Two Florida teenagers went missing earlier this week after embarking on a boat trip and now officials are scrambling to find the boys.
The Florida Coast Guard found the 14-year-old boys’ capsized boat along the coast of the Ponce de Leon inlet on Sunday. Although Perry Cohen and Austin Stephanos are yet to be found, their family and friends have not given up hope.
"None of us are giving up hope they'll find those boys,”
Pamela Cohen, Perry’s mother, told CNN. "I have 100 percent faith they'll find our boys."
Officials, too, have stayed positive.
"This is still considered an active search and rescue case, and we maintain our perpetual optimism that we're going to find somebody," Petty Officer First Class Stephen Lehmann assured CNN. The search area is 33,500 square miles.
The boys' families are offering a $100,000 reward to anyone who brings their kids home safe, although they remain confident in their sons’ boating abilities.
"They know the waters. They've been through rough water, they've been through thin water . . . Those are salty dog kids, and they know what they're doing out there," Nick Korniloff, Perry’s stepfather, said, according to CNN.
But finding the boys’ 19-foot boat raised some alarm.
“We're heavily concerned for their well-being, and we're doing everything we can do to bring them back home,” Petty Officer and Coast Guard spokesman Mark Barney told CNN.
The fact that the boys no longer have a boat complicates search efforts.
"It can be very tricky, especially searching from the air. It's a needle in a haystack out there," Barney said, "and that's one of the reasons life jackets are orange, so it gives us better visibility in cases like this."
Joe Namath, former NFL quarterback, is the boys’ neighbor.
"We just keep on praying, man," he told CNN. "It's hard, it's so hard, but we've got to believe in their wherewithal."
One of the boys’ grandmothers reported them missing to the Miami Coast Guard around 5 p.m. on Friday. The boys had not been seen since 1:30 p.m. that day. They are believed to have been heading to the Bahamas, although their families say they do not know where the teens had planned on sailing.
"As a mother the worst feeling ever is not knowing where your child is,"
Carly Black, Austin’s mother, lamented to WPTV. "And knowing there's nothing you can really do to help them."
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