Drowning victim remembered as respectful, cool and quiet by those who knew him best

The tragic drowning of Jovonni Moise has rocked the foundations of a close-knit friends circle, whose members made a fateful stop at the Hot Pot near Brighton Beach, St Michael on Sunday, where the young man disappeared.

Even more devastating for Cindy Moise is that every Mother’s Day celebration for the foreseeable future will be a harrowing reminder of the loss of her eldest son in the waters off the southwestern coast.

Eyewitnesses told Barbados TODAY that it was around 4:30 p.m. when the 21-year-old got into difficulty, prompting a search of the area by members of the Royal Barbados Police Force (RBPF)’s Marine Unit and the Barbados Coast Guard, that had to be postponed until the next day.

Scores of close relatives from the communities of Dash Valley, St George and Haggatt Hall, where Jovonni grew up, joined longtime friends at the crack of dawn on Monday in search of closure after a night of anxiety and sleeplessness. At around 8:20, Jovonni’s body surfaced just north of the main search area.

In the crowd was a 20-year-old young man who almost lost his life whilst attempting to save his friend the day before. Metres away from Jovonni’s motionless body, Ricardo Best revealed that he was ‘broken’ as he recalled that just 24 hours before, his friend was full of life and in a very jovial mood.

He told Barbados TODAY that a group of four friends decided to hit the beach for the first time since the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions. While they are accustomed to going to Pirate’s Cove on Bay Street, they decided to park at the Hot Pot with the intention of walking to nearby Batt’s Rock to meet up with some other friends. However, they made a spontaneous decision to spend some time at the Hot Pot for a few minutes, where they ventured into the water.

“[Jovonni] ended up hollering for me and telling me ‘man come in’. So I ended up going in, and I came back out, but he was still there, and I took my eye off of him and when I glanced back, I could see him drifting out. So we ended up hollering for him and telling him, ‘Jovonni come along, we are going down Batt’s Rock side’, and he didn’t respond. So I told myself this looks funny,” Ricardo recalled.

“Then we saw him sink the first time, and my partner Gilly ended up telling me to go for him,” he added.

It was the beginning of a frantic effort to find Jovonni that saw Ricardo reach within a few metres of him before the young man’s body sank once again. That was the last time they saw him alive.

“When I dived under the water, I could not see him or anything, and I came back up. The last time I saw him, he had this look on his face like ‘just help me, Cardo’ and it’s just tearing me down. I didn’t know what to do. So a man ended up coming for me halfway out because I was tired. I couldn’t get back into shore,” he added.

As the young man paced in bewilderment up and down the beach, he revealed that the tight-knitted circle came together from an early age. Since then, the boys would always go out as a unit.

“That broke me even more,” he said after seeing Jovonni’s body resurface. “All the men ‘brek’ up. Gilly was traumatised yesterday.

“His mother spoke to me, and I felt bad because I know how my own mother would have felt, but she told me ‘thank you for trying to save him’,” he added.

Jovonni’s mother, Cindy Moise, was also on the scene. She described her son, an aspiring mechanic, as a “very cool, quiet” person who liked to make people laugh.

The former Alleyne School student was enrolled at the Samuel Jackman Prescod Institute of Technology.

“From the time he was in primary school, Jovonni wanted to be a mechanic and right through secondary school. I asked him if he wanted to repeat, and he said, ‘no, let me go to the Polytechnic and do mechanics,’. In between, he was always working. Jovonni’s life was cars, bikes, anything so,” the tearful mother recalled.

“He wasn’t a bad son, never disrespectful in his 21 years. Never,” she declared.

The mother of two explained that her son was not a strong swimmer but loved going to the beach.

“His friend tried to save him, but the current was working against him too, so he ran into difficulties also. He isn’t taking it well at all, but I respect him for what he did. I appreciate that he tried, and I told him not to beat himself up about it. He is only human, and he was tired,” she said.

Despite the circumstances, she also expressed gratitude that a prayer that her son’s body would be recovered was answered.

“I kissed him goodbye. He came into this world blessed, and he’s going to leave it blessed.

Ancel White, Jovonni’s father, was also at the scene on Sunday afternoon and Monday morning early.

Fighting to hold back tears, he remembered Jovonni as a “cool and quiet” person who enjoyed hanging out with family and friends and doing his work.

“I am just trying to keep focused right now, man,” he told Barbados TODAY.

The promising 21-year-old also leaves two brothers and several cousins to mourn his loss. (kareemsmith@barbadostoday.bb)