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Hempstead Bay searched for operator of Jet Ski

BY MARC BEJA AND MATTHEW CHAYES | marc.beja@newsday.com; matthew.chayes@newsday.com

9:51 PM EDT, July 19, 2008

A police recovery team swept Hempstead Bay with a sonar scanner for the operator of a Jet Ski found abandoned early Saturday morning without finding anyone, Nassau police said.

Early Saturday, rescuers, tipped off by an unoccupied life vest and the personal watercraft adrift, began searching near the Blue Water Yacht Club marina at 1944 Bayberry Ave. in Merrick for the possibility that a person went missing in the water, according to the Coast Guard and Nassau County police.

A police officer said searchers also used a helicopter Saturday night to try and locate whoever was using the watercraft, a Kawasaki 650 SX.

Authorities have not been able to reach the parents of the young man who they believe owns the Jet Ski -- or verify that the young man is even missing, said a Nassau police officer who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Rescuers from the Wantagh Fire Department found the empty life jacket, said Coast Guard Machinery Technician 2nd Class Brook Ondich.

"Whether or not it belongs to the Jet Skier, we don't know for sure," Ondich said.

He added: "We're pretty much searching Hempstead Bay, East Bay and Merrick Bay."

Police used the sonar device to take photographs in the water of where a body might fall, the officer said.

Yacht club marine mechanic Paul Boroden spent the morning diverting patrons from the water as authorities searched.

Boroden, 46, said he saw the "stand-up, old-style Jet Ski" about 8:30 a.m. about 20 yards west into Hempstead Bay.

"It was smokin' hot," Boroden said of the device. "Somebody was joyriding for a while." He added: "This definitely didn't come floating in off the beach."

Justin Mohr, a gas station attendant at the yacht club, said he's dived in the bay before and that the authorities would have a tough time as they searched.

"It's dirty water. You can't see anything when you're down there," Mohr, 19, said. "I don't know how much luck they're going to have."