Romaine Williams says he put on a life jacket just minutes before finding himself in the sea during the deadly July 18 boat collision off Anse Cochon, a decision the non-swimmer attributed to his “guardian angel.”
Williams testified immediately after his girlfriend, Taylor Riviere, on Wednesday, October 14, the second day of the maritime Commission of Inquiry into the collision.
The Soufriere resident, a kitchen steward at Sugar Beach, told commissioners he was praying with his head bowed when the impact occurred. Approximately two to five minutes earlier, Riviere had helped him put on the life jacket.
Then, suddenly, he was in the water.
“I realised my legs aren’t touching anything, so I started panicking,” Williams recalled.
Nearby, Riviere told him her leg was broken. Unable to swim himself and knowing she was injured, Williams shouted for help.
His testimony traced how a first-time boat passenger who feared the ocean travelled without a life jacket for the outward journey, requested one during the return trip, and was subsequently rescued alongside his girlfriend.
Williams said he boarded Cazola Jr at the Soufriere waterfront at approximately 4:30 p.m. on July 18, 2026, for an outing at Pigeon Island. He had chosen to travel by boat rather than drive.
He said he was neither offered a life jacket nor given a safety briefing. Despite his fear of the ocean and inability to swim, he did not request one before departure.
Explaining why, Williams said he trusted the owner and captain because he believed they were experienced on the water.
“The guys are not new to this, so I trusted them,” he told the commission.
He described the outward journey as bumpy, with somewhat choppy seas, but said nothing unusual happened before the boat reached Pigeon Island ahead of 6 p.m.
The return journey began at approximately 11 p.m., when the sea was a little choppier.
Williams said the captain initially drove at what he described as a “really quick speed,” prompting the vessel’s owner, Mr. Pascal, to tell him to “take it easy.”
According to Williams, the captain immediately reduced speed and maintained that reduced speed until the collision.
Approximately five minutes after the owner’s intervention, Williams asked Riviere to request a life jacket for him.
The vessel stopped, the owner retrieved a jacket from the front of the boat, and Riviere helped Williams put it on. He estimated that the stop lasted approximately two minutes before the journey resumed.
Commissioners repeatedly questioned whether speed, fear or discomfort had prompted his request. Williams maintained that no particular incident had caused him to ask, although he acknowledged that his fear of the ocean was already present.
“I just decided I needed a life jacket,” he said, later attributing the decision to his “guardian angel.”
Williams also clarified that his assessment of the boat travelling at more than moderate speed was based on hearing Pascal tell the captain to slow down. He had no previous boating experience.
He said he saw neither an approaching vessel nor lights immediately before the impact because he was looking down and praying. The sound of the impact, he recalled, was like a wave.
After Williams and Riviere ended up in the sea, he said Tyson swam to them and helped them reach what he described as a piece of a boat, where other people were gathered.
At that point, Williams said, he had not realised another vessel was involved.
Discovering that he still had his phone, he asked whom he should call. Riviere told him to contact her father, and he did.
Williams said he did not think to call the police marine unit or an ambulance, explaining that he expected her father to respond quickly.
As they waited, he searched the darkness for approaching lights. Approximately 10 to 15 minutes later, he spotted a light and waved his phone’s flashlight to attract attention.
The wait, he said, “felt like hours.”
A rescue boat approached slowly and transported Williams, Riviere and others to Canaries. He believed Tyson and Dylan remained behind, although he was uncertain about that detail.
Williams said the rescue boat’s operator, whom he identified as Kafu, beached the vessel and helped him assist Riviere to the jetty.
An ambulance arrived approximately five to 10 minutes later and took away people with serious injuries. Williams and Riviere subsequently travelled in the back of a pickup to Soufriere Hospital.
Riviere was later transferred to St. Jude Hospital, and Williams accompanied her. He said he suffered no injuries and returned home the following afternoon.
Questioned about lighting aboard Cazola Jr, Williams recalled seeing two differently coloured lights at the front of the vessel. He said they were already illuminated when the boat approached the beach at Pigeon Island to collect passengers for the return journey.
He could not identify the colours and said he had not been looking for lights from other vessels during the trip.
The commission also heard that Williams had given police a statement which was recorded on a computer and read back to him, but which he had never signed.
The commission’s secretary indicated that the statement was not available to the inquiry at the time of his testimony.
Proceedings recessed for lunch after Williams completed his evidence, with the hearing scheduled to resume at 1:20 p.m.
