Day of fishing off Sonoma Coast ends in tragedy

The group motored out of Bodega Harbor at dawn Friday eager to greet the open sea and hook some salmon.

Outside the harbor, waves swelled a stomach-churning 10 feet and closer in pounded the coastline, prompting advisories from the National Weather Service. But veteran sailor and Santa Rosa teacher Rick Hargreaves, 59, apparently did not sense danger.

Joining Hargreaves on his 21-foot boat were retired teacher Diane Kelly, 61, her live-in boyfriend, David Breeden, 39, and Ryan Viall, 28, a certified electrician who lived next door to the couple in Windsor.

One seasoned Bodega Bay commercial salmon fisherman said Sunday the conditions that were present Friday outside the harbor did not present much cause for concern. But Hargreaves’ father, himself a fisherman, said his son should have turned around.

“Normally, he wouldn’t go out in that kind of weather,” Richard Hargreaves Sr., 83, said Sunday. “More than once he’s turned around and gone home without putting his boat in the water if the waves were too high. I can’t understand.”

Investigators don’t know what happened to the fishing party after they left the harbor. When they failed to return Friday evening, search and rescue personnel, including from the Coast Guard and Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office, were dispatched to look for them.

Saturday, searchers discovered the boat crashed on a beach near Tomales Point. Two bodies also were located, one on the shore of Bird Rock, a 2-acre island off the western coast of Tomales Point, and the other, offshore in a floating debris field that appeared to have come from the small craft.

The bodies were those of Hargreaves and Kelly. The search for Breeden and Viall continued Sunday. Both men are presumed dead. Authorities have not confirmed the identities of either missing man, but family and friends believe it is Breeden and Viall.

Loved ones of the four struggled Sunday to understand the loss.

Kelly, who preferred to spell her first name as Dyan, had expressed enthusiasm about heading out on the boating adventure in a conversation she had with her daughter the day before the ill-fated journey.

“She was super-excited. She wanted to bring me salmon,” said Jessica Peluso, who lives in Sacramento and works as a medical assistant for Kaiser Permanente.

The visit to Sacramento also would have been an opportunity for Kelly, who retired last year after a long career with Sonoma County schools, to spend time with her 9-month-old granddaughter, Grace.

Tributes from many of Kelly’s former students were posted on her Facebook page over the weekend.

Former colleagues also praised Kelly, who ended her career at Amarosa Academy on Dutton Avenue.

“She was no-nonsense with the kids, but they knew really clearly that she cared deeply for them and she wanted them to succeed,” said Georgia Ioakimedes, director of Alternative Education-Student Support Services for the Sonoma County Office of Education.

Hargreaves also taught at Amarosa, where he was known as “Coach” to students.

Ioakimedes said Hargreaves had a “heart of gold” and that he often went out of his way to help students. She said that included Hargreaves taking one of his students fishing.

Peluso said her mother also had gone fishing with Hargreaves prior to Friday’s excursion. The Santa Rosa man, who had a girlfriend, often got his boat out of storage to drive to the coast for a day of rock or salmon fishing. On Friday, the group left from the Westside Regional Park boat launch.

The National Weather Service had issued a small-craft advisory on Friday for the outer sea 10 miles beyond Bodega Harbor, as well as a hazardous surf advisory for closer to shore. But neither advisory pertained to the waters where typically recreational fishermen hang out.

The swells in that area were about 10 feet, which is above average. But the intervals between swells also were longer than usual, at about 16 to 17 seconds, according to Duane Dykema, a forecaster for the Weather Service.

“In the open ocean, that’s a good thing,” he said of long intervals between swells. “But near shore, that becomes hazardous because that’s where the waves break.”

Mat Keller, who fishes for salmon commercially in the waters off Bodega Bay aboard “Candice,” a converted 30-foot sailboat, said the conditions on Friday did not sound particularly concerning. He was not out that day, as commercial salmon season does not begin until May 1.

However, Keller echoed concerns about boats getting too close to shore in such seas, saying that if anything happened to the motor, sailors “could be in serious trouble.”

Assuming Hargreaves’ boat had a marine radio, Keller said the fact nobody on the stricken vessel called for help suggests that whatever happened, it did so fast and possibly without warning.

Keller said it would have been odd for Hargreaves to have been closer in because salmon are being caught about 3 miles from shore. He posited the theory that the fishing party, frustrated over not catching anything, may have motored south to Tomales Point, where they could have tried their luck with rockfish closer to shore. Keller said standard practice when going for that prize is to turn the motor off and drift.

Could that have been when tragedy struck?

“It’s a mystery,” Keller said.

Last November, four people were killed and a fifth was rescued when their fishing boat capsized off Bodega Rock on the first day of the recreational crab fishing season. The group was traveling about 10 mph on the west side of Bodega Rock when a sneaker wave hit the port side of the boat, flipping it. A small-craft advisory had been in effect that day as a result of wind and choppy water.

Richard Hargreaves, who lives in Redding, said his son decided against going out on the first day of the salmon fishing season this year because of inclement weather. He said his daughter - Rick’s sister - was with the Santa Rosa man that day.

The elder Hargreaves said his son never wore life preservers because he felt they were too “cumbersome” and interfered with fishing.

Neither Rick Hargreaves nor Kelly were wearing life preservers when their bodies were found in the water, according to Melanie Gunn, a spokeswoman for Point Reyes National Seashore. But she said that doesn’t mean the pair wasn’t wearing life preservers when they went overboard.

On Sunday, about 25 personnel from the National Park Service, Marin County Sheriff’s Department and Marin County Fire Department canvassed about 22 miles of shoreline along the national seashore from Tomales Point to the Point Reyes Lighthouse looking for signs of the two missing boaters.

Barring new information, Gunn said searchers were not planning to resume the quest Monday.

Peluso said she believes her mother was doing something that made her happy when she went on the boat that morning.

“I think they went out there presuming it was going to be like every other time they went out,” she said.

You can reach Staff Writer Derek Moore at 521-5336 or derek.moore@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @deadlinederek.