It started in the dark hours of the morning. Ordinary people with boats came rolling in to the Mayport Boat Ramp ready to help search for missing firemen Brian McCluney and Justin Walker.
“We came to assist in any way that we could searching for these two lost gentlemen,” said Patrick Sawyer who works with Arc Survey’s and Mapping. “When they said the tackle bag was somewhere off the coast of St. Augustine, it was even more of a fit for us because we're home-based here out of Jacksonville.”
LATEST UPDATES: LIVE BLOG: Latest updates on missing Florida boaters, focus of search off St. Augustine coast where fireman's tackle bag was found
Sawyer said his company is used to working in boats doing surveys offshore.
“Right away we just started calling each other, canceled the surveys and decided to come out here today,” Sawyer said.
Like Sawyer, dozens of people answered the Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department's call for help, taking assigned grid areas to help search the ocean between Ormond Beach to the south up to St Simons, up to 70 miles offshore.
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Other people, like Nicholas Grassia, just decided to add the search to their boating plans.
“Our original plan was to go fish, but my buddy said we were going to go out to see if we could find anything," Grassia said. "We’re going to run out a little bit further than where we usually fish and come back in to see what we can find."
Volunteer Chuck West, who traveled all the way from Orlando with a boat capable of traveling up to 400 miles, said he believed helping with the search was the right thing to do.
“One family helping another family,” West said.
What's more, he says all of them out there could imagine what this must be like.
“We're boaters, and I hope someone comes looking for me if I ever get lost,” West said.
If you do not have a boat but would like to help, you can still donate at JFRD's official website.