‘God cleared the skies and saved us’: Couple rescued after MV Barima tragedy

The first trip to the North West was supposed to be a joyful reunion with family.

Instead, it became a nightmare that has left one family clinging to hope after the sinking of the MV Barima off the coast of Region Two on Saturday night.

Thirty-two-year-old Adam Matabheek, his wife Carlita Matabheek, 32, and Adam’s younger brother Nathaniel Matabheek, 28, were among those rescued from the sea. But Nathaniel’s wife, Rachel Welch, and their three young children – Nathaniel Jr., 8, Natalia, 5, and Ezekiel, 3 – remain missing as an extensive search-and-rescue operation continues.

Speaking after their rescue, Adam recalled the moment he realised something was wrong.

At about 8:30 p.m., he and his brother noticed the vessel beginning to lean to one side. They dismissed it as the effect of rough seas and tried to rest.

The brothers spread sheets on the floor of the ferry to sleep. Other passengers slept on benches or in hammocks.

Then, without warning, the vessel lurched violently.

“I ended up in the water,” Adam recounted. “It happened within seconds.

He managed to grab a life jacket, the only thing keeping him afloat in the darkness.

Just before the vessel capsized, Carlita had been resting in a hammock but gave it up so one of the children could sleep more comfortably with their mother while the two other children rested with her. Their heads were on her arm as they tried to sleep on one of the benches.

When the boat overturned, she saw that Rachel desperately tried to grab her children but they were swept away before she could hold onto them.

Neither Rachel nor the children have been found.

Carlita said she was trapped inside the overturned vessel.

She instinctively grabbed an iron bar as the boat rolled, leaving her pressed against what had become the ceiling of the vessel, but then she was dumped into the water.

Then, in what she believes was divine intervention, a life jacket floated down onto her.

Unable to swim, she clung to it.

“I started to pray,” she said.

She repeatedly called out for her husband in the darkness.

Moments later, she felt someone tugging at her hair.

It was Adam.

The couple eventually found Nathaniel, who was floating nearby while holding onto a yellow bucket containing what appeared to be fuel.

But Nathaniel could not find his wife or children.

Consumed by grief and struggling to survive, he reached a point where he no longer wanted to keep fighting.

Adam and Carlita refused to let him surrender.

They urged him to stay strong as the three drifted through the night, carried by the sea and sustained only by their life jackets, prayers and each other.

They remained in the water until daylight.

“God cleared the skies and saved us,” Carlita said, convinced their survival was nothing short of a miracle.

The tragedy is made even more painful by the purpose of the journey.

The family had been travelling to Smith Creek for the first time.

It was Rachel’s home village.

Since their marriage, Nathaniel and his side of the family had never been able to visit the community where his wife grew up. This voyage aboard the MV Barima was meant to introduce him to that part of her life and allow the family to spend time together.

Instead, it ended in heartbreak.

As search teams continue combing the waters for Rachel and her three children, their loved ones are holding on to hope that the family who set out together might somehow still be reunited.