A man called his wife for help when his boat began to take on water and he knew it was going to sink, before he disappeared.
Benjamin Godwin, 35, was out on his boat alone on a ‘cold windy evening’ in Choctawhatchee Bay in the Florida Panhandle on Tuesday when he got into trouble.
With water submerging the stern, he called his wife Jessica Godwin in Freeport and told her he was trying to bail out the water with a five-gallon bucket.
Jessica called 911 and the Walton County Sheriff’s Office rushed to the bay to rescue him, but found no sign of him in the three-foot choppy 55F water.
Godwin’s boat was found hours later, barely afloat with the bow almost underwater, but it was empty. The bucket was discovered floating in the bay.
His body was found by a dive team on Thursday after police, his brother, and other family spent days on the water looking for him.
Benjamin Godwin, 35, called his wife Jessica Godwin (pictured together) and told her he was trying to bail out the water with a five-gallon bucket
Godwin, 35, was out on his boat alone on a ‘cold windy evening’ in Choctawhatchee Bay in the Florida Panhandle on Tuesday when he got into trouble
‘His brother and other family members have spent every moment possible since Tuesday night trying to locate Ben who, they say, grew up on the bay and loved being on the water,’ police said.
Conditions on the water made boating and swimming difficult, even for experiences skippers like Godwin.
His friends and family are trying to raise $25,000 to pay off his mortgage, hold his funeral and bury him next to his father, and provide for his family as he was the sole income earner.
Additional funds would be placed in a trust for his two-year-old son Wyatt to pay for university, buy his first home, or use for retirement.
‘Ben was on the water almost daily. He loved to fish, boat and search for Native American pottery and arrowheads along our shorelines,’ his friend Mike Brown wrote.
‘He regularly traveled up the local rivers exploring nature. A place he felt most at home.’
The Coast Guard and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission are investigating Godwin’s death.
Godwin’s body was found by a dive team on Thursday after police, his brother, and other family spent days on the water looking for him
