During the sudden fury of the hurricane, Acapulco’s yacht crews went down with their ships

On the night Hurricane Otis barreled into Acapulco, Mexico, Saúl Parra Morales received a video that would have seemed unbelievable just hours before.

For days, forecasters had predicted little more than a tropical storm. But Mr. Parra Morales watched in horror as his brother filmed the deafening gusts and waves crashing against the deck of the Litos, the yacht he worked on, which proved no match for what would become the most powerful storm to hit the Pacific coast of Mexico hit.

“This is getting more and more intense,” said Mr. Parra Morales, Fernando Esteban Parra Morales, in the video. “We are nervous, but we are safe.”

He wasn’t. Fernando, a machinist, is one of several sailors on the front lines of this tourist destination who have been missing since the Category 5 hurricane devastated Acapulco last month, shocking forecasters and government officials alike.

Although Mexican authorities have not released details about the 49 people killed and 26 others missing from the storm, family members, business leaders and the Mexican Navy say many were captains, sailors and other boat workers caught in the hurricane’s devastating path . Some say the number of missing could be much higher.

Weeks after Otis made landfall, the fierce storm’s painful toll is becoming more visible: Acapulco’s large sailor community, a foundation of this tourist magnet for decades, lies shattered.

Beaches that attracted tens of thousands of visitors every year have turned into a graveyard of wrecked ships. Yacht captains, diving instructors, hostesses and others who earned their wages on the water have put their lives at risk.

Adding to the pain, relatives of the missing say they have been denied closure as they navigate a bureaucracy of authorities in an effort to find the remains of their loved ones.

“We have done their job,” Mr. Parra Morales said outside the Acapulco naval base, where he waited with the families of three other missing Litos crew members.

Mr. Parra Morales and other family members had searched beaches and a nearby island, finding random debris from other boats and even a bloated corpse.

“Our emotions went up and down,” he said. “If we, the relatives, have found all this, why don’t they find anything?”

Mexican Navy officials said they had sent a team of 40 people to help search for missing sailors, as well as divers to help recover sunken ships.

“All these efforts are about search and rescue,” Capt. Rogelio Gallegos Cortés of the Mexican Navy said in an interview aboard a Navy ship.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has dismissed questions about the Mexican government’s response to Acapulco as political attacks on his government.

Acapulco’s nautical workforce plays a crucial role in a destination known worldwide as a glamorous vacation spot for deep-sea fishing, cliff diving and boating.

Acapulco’s beaches are known as the ‘Riviera of Mexico’ and have long attracted celebrities including Elizabeth Taylor, Brad Pitt and Salma Hayek. John F. Kennedy and his wife Jacqueline honeymooned in Acapulco. And the city was immortalized in the 1963 Elvis Presley song and film “Fun in Acapulco.”

A sharp increase in violence over the past decade in Guerrero, the state that includes Acapulco, has prompted Mexico to send thousands of soldiers to its beaches. Brutal violence has erupted in some nearby communities in recent months, including the killing of more than a dozen law enforcement officers days before Otis reached the area.

But Acapulco is still a magnet for tourists: in 2022, almost 830,000 tourists visited the city, spending more than 368 million dollars.

Behind the luxury hotels and yachts was a largely invisible workforce, toiling long hours under the blazing sun, providing spearfishing and diving lessons, staffing yacht parties or leading guided tours.

“They are the heart of the city,” Abelina López Rodríguez, the mayor of Acapulco, said in an interview. “They lost everything.”

The Mexican Navy has pulled to shore 67 of the 614 boats damaged by Otis, said a spokeswoman, Lt. Liz Barojas.

One challenge, officials said, was the competing interests between relatives of the missing and yacht owners. For days, owners asked the Navy not to move some ships until insurance companies could complete damage assessments, Capt. Gallegos Cortés said, as families of the missing begged the Navy to retrieve the boats — and any leads on their relatives.

Another point of contention was the number of missing people. While the Guerrero public prosecutor’s office stands behind the official count, Alejandro Martínez Sidney, who heads the Acapulco Chamber of Commerce and Tourism, said that based on relatives who contacted his group, the number would be closer to 100 can lie down.

“There are a lot of people asking for their families,” he said.

Hours before Otis made landfall, María Cristina Jiménez’s husband, Felipe Castro de la Paz, the captain of a famous yacht, the AcaRey, and his crew boarded the ship, which was docked in a marina. They knew a storm would bring rain and wind, but their bosses wanted to make sure the ship was taken care of.

“They probably never heard that something this big was coming,” said Ms. Jiménez, 56.

Forecast models failed to predict that the storm would – in less than 24 hours – intensify into a hurricane with sustained winds of more than 265 miles per hour, ripping walls and roofs off buildings and disrupting power and communications in much of Acapulco would be interrupted.

The next day, the remains of the AcaRey were scattered across the marina. Five of the six crew members on board were found dead; Mr Castro de la Paz is still missing.

The company that owns the AcaRey did not respond to calls, emails or text messages requesting comment.

In the days that followed, Ms. Jiménez and her daughter, Maura Castro, 37, scoured the city for information about Mr. Castro de la Paz. The two women visited the naval base and scoured the beaches for any sign of him.

After some fishermen told them that Mr. Castro de la Paz’s body had been recovered, they rushed to the Acapulco morgue and took a DNA test.

But the result did not match any of the deaths. More recently, they visited a yacht club that notified families of missing sailors of their efforts to find them.

“We are looking for my father, the captain of AcaRey,” Ms. Castro told a security guard at the club.

But the club had no information.

“We want to find him, rent a yacht and go out ourselves,” Ms. Castro said. “The boat was lost. I know that. But I want my father’s body.”

Outside the naval base, Mr. Parra Morales, along with other relatives of the Litos crew, made a similar plea to Lt. José Alberto Demuner Silva, the commander of the Navy’s search and rescue mission in Acapulco.

His family, he said, had faced a barrage of false information, including strangers approaching him online with tips about his brother’s body if he was willing to pay compensation.

On a tablet containing an electronic map of Acapulco Bay, Lieutenant Demuner Silva showed Mr. Parra Morales the different routes taken by his search teams during their search, so far without success, for the Litos.

“It doesn’t make sense,” Mr. Parra Morales told the officer. “I mean, with the experience you have, you don’t know anything?”

Beside them stood Mei-li Chew Irra, 26, whose husband, Ulises Díaz Salgado, 43, was the captain of the Litos.

The night Otis struck, someone on the yacht activated a GPS system that sent her the boat’s coordinates, she said, which she sent to the Navy three days later. But she said she had not heard anything confirming officials had received the information in more than a week.

“Our hope continues and our struggle continues and we will not stop until we find them all,” said Mrs Chew Irra.

She remembered her husband’s passion for the sea and said she wasn’t surprised he stayed on the yacht even when Otis headed down to Acapulco.

“He would have given his life for his entire crew,” Ms Chew Irra said. “He loved them like they were his family.”

With much of their fleet destroyed and Acapulco’s tourism industry struggling to recover, many sailors can no longer return to work. But they still gather on the beach.

Surrounded by a graveyard of ships — some lying in pieces on the beach, others sunk and barely above the surface — Fernando Vargas, 64, and dozens of other sailors tried to pull a damaged glass-bottom boat from the water.

They placed logs in front of the boat as a truck, tied to the bow of the boat with a rope, pulled the ship over the woods onto the beach, prompting cheers from those watching the effort.

Mr Vargas, who worked on another glass-bottom boat that was destroyed, said it was a popular tourist attraction. He hopes to get government support while he looks for a new job.

“I work very hard,” he said. “I am the example for my children.”

He then hurried back to join the others and pushed the ship back to shore.