‘You feel both hope and sadness’: Search underway for missing men last seen in Ucluelet

Friends and family of two men who went missing without a trace have been left wondering what happened, nearly two weeks after they were last seen in Ucluelet.

Dan Archibald, 37, and Ryan Daley, 43, were last seen leaving the Ucluelet Small Craft Harbour by land. They were on a sailboat that docked in Ucluelet on May 13, according to RCMP.

“The two males have not had any contact with family and friends since that date and have now been reported missing to police,” Cpl. Tammy Douglas said in a statement.

A friend of Archibald, Paul Watt, said the pair had started a business and were importing a boat from Panama as part of their new charter service.

“You feel both hope and sadness when you think of what may have happened…. it’s been a long time and it’s really difficult to imagine circumstances that have a good outcome at this point,” Watt said.

He describes his friend, a father of two girls aged five and nine, as an avid sailor with an ambition to get a nice boat.

“It’s the nightmare that you don’t ever want to think about, especially if those little girls lose their dad,” Watt said.

“I don’t know why they picked Ucluelet… the importation process slowed down so they were kind of stuck in customs for about three days in Ucluelet.

“During that time, Dan talked to [his wife] kind of briefly a few times… saying he would be home soon and that he would talk to her in about an hour or so.”

Watt said the phones of both Archibald and Daley needed to be plugged in to an outlet to work due to poor batteries.

He said Archibald called his ex-girlfriend and asked for a ride to his home in Jordan River from Ucluelet.

“For whatever reason she wasn’t able to do that,” Watt said.

“Both guys are adventurous; they wouldn’t have thought twice about hitchhiking.”

Ucluelet Harbour Manger Kevin Cortes said the men had just returned from Panama when he met them on May 14.

“CBSA [Canada Border Services Agency] was assessing their vessel at a certain value because they had to pay tax on it,” Cortes said.

“He asked me if I knew a boat surveyor because he wanted to see if he could get a lower assessment on it because he wanted to pay less taxes.”

Cortes said he put the men in contact with a local surveyor, adding on May 16, he got a call from Archibald wanting to pay the moorage fees, adding they were packed up and ready to go.

They left and that was the last Cortes saw of them before he was contacted by RCMP saying the men were missing.

“At that point in time I went to my video surveillance, went back to the date of the 16th and I just started taking pictures, stills of them coming up the dock with their packs and the actual video of the encounter when Dan left my office until he actually left my parking lot,” Cortes said.

A Facebook page and a GoFundMe page have been set up to help with the search for the two men.

“Search and Rescue are now involved so if there are clues and there is a larger search, I would imagine that funding would be quickly and well-used to get people over to the island, put them up in places, help feed searchers, that kind of thing,” Watt said.

Archibald has strawberry blonde short hair and stubble on his face, police say. He has an average build and was last seen wearing a grey fleece, long-sleeve top, green pants and flip-flops. He was carrying a large dry bag.

Daley has short dark hair and was wearing a grey ballcap with a black logo, white T-shirt, dark pants or jeans, shoes and was carrying a yellow/green backpack and a large white duffel bag with black accents.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Ucluelet RCMP at 250-726-7773 or CrimeStoppers.