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David Payne and Karla Robison of Royal Canadian Marine Search and Rescue on the Hurricane 733, a rigid-hull inflatable boat.Chad Hipolito/The Globe and Mail

When the MV Leviathan II set out early on Sunday afternoon for a whale-watching tour from the Tofino harbour, the water was calm. Once the 20-metre ship threaded through the narrow channel out of those protected waters, however, the 24 passengers and the crew of three were at the mercy of the open Pacific Ocean.

Along Vancouver Island's rugged coast, hidden reefs and rocky islets often are named after the ships that foundered upon them. Bad weather can blow in swiftly. It is a wild and dangerous environment that has developed, particularly in Tofino, into a major tourist destination. But as veteran mariners warn, this is not Disneyland.

On the west coast of Vancouver Island, eyes are always on the water. There are 10 staffed lighthouses between Port Renfrew and Port Hardy – a string of remote marine communities perched on the edge of the "graveyard of the Pacific." Tofino, Bamfield and Port Hardy have Coast Guard stations. The Royal Canadian Marine Search and Rescue operates a small station in Ucluelet with Coast Guard-trained volunteers.

Yet, it is an intricate coastline often enshrouded in fog or battered by storms, where the closest help may be – as it was when the Leviathan II sank on Oct. 25 – a pair of fishermen who happen to be in the right place at the right time.

Now, the province has agreed it is time to provide more resources and training to ensure those crucial first responders are better equipped for the next emergency. "It's a big, remote place, and it is the expectation of mariners that everybody looks after everybody else. Those are the rules of the sea," says Tim Webb, who heads a volunteer search and rescue team out of Tofino, the Westcoast Inland Search and Rescue. His crew is responsible for ground searches, and was drafted last week to scour the beaches and rocks for the passenger from the Leviathan II who vanished beneath the waves and is still missing.

"Once you are outside the protecting islands, it can switch from glass calm to wild swells. There are elements of risk," Mr. Webb said. "People who work at sea here know that."

Most of the passengers and crew had gathered on the port side on the Leviathan II's top deck to look at sea lions on the rocks around Plover Reefs when a large wave caught the Leviathan II on the starboard side. The ship rolled and capsized, spilling 27 souls into frigid waters. There was no chance to place a distress call.

Fisherman Ken Brown of the First Nations community of Ahousaht just happened to spot the single flare from the ship's life raft. Because of that good fortune, the death toll was not higher.

Mr. Brown and his partner aboard the seven-metre pleasure craft King Fisher pulled their nets and sped to the site, relaying a mayday to the Coast Guard, and then calling for help from their community on a radio channel used by the Ahousaht people. The heart of their main village on Flores Island near Tofino is a busy harbour.

The first rescuers approached the location of the sinking with trepidation. The screens of their GPS devices revealed rocks below the surface, and the waves were cresting in a white froth over the submerged reefs. There was a strong chop. As the Tofino-based Coast Guard raced to Plover Reefs in a rigid-hull inflatable boat, the untrained crews on Ahousaht's "vessels of opportunity" picked up the survivors and retrieved the bodies of five passengers who died at the scene.

In 2006, residents of the aboriginal community of Hartley Bay provided that crucial first response when the BC Ferries vessel Queen of the North sank. This year, Hartley Bay will see its first five paramedics certified – nine years after more resources were promised to help improve their search-and-rescue capacity.

First Nations leaders representing marine communities including Ahousaht are calling on the federal and provincial governments to provide specialized training and equipment.

Premier Christy Clark, after visiting Tofino last week to thank the rescuers, promised to make sure that happens.

While marine traffic is increasing along the coast of Vancouver Island, Coast Guard operations have been trimmed. The Coast Guard auxiliary station at Kyuquot is closed, and distress calls are routed through a communications station in Prince Rupert. The union representing Coast Guard staff has raised concerns that the new communications system is unreliable: The first call for help to the Tofino Coast Guard about the Leviathan II was so garbled that the vessel was is unidentified.

But experienced sailors in the region are not expecting a dramatic injection of new resources – they understand the limits of the safety net out here.

"It would be nice to have a firetruck on every corner, but that is not the reality," said Greg Miller, president of the Royal Canadian Marine Search and Rescue, the volunteer arm of the Canadian Coast Guard. He said auxiliary members and boats are in place to fill gaps in the Coast Guard services to meet safety needs.

"Working on the West Coast at any given time can be dangerous," said tugboat captain Danny Riley, a third-generation skipper who has plied these waters for 40 years. Personal responsibility is important, he said, because help often can be far away. "You go out knowing the forecast, but you have to have a margin of error, so that if the weather came up a bit, you are not right on the line."

Naomi Yamamoto is the minister responsible for emergency preparedness, and it is her task to make good on the Premier's commitment to improve marine rescue capacity in First Nations communities. It just makes sense, Ms. Yamamoto said, because when a vessel is in trouble off B.C.'s coast, the smallest fishing boat can make the difference between life and death.

"My grandpa plied the waters down the coast. I can tell you he never wore a life jacket. The sense was that if something happened, you'd be bailed out by another fisherman," she said. "Just because of the vast amount of coastline, I don't think that has changed a lot."

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