Family of Missing Fishermen Still Searching

It's taken three months for families of seven Bay Area men who went missing after a Fourth of July weekend boating accident raised enough money to fund a private search for their remains.

Since the July 3 storm that capsized the fishing boat Erik, surviving family members have collected 7,500 signatures for their petitions to the Mexican government to continue searching. And they continue to urge U.S. lawmakers to keep the investigation alive.

Mandi Han-Lee – daughter of missing San Ramon fisherman Don Lee – emailed an update this week:

Three of the men were not warned by any passengers (Gene Leong, Al Mein and Don Lee). They were located on the port side of the boat, the portion of the boat that sunk first. If we can locate the boat, we can at least work towards conducting a dive in hopes to bring them home. If a dive occurs and they are not in the boat, then we can speculate that perhaps they made it off and are on an island using debris to live off of. Mark Dorland and Russ Bautista did make it off the boat. Some may call us crazy, but because the night was filled with pandemonium, no one can be certain of anything. What we do know is that there was negligence though and through. All we have is hope.

Lee's other daughter, May Lee, will hold a garage sale on Oct. 8 to raise money for the second recovery effort.

For more information, go to www.findourfathers.org.