Beacon is godsend for stranded fisherman

They’re small, bright and fit into the palm.
They are personal locator beacons, powerful enough to put a lost hunter or fisherman instantly in touch with the Cospas Sarsat search and rescue satellite system, complete with GPS coordinates.
Mark Bernucho sells them at the family business, Control Fire & Safety, 822 Front St. But he said that’s not why he contacted The Daily Review with a possible story about the beacons. Instead, he was repaying a good deed.
Bernucho, normally a vendor for the beacons, turned into a grateful customer Friday during a fishing trip to Point au Fer Island.
When his boat became disabled, his beacon not only guided a Coast Guard helicopter to him, but it helped tell his wife, Brenda, where he was and that he was OK.
“These devices, which are lightweight, compact and easy to use, can instantly summon help and provide rescuers with precise location information,” according to the U.S. Coast Guard website.
Bernucho wasn’t having much luck on his solo fishing trip to Point au Fer, almost due south of Morgan City and near the open water of the Gulf of Mexico. He’d caught only one fish and decided to try another spot.
But the engine on his 20-foot aluminum V-hull craft generated nothing more than a clatter. On top of that, there was no cellphone signal.
So, at 1:04 p.m., Bernucho activated his personal locator beacon, an Ocean Signal model that sells for $200-$300. He extended the antenna, which looks and works like a carpenter’s tape measure. Then he turned on the power.
The beacons are made to send out individualized, registered signals. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration monitors the appropriate frequency.
Before long, a helicopter was on the way from New Orleans, and Brenda Bernucho was getting a phone call, the first she knew that anything was wrong.
Mark Bernucho, meanwhile, shot cellphone video as he waited for help. He moved gasoline cans to the back of the boat in case he had to set off a flare from the front. He gathered anything that might get blown around by helicopter rotors and put it in the well of the boat. And, he waited.
“I don’t want this operation to go into nighttime,” Bernucho said on the tape.
He needn’t have worried. The helicopter arrived at 1:40 p.m., 36 minutes after he powered up the beacon.
The pilot didn’t see him at first.
“They’ve got a homing device on that helicopter that homes in on that frequency,” Bernucho said. “As it gets stronger or weaker, that’s how they know where you are.
“They started going back north away from me, and when they came back toward me again, that’s when I let out my orange smoke.”
The orange smoke flares are part of Bernucho's rescue equipment.
“I asked him later how he found me,” Bernucho said, “and he said, ‘I saw your orange smoke.’”
Using hand signals, Bernucho let the copter crew know that he was OK physically. As for the engine, he pointed to it and made a cutting-the-throat gesture. The crew lowered a radio to Bernucho on a weighted line. Before long, Jeff Fontenot of Morgan City was on his way to Bernucho’s location for the 90-minute tow back to town.
The beacon saved Bernucho some inconvenience and his family some worry. In other cases, the results have been more dramatic.
Guampdn.com reported that over the weekend, 6-foot seas swamped a small boat in which four men were fishing 11 miles west of the South Pacific island of Pohnpei. While his friends found empty gasoline cans to use for flotation, one of the men dove down to grab a personal locator beacon from the boat and activated it. They were rescued after four hours.
Bernucho said that after his adventure with the beacon, “I asked the Coast Guard if there was anything I could do. And they said, ‘Spread the word.’”

This story was written by Bill Decker of The Daily Review staff. Reach him at bdecker@daily-review.com