Husband’s haunting final call to his wife before his empty boat was found half-submerged in the bay

A man called his wife for help when his boat started taking on water and he knew it was going to sink before it disappeared.

Benjamin Godwin, 35, was alone on his boat on a “cold, windy evening” Tuesday in Choctawhatchee Bay in the Florida Panhandle when he got into trouble.

With the stern submerged, he called his wife Jessica Godwin in Freeport and told her he was trying to get the water out with a five-gallon bucket.

Jessica called 911 and the Walton County Sheriff’s Office rushed to the bay to rescue him, but found no trace of him in the four-foot, choppy, 55F water.

Godwin’s boat was found hours later, barely afloat with the bow almost submerged, but it was empty. The bucket was discovered floating in the bay.

His body was found by a diving team on Thursday after police, his brother and other family searched the water for days.

“His brother and other family members have spent every moment possible since Tuesday evening trying to locate Ben, who is said to have grown up on the bay and loved being on the water,” police said.

Water conditions made boating and swimming difficult, even for experienced skippers like Godwin.

His friends and family are trying to raise $25,000 to pay off his mortgage, hold his funeral and bury him next to his father, and provide for his family since he was the sole income earner.

Additional money would be placed in a trust for his two-year-old son Wyatt to pay for college, buy his first home or use for retirement.

‘Ben was on the water almost every day. He enjoyed fishing, boating and searching for Native American pottery and arrowheads along our coastline,” wrote his friend Mike Brown.

‘He regularly traveled up local rivers to explore nature. A place where he felt most at home.’

The Coast Guard and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission are investigating Godwin’s death.