Friends of missing man hold out hope

BY COLBY FRAZIER
DAILY SOUND STAFF WRITER

Friends of Edwin Platt, who was last seen Thursday by his fiancée swimming the waters off Loon Point attempting to save his beloved boat “Sassy Traveler,” gathered last night at the Cliff Room to celebrate the man they call “Skip.”
A fisherman by trade, Platt was described as having a heart bigger than most, and who lived to bring smiles to the faces of the people around him.
“He is a man who loved his life,” said Jeanette Gardner, who met Platt three years ago when she joined the local chapter of the Hash House Harriers, which she said is drinking group with a running problem. “He loves his fiancée, he loves his boat and he loves the Hash House Harriers.”


Platt went missing on Thursday evening, when he took off his clothes, plunged into the cold Pacific near Summerland and attempted to swim to his boat, which had broke loose from its anchorage near East Beach and was threatening to wash ashore.
According to a Carpinteria firefighter, Platt’s fiancée lost sight of him after he ventured about 45-yards from shore.
The “Sassy Traveler” crashed onto the beach a little while later just north of Loon Point.
Rescue crews from the U.S. Coast Guard and a handful of local fire departments searched into the night Thursday, but the operation was turned over to the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department yesterday and dubbed a “rescue and recovery” effort.
As the hours pass, the likelihood that Platt is found alive diminishes, but Gardner said she and others who knew the man remain hopeful.
So they gathered at his preferred bar, the dimly lit Cliff Room, which is near Platt’s home on the Mesa, to order a few rounds of his favorite beer, Heineken.
Gardner recalled Platt’s 50th birthday party last December, which was held at the Cliff Room, where a packed house arrived to usher the man they knew and loved into the next stage of his life.
“He lived to bring good news and be the one to make people laugh,” she said.
Gardner said Platt was a member of the Hash House Harriers’ board of directors and was often responsible for getting his fellow hashers motivated by singing songs.
She said Platt worked with a number of commercial fishing operations in the area and was talking about heading to Alaska for work when crab season arrived.
According to Gardner, Platt grew up on the east coast, possibly in Connecticut where a number of his family continues to reside. She said he has a daughter who lives in Bakersfield.
Due to the laborious nature of fishing and life on the water, Gardner said Platt is in excellent shape, has excellent biceps and “hardly and ounce of fat on him.”
Which is why it’s hard for many to understand how their friend “Skip” could be missing in the same sea he loved so much.
“It was his home away from home,” Gardner said. “It was his place.
“The fact that he dove into the ocean without his clothes on in the late afternoon to get his boat is a little questionable for us, but on the other hand, he knew his boat, he knew the ocean and he knew his abilities.”