Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, July 18, 1994 TAG: 9407220073
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ANGUS PHILLIPS THE WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE: LISBON, MD. LENGTH: Medium
Bowie, 29, a fixture from Ocean City, Md., to Mexico, wherever marlin, tuna and sailfish are sought, was lost in a bizarre offshore fishing accident.
He was snatched overboard by a blue marlin and dragged to his death in 10,000 feet of water while serving as first mate aboard the Trophy Box, a 53-foot Carolina-built sportfisherman competing in the $500,000-plus Big Rock Marlin Tournament out of Morehead City, N.C.
Bowie, a veteran offshore professional who captained the 53-foot Hatteras ``Midnight Hour'' in Ocean City when he wasn't working the East Coast tournament trail, was ``wiring'' the 200-pound billfish and preparing to release it when his hands were ensnared in a 30-foot-long wire leader attached to the hook, according to his brother, Randy, who went to the scene afterward to reconstruct the incident.
``He didn't do anything wrong,'' Randy Bowie said. ``He was an excellent fisherman, and he'd done this hundreds of times. But the fish did something no one ever saw before. It did a 180 [degree turn] and took off. That tightened the wrap and tangled both Chris's hands. It catapulted Chris off the boat. He did manage to get one hand loose ... .''
But Chris Bowie never disentangled his gloved right hand from the wire, and the marlin dragged him deep in the warm water. Second mate Ronnie Fields, 19, dived in to try to cut him free and spotted the fish 30 feet down with Bowie attached, but when Fields surfaced for air and dived again, all he saw was a spot deep in the water.
Coast Guard, Marine Corps and Navy helicopters and boats rushed to the scene and searched for two days, but neither fish nor man was seen again, nor does Randy Bowie expect them to be. ``The fish probably sounded and died on the bottom,'' he said.
So ended a life framed by the sea. ``The thing we take comfort in,'' said Randy Bowie, ``is that if the Lord had come to Chris and said, `I'm taking you tomorrow, how do you want to go?' he would have thought it over and said, `On a fighting deck, fighting a marlin.'''
The Bowies assembled at the family place here trying to make sense of their loss. Chris Bowie's wife of two years, Laurie, drove in from Ocean City, seven months pregnant with the couple's first child. Chuck and Ruthe Bowie, Chris' parents; Randy; and sister Robyn sat with Laurie on the back porch, overlooking 91/2 acres of woods from which the family cleared a homesite years ago and where in better times Chris might be busy planning a fall bowhunt for deer.
``He loved to deer hunt when he wasn't fishing,'' said Ruthe Bowie, thumbing wistfully through photo albums.
Chris Bowie did not excel at schoolwork because of the learning disability dyslexia, his father said, but the very first time he put his hands on a fishing rod he found his niche.
``His cousin gave him a little rod and reel when he was 4. We were on vacation at Emerald Isle, North Carolina,'' said Chuck Bowie. ``I don't think he ever got a bite, but for seven days Christopher was on the dock fishing. You couldn't get him in for meals.''
By age 12, he was lobbying for a boat. ``We couldn't afford it so I told him, `You get half the money and I'll kick in the other half,' thinking that would get rid of him,'' said Chuck Bowie.
Instead, young Chris all but disappeared for the summer, leaving at dawn and returning after dusk each day covered with dirt and straw. He worked for farmers, the only job around for a boy his age in rural Howard County. At summer's end, ``he handed me $1,200 cash,'' said his father.
They bought a 16-footer, then a 21-footer and finally a 28-foot Aquasport, which they towed to Ocean City. ``It was fish, fish, fish,'' said Chuck Bowie.
Keywords:
FATALITY
by CNB