They left on a boat from the Florida Keys last week. Two are still missing.
The two missing boaters who departed from a Key Largo dock last Thursday are a man and woman from Naples, Florida, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
So too is the man whom a civilian boat crew found alive floating in Biscayne Bay Sunday night.
Adrian Diaz Jomolca, 31, Ylianet Ybanez Hernandez, 26, and Luis Ramos Engroba, 35, left the Caribbean Club, a popular bar with a small marina at mile marker 104, on Nov. 7 in a 23-foot Pro Line center console.
On Saturday, the FWC reported to the Coast Guard that the boat was overdue.
Jomolca was found around 9:30 p.m. Sunday in the bay in Miami-Dade County. Authorities did not specify in which part of the bay he was found. The crew transferred him to a Miami-Dade Fire Rescue boat, which took him to Jackson Memorial Hospital.
According to an FWC report, he was treated for hypothermia and dehydration.
He told authorities that he and his friends encountered a storm Friday afternoon and the boat capsized. He swam for help, and Hernandez and Engroba, who he said were wearing life jackets, stayed with the overturned boat.
As of Tuesday afternoon, the Coast Guard was still searching for them with air crews from Miami and Clearwater. The boat, however, was found on the northern end of Biscayne Bay near Haulover Inlet in Miami-Dade Monday morning.
Hernandez and Engroba are the third and fourth boaters to go missing in the Florida Keys in less than two weeks. The Coast Guard called off searches Thursday and Friday respectively for John G. Gyurstak, 74, and Lance Arnold Hartkopp, 56, both from Big Pine Key, who disappeared in separate instances earlier in the week.
Gyurstak’s 33-foot, triple outboard Mercury center console was found idling at anchor off Little Palm Island Tuesday afternoon, Nov. 5, but he was not on board.
Adam Linhardt, spokesman for the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office, said there were no “initial signs of foul play.”
Hartkopp’s 2001 Dodge Ram pickup truck and his boat trailer were found by his roommate parked at a boat ramp on Blimp Road on Cudjoe Key on Nov. 5. His cellphone was inside the locked vehicle, Linhardt said. His roommate told police that he typically is not on the water at night and usually returns home by 2 p.m.
Neither Hartkopp nor his boat, an older model 20-foot Chaparral walk-around with a T-top and a 150-horsepower Yamaha outboard engine, have been seen since, Linhardt said.
The FWC is investigating both cases. Anyone with information should call either 911, use Channel 16 VHF if on the water or call the FWC at 888-404-3922, Linhardt said.
This story was originally published November 12, 2019 at 5:02 PM.
