ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla — "My dad’s been on the water his whole life," Christina Childress said.
Her heart sank when she heard the heart-wrenching news that her father’s boat starting sinking Wednesday morning off the coast of Vilano Beach.
Family members say 62-year-old St. Augustine native Leroy Kinlaw and his girlfriend Robin Anderson were on his 24 foot Seahawk.
"They went there to shrimp, and they put the lines in the water," Childress said.
Betty Briggs, Kinlaw's sister, told First Coast News, "They were hauling in their first load of shrimp, and the boat capsized. He said it happened too fast."
Briggs described the boat as a small shrimp boat.
When it started to go down, Kinlaw and Anderson chose survival by swimming to shore.
"They swam ¾ of a mile to shore," Briggs said.
Both of them are okay. Hours later, as Kinlaw and friends in different boats tried to recover the sunken boat, family watched from the shore, baffled by the event.
Briggs said it was unusual, "for somebody especially that knows the water like the back of their hand. So it had to be a freak accident."
Friends were able to start hauling the boat back to land.
Kinlaw’s daughter said her dad definitely knows the water, but believes her deceased mother had a hand in keeping him safe through all this.
Childress held back tears, “It’s a good thing my mom was looking over him. My mom passed away eight years ago. My mom got him back to shore."