As the sun was setting last night, a large explosion was heard down the beach south of town. An Ecologic Divers boat returning from a dive trip had caught fire. Apparently, the fire became large quite quickly in one of the engines and the decision was made to evacuate. Thankfully, all passengers exited into the water before the explosion happened.
The police and fire department were on the scene quickly but since the boat was no where near a dock, it was allowed to burn out.
The captain of the boat was apparently a contract employee from another dive shop in town. The boat had two 200 HP engines and is estimated to have a value over $125k BZD.
I’m surprised that this doesn’t happen more often. One of the boats from another operator that I was on a couple of weeks ago was using an unsealed fuel system–the fuel hose was just stuck in the open cap of a fuel can. None of the power boats that I was on that week would have passed a basic Coast Guard inspection.
My friend was the driver and lost all his dive gear in this accident and was teaching 2 students at the time. Gear you can be replaced…just glad everyone is a-ok! He said he didn’t find any apparent problems with the boat either, so could have been a total freak thing.