the holiday.

It instead turned into a nightmare when the 105-foot Erik began to capsize in a fierce storm just as the boat's occupants, including 27 Americans, were bunking down for the night. As the ship plunged into the dark sea, the men scrambled to get topside and jump overboard.

The survivors floated overnight and for much of the next day in the warm sea before being rescued.

Seven men remain missing and are presumed dead, including Bautista, 60, and Petaluma auto mechanic Shawn Chaddock, 49. Another man, Leslie Yee, 65, of Ceres, is the lone confirmed death so far.

After months of fruitless searching, divers found the boat last month resting upright on the sea's floor nearly 200 feet below the surface. The vessel was entangled in nets from shrimping boats.

Some family members of the missing want the boat to be recovered in the hope that the remains of their loved ones will be found. But Joelle Bautista, who held a memorial service for her husband Sept. 23 at St. Eugene's Cathedral in Santa Rosa, said she does not need that for closure.

What she seeks is someone to be held accountable so that "these people don't do this again."

<CW-31>The boat company, Baja Sportfishing, once worked out of San Diego, but owner Alexander Velez let the license expire in 2010. The survivors of the disaster said they were told the skipper was warned not to leave port because of bad weather moving in. There also were not enough life jackets for everyone on board</CW>.

Bautista said Mexican authorities have not adequately responded to the families' demands for a thorough investigation and to bring criminal charges against those who were responsible for the tragedy.

"We don't have any answers," she said.

Her letters to Obama and Calder? were signed by all 19 American survivors of the boating disaster and by family members of the missing.

On Tuesday, Bautista and her son, Max, drove out to Spud Point Marina in Bodega Bay to clean Russ' 26-foot Skipjack, which she hopes to sell. The last time she was on it was a couple of months ago when she and her children went fishing with Gary Hanson of Novato, another survivor of the ill-fated Mexican trip. They caught a salmon.