Colorado Instructor missing in Roatan

[DandyDon]

I really cannot copy the news story. Try google translation at this link: Estadounidense desaparece mientras buceaba en Roatán

 

[dewdropsonrosa]

Give me about ten minutes and I can do a quick human translation for you.

 

[dewdropsonrosa]

U.S. man disappears while diving in Roatan
Friday morning, 57-year-old scuba instruction William Perkins went out diving with oxygen tanks that would last for two hours.

On Saturday, the National Police of Honduras reported the disappearance of a U.S. citizen, who had gone scuba diving Friday morning among the reefs of Roatan, Bay Islands.

It was 7:00am when William Wayne Perkins (57), a scuba instructor from Colorado (United States) left to go diving in the West End of the island in Honduras’s Caribbean waters. However, friends and family of the U.S. man reported that they had not heard from him since.

Perkins lives in the West End neighborhood of Roatan.

After receiving the report of his disappearance, units from the Police Bureau of Investigations and the Navy mobilized for a search.

The manager of Roatan Dive Center (NB: link added by me), a dive shop that rents equipment, indicated that William Wayne Perkins had left carrying tanks of oxygen that would only last for two hours.

She added that the American had not entered the water from a dive boat, but that he had gone in from a dock that scuba divers use to enter the Caribbean waters to dive on the reefs in that area.

In addition to the Police Bureau of Investigations and the Navy, firefighters from the island are also participating in the search. However, search activities have become difficult due to bad weather and strong wave action in the northern region of Honduras, which has been affected by a cold front that arrived on Friday.

For these reasons, the search has been paused until the weather improves.

Translator's note: the original article persistently uses "oxygen tanks" to refer to his breathing gas, as is common in news reports written by non-divers. Nothing in the article suggests a dive plan with accelerated decompression.

 

[KatieMac]

He has been found.

 

[dewdropsonrosa]

Follow-up to @KatieMac: Encuentran cadáver de estadounidense desaparecido en Roatán cuando hacía buceo

Mr. Perkins was located in 400 feet of water near the north of the island, per article. No other new information.

 

[KatieMac]

Bill was a wonderful man - a diving instructor that had a passion for the sea. He will be dearly missed by many, including myself.

And while born in Colorado, he spent much of his adult life in Texas with cutting horses.

 

[DandyDon]

One article said he lived on the island with his wife.

 

[KatieMac]

One article said he lived on the island with his wife.

Correct. He had been on the island for years now, a resident of West End - but his US home was more Texas than Colorado.

 

[Bierstadt]

Rest in peace.