San Diego charter boat aids 18 people on stranded on panga boat in Mexican waters - CBS News 8

The vessel with Islander Sportfishing was returning from a fishing trip when it came across 18 people, including three children, on a broken down panga boat.

SAN DIEGO COUNTY, Calif. — The captain and crew of a San Diego charter boat company came to the aid of 18 people stranded on a panga boat on Monday, according to social media posts by the company.  

The vessel with Islander Sportfishing in Point Loma was returning from a one-and-a-half-day fishing trip when it came across a small vessel in Mexican waters, the company said Friday. They discovered 18 people, including three children, who had apparently been abandoned by a migrant smuggler five days earlier. 

The people on the panga boat had no food, water, life vests, beds, bathroom access, or paddles, according to the charter boat company. The crew of the fishing boat was told there had originally been two panga boats traveling together but one broke down and the person smuggling the group said he would be back in 10 – 12 hours but never returned.  

“It was standing room only, in a boat the size of a pickup truck, in either the blazing heat or pitch-black seas, for these poor souls desperate for a better life,” the company's Facebook post read in part.  

Captain Sydney Shaw of The Islander reportedly heard the group on the panga boat yelling and saw them flashing a light. Another captain on the boat then turned back and contacted the U.S. Coast Guard who responded to the scene.  

The incident was turned over the Mexican Navy because it happened in Mexican waters, according to Islander Sportfishing. The crew on the fishing boat fed the group on the panga boat and waited with them for three hours until the local authorities arrived to tow them back to land.  

“For all that's going on in this crazy year, please remember to be thankful of where we live,” Islander Sportfishing wrote in part. “America is still the land of opportunity and freedom, so much so that many people will risk their lives for a chance to live here.”