I feel like I need to say something about the little fishing boat that turned over while transporting 12 people from Grenada to Carriacou Carnival. It is really sad that so many people lost their lives in this tragic incident. I wish there was some way we can all go back and avoid this from happening. Unfortunately, we can’t, and as Grenadians we need to bond together and help the families devastated by this tragedy, cope and come to terms with what has happened.
From what I read and my knowledge of what happened, the captain of the boat which isn’t the owner, was charged with manslaughter by negligence and is currently out on bail. Now, I will not make any comments on the legal proceedings here; I am not a lawyer and I was not trained legally. I’ll let the law take it course here. However, I have some questions about this…
Where does personal responsibility come in? Does personal responsibility even play any part?
Two years ago, I went to Carriacou on business, not Carnival. I took the plane to go and came back with the Osprey. While there, I met some friends who told me when they were leaving and offered to give me “ride” down with them. Astonished I asked, “What do you mean a ride?” Without hesitation, they replied, “Yes” and proceeded to share their means of transportation to Grenada, which was through a fishing boat. I declined the offer with a sharp “no” and added that that’s not going to happen.
Now back to my question; shouldn’t personal responsibility play a part here? Why would someone get into a small fishing boat with 11 other people, a bunch of bags and whatever else was in that boat to travel to Carriacou. I agree that the captain has a lot of responsibility here but why only him? I know some people will say that this is a customary act and these guys are accustomed transporting people from Grenada to Carriacou and back using their fishing boat, and nothing has happened in the past.
This last argument however takes me to my next question. Is this the first time the authorities realize that people were running a water-taxi service from Grenada to Carriacou in a fishing boat?
I am almost certain that persons knew, including the authorities, and did absolutely nothing. We should stop being reactive and start being more proactive. The occurrences which took place are really sad. However, we need to think. Maybe take an extra second to think about certain things before we do them and incidents like these could be avoided.
