Search for fishing couple called off

OCEANSIDE – The search for a missing Oceanside couple ended a day after their empty fishing boat washed ashore near Rosarito, Mexico, Coast Guard officials said.

 Josh Hartman, 28, and his fiancee, Ana Martin, left Oceanside Harbor at 7:30 a.m. Thursday on their 32-foot fishing boat, the Pelican, and were supposed to return by 3 p.m., authorities said. Family members reported them missing that evening.

 Coast Guard aircraft scanned the Southern California shoreline and more than 6,400 square miles offshore Thursday night and Friday. The Mexican navy joined the search after the discovery of the boat, said Cmdr. Danny LeBlanc, the Coast Guard sector commander.

 Hartman, who has fished commercially from his boat for the past two years, was supposed to sell a load of slime eels to a buyer at the dock when he returned that afternoon, family friend Andy Bodjanac said.

 Martin, 30, often helps out on fishing trips.

 Hartman called his family by cell phone that afternoon to say they were headed back to land, but no one has heard from or seen the couple since. -- San Diego Union Tribune

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