Two Victoria men couldn’t be found Wednesday after a lifejacket and two harbour kayaks taken for a paddle were retrieved near Sooke Harbour.
An air and land search was called off at 6:30 p.m. and handed to the RCMP as a missing persons case, said Mackenzie Moseley, maritime co-ordinator with the Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Victoria.
The missing men are believed to be Morgan Porter and John Elgin, both about 29, according to their employer, Ralph Hull, owner of Sooke Ocean Resort. The men – “schoolmates and work buddies” – were contracted to do odd jobs at the resort.
“Until we get any final word, there’s always hope,” Hull said. “But things are quite mysterious and looking not too good.”
On Tuesday night, a fisherman spotted two blue plastic empty kayaks near Sooke Harbour. The co-ordination centre launched a full-scale search.
One of the kayaks was found. The search was called off at 1 a.m. Wednesday and later resumed.
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The second kayak was found Wednesday morning, a few kilometres from where the first kayak was located, out from the entrance of Sooke Harbour, rescue centre spokesman Gerry Pash said.
Allen Kurtz, of West Coast Outdoor, said he believes he spotted the kayakers at 5 p.m. Tuesday.
From his vantage point at the marina, he saw them as he looked across at Woodward Point, on the East Sooke shoreline. The kayakers, one behind the other, appeared to be rafting up – holding onto each other’s boats – and floating with the current down the harbour. “There was nothing to cause me any concern,” Kurtz said.
He called Sooke RCMP Wednesday when he heard a search was underway.
Hull said he was not at the resort when the kayaks disappeared Tuesday.
“I went to town so when my back was turned they took the kayaks and went to have some fun, I guess, and it’s turned into disaster so far,” Hull said.
The boats are “smooth-water kayaks, not ocean going kayaks,” said Pash.
Hull said: “We don’t rent out those kayaks and we do not use those kind of lifejackets. They are for fun.”
A Buffalo aircraft, Cormorant helicopter, two navy ships and coast guard auxiliary boats searched from Sombrio Point beyond Sooke Harbour and beyond the Canada-United States border in Juan de Fuca Strait.
A father of one of the men was at the scene Wednesday, Hull said.
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