Sea Reaper Reaches 120k Pounds of Relief Supply Deliveries
It has been long but rewarding six weeks for the team at Maritime Research & Recovery. On September 9th, the crew of the Sea Reaper committed to doing their part in helping the people of the Bahamas after the devastating hurricane Dorian caused catastrophic damage to the Northern part of the island chain.
Watch our slideshow to see the Sea Reaper's Bahamas relief trips.
To prepare the Sea Reaper for delivery runs, we removed our excavation tubes and anchor boxes to make more room for carrying pallets of donated relief supplies. MRR has now made six trips to the northern Bahamas with the Sea Reaper, totaling more than 2,000 miles of travel and well over 120,000 pounds of relief supplies delivered. We have delivered a 40’x60’ building to be used as a church and distribution center, a 1,000 gallon-per-day solar powered water purification unit, bottled water, generators, gas, canned goods, paper products, school supplies, baby products and everything in between.
The Sea Reaper loaded with relief supplies.
Contributing to this mission has been very humbling and rewarding. To know that the supplies we delivered were being distributed directly to people that truly needed them made a difference in our lives as well as theirs. We at MRR were fortunate enough to have had the resources to make a small difference.
A hardworking team loaded around 18,000 pounds of supplies per trip.
The Sea Reaper crew and MRR have built new friendships and alliances with not only our local community of St. Lucie and Martin counties here in Florida, but also with the people of many areas of the Abaco Islands and Grand Bahama. We have directly impacted the lives of locals in the following communities:
Fox Town, Lucaya, Grand Bahama, Coopers Town, Sweetings Cay, Blackwood Village, Treasure Cay, Deep Water Cay, Cedar Harbor, Green Turtle Cay, High Rock, Crown Haven
None of this could have been done without the dedication and networking abilities of Beau Slay. Beau has been an instrumental part of coordinating the donations and delivery destinations of the relief supplies. His alliances with Treasure Coast United, Revive Church, Angels Of Hope Outreach, Moonswiners, Southern Eagle Distributing, Operation 300, Ricky Raleigh, Eric Townsend, Todd Mozingo, Contractor Supply Store, Katie Slay and all of the other awesome people that helped, have been the driving force that made this mission happen. Many heroes have stepped up to the plate after this disaster. One hero that we have meet during this effort is Kimberly Goreham with No Towns Left Behind. This group is on the ground making a major impact where it counts. For MRR, we are proud of the small part we were able to contribute to this collective effort.
MRR member Art Schweizer offloading supplies in the Bahamas.
At this time, the immediate need for lifesaving supplies seems to have been met and commercial cargo haulers with large barges and ships are now delivering much larger payloads. The mission has shifted from delivering life sustaining supplies to rebuilding the devastated areas of the Bahamas.
For us at MRR, our part in the mission has come to an end. From MRR Captain Dan Porter, crew members Josh Fisher-Abt, Rob Hill, Kenton Dickerson, Art Schweizer and all of our members, we would like to wish everyone involved in the revitalization effort the very best of luck in this ongoing endeavor.
Art Schweizer, Dan Porter, Beau Slay, Josh Fisher and Rob Hill on a Bahamas relief trip.
With that said, it is time to focus our attention on our next project. At the next break in the weather, the Sea Reaper will head north to the shipwreck-laden shoal of Cape Romain, South Carolina. We have a solid plan of action following a large amount of surveying that was conducted over the shoal last winter by the Sea Hunt Surveys International, LLC. We are expecting some very exciting recoveries to be discovered. Keep checking our updates, and God bless the people of the Bahamas.