Case of Santa Cruz chartered convict diving boat dive island of Santa Cruz

The co-owner of a diving company based in Santa Cruz is missing after a boat on which she was on fire sank early Monday off the southern coast of California, killing at least four people and several missing.

Kristy Finstad – a marine instructor and biologist who runs Worldwide Diving Adventures in Santa Cruz with her husband, Dan Chua – was aboard the Conception, a 75-foot professional diving boat, helping to lead a diving weekend at off the Channel Islands, to a Facebook post from his brother, Brett Harmeling.

Reached on the phone late Monday afternoon, Harmeling said that he had still not heard of his sister from the authorities more than 12 hours after the authorities said the boat had taken fire.

Harmeling did not want to comment anymore.

There would have been 39 people on board the boat, including six crew members. The bodies of two men and two women were found and brought to the coroner's office of Santa Barbara County for identification, Sheriff Bill Brown said Monday. Four other bodies were spotted at the bottom of the ocean near the sunken ship, he said, but they have not been found yet.

Five crew members jumped out of the dive boat and were evacuated by people aboard a nearby pleasure boat, The Grape Escape, the US Coast Guard announced. Two of the crewmembers suffered minor injuries, said Coast Guard Petty Officer Mark Barney.

Another 26 people were not found Monday afternoon, Brown said.

Search and rescue efforts continued Monday, but Coast Guard Captain Monica Rochester said it was time to prepare for the "worst result".

"It's not a day when we wanted to wake up for Labor Day, and it's a very tragic event," she said. "We should all be ready for the worst result."

Diving crews were trying to get the bodies off the bottom of the ocean and examine the ship for others, but Brown said he was not sure when it would be over. The sunken boat is unstable, he says, spilled in relatively shallow waters and can be moved by the tides.

"We are discussing the conditions in which the ship is and what can be towed," he said.

Worldwide Diving Adventures was currently renting the Design for Labor Day dive trip, advertised on the website as an opportunity for divers to see the multicolored marine life near the Channel Islands, off the coast of the County of Ventura, Southern California.

The boat belongs to Truth Aquatics of Santa Barbara and left the port of Santa Barbara on Saturday morning. He was scheduled to return from the trip on Monday, Brown said.