Above: Jody Norman, Captain Ed Norman (Eddie Joe) and Scott Norman
Monday, May 25, 2020, was just a few minutes old when the fishing longliner Sarah Anne pulled away from the dock in St. Lawrence on Newfoundland’s south coast to head for the snow crab fishing grounds.
Captain Ed Norman, age 67, known to everyone as Eddie Joe, was a meticulous and precise man and if the plan was to depart at midnight, his crew knew they had better be there before then because midnight was when the 35-foot vessel would be untied.
Eddie Joe’s crew for the voyage that Monday was largely a family affair.
His son Scott Norman, 35, mostly fished with his dad during crab seasons. Eddie Joe’s nephew, Jody Norman, 42, was very close to his uncle and fished side by side with him from the time he had developed his sea legs.
The fourth crewmember was 33-year-old Isaac Kettle, a friend of the Norman family who had gone out for a few trips cod fishing with them, but this was his first-ever trip crab fishing with them. Isaac lived next door to Scott and sometimes when Scott would talk about crab fishing with his dad, Isaac would always express a keen desire to do a crabbing trip with the Normans someday.
By 12:20 a.m., the sturdy Cape Island-design vessel had steamed past the St. Lawrence harbour mouth and into the open seas heading southeasterly. The crew’s destination was nearly a four-hour steam from port.
Upon arrival on the crab grounds, Captain Norman would assess the sea, tide and wind conditions and then decide on which fleet of crab pots to haul first. It was a clear night/morning so they would probably start hauling their first fleet of 30 crab pots about daybreak shortly after 5 a.m.
Because this was the last trip of the crab season, they would stow their crab catch in the fish hold and stack the cylindrical crab pots on deck to bring back to port until next season.
The men were likely in good spirits as they steamed along that night/early morning. The crab season had been successful, with crab fetching a good price and clear skies along with good weather and favourable sea conditions for the final trip of the 2020 spring crab fishery and they expected to be back home by 4 or 5 p.m. Monday afternoon.
Back home in St. Lawrence, Scott’s wife Melissa (Mayo) Norman tried to reach her husband on his cell phone at 8:30 a.m., Monday but got no answer. She tried again a couple of times later that morning and once again in the early afternoon but with the same result.
At first, she didn’t think much about it, but following the failed afternoon attempt, she grew worried.
“At first, I just thought they were still busy working on their first fleet of pots and even after my second call at around 10 o’clock I figured they might have been into their second fleet and were still busy,” she says.
When there was no answer a third time, Melissa became a little concerned.
“Scott always got back to me when I sent a text or called. He’d try and find a quiet spot somewhere on the boat for a minute and reply so I thought it was strange when several hours passed by and I didn’t hear from him.”
Meanwhile, Melissa also sent a couple of text messages to her husband, but there was no confirmation on her phone that either of them had been delivered.
Even though she was aware of all the possible reasons why Scott didn’t or couldn’t respond, Melissa was still somewhat anxious and called his mom, Diane Norman, to express her concerns. Diane managed to calm her daughter-in-law’s fears and for a while, Melissa felt a little better.
Late Monday afternoon, Melissa’s feelings of relative comfort took a dramatic change and she grew worried again.
Several crab boats from the area had arrived back in port at about the times they had been expected. One of the few vessel’s not back was the Sarah Anne.
The sun was sinking toward the western horizon and there was still no sign of the 35-foot crab vessel. Melissa and her friend Michelle Rennie drove to the point of land just east of town to a lookout point on the hilltop in the vicinity of the St. Lawrence lighthouse. The headland provided an excellent view of the ocean from east to west, but there was no sign of the Sarah Anne.
Melissa couldn’t wait any longer.
She called her good friend Brian Drake for the second or third time that day. Brian was a fireman and ambulance driver and known as a go-to guy when things were not right.
It was approximately 7:35 p.m. and Melissa explained that darkness was approaching and that she was extremely worried that something had gone wrong and it was time to take action.
“OK, leave it with me and I’ll get back to you,” Brian said.
First, he called the Placentia Bay Vessel Traffic facility. The person on duty at the centre tried to contact the Sarah Anne on the radio set, but to no avail. He then alerted the Coast Guard and just minutes later, at approximately 8 p.m., a search and rescue mission was well underway.
The mission included the local Coast Guard Auxiliary (CGA) members, as they activated a group of local fishing skippers and their crews. Several CGA members, along with other vessel owners from the area, headed out of the harbour before dark.
A Search and Rescue Hercules fixed-wing aircraft arrived on the scene, as did a cormorant Coast Guard helicopter. Several Coast Guard vessels were tasked to the area and were joined by several commercial vessels that were in the vicinity, including the large cargo ship, Oceanex Connaigra, that also diverted its course and joined the search.
No one knew at the time whether they were looking for a disabled vessel with all the crew safe onboard or whether the vessel had gone to the bottom and the search was for possible survivors and/or bodies in the event one or more didn’t survive.
Working with scanty information, search leaders knew they needed to cover a very large area. There was no mayday heard and the last time anyone heard from or saw the Sarah Anne was about 10:30 a.m. Monday morning when Captain Jamie Churchill and his crew onboard the Eleanor Jane stopped by to say hello to the Normans and Isaac.
Jamie had also been fishing crab that morning and had just a few more pots to haul before heading home. He pulled up close to the Sarah Anne to see how the Normans were doing and asked if there was anything he could do for them. The Normans told Jamie that everything was fine — they were working on their second fleet of pots at the time and would soon be moving on to their third fleet.
After exchanging pleasantries, Jamie, also from St. Lawrence, wished his friends good luck and steamed away. The Eleanor Jane arrived at St. Lawrence Monday afternoon.
Ironically, it was just about the time when Jamie was alongside when Isaac’s wife, Kerri Lynn Kettle, received a text message with a photo attachment. It was from Jody Norman who sent a picture of Isaac sitting in a reclining position on crab pots. Jody joked that Isaac was “lying down on the job.”
Search coordinators knew that if anything had happened to the Sarah Anne at the time the crew were hauling crab pots, the vessel could be as far as 25 miles offshore from St. Lawrence. But it was possible the crew completed hauling their four fleets of crab pots and were steaming back home when something happened.
Because the search area was so large, the Hercules aircraft could be seen from St. Lawrence at times and people onshore had a good view of the plane when it dispersed flares from the air to give search vessels additional light to work with.
It was going to be a long night for everyone in St. Lawrence.
Join us next month for Part II of The Mysterious Loss of the Sarah Anne.
