State Police continuing search for missing kayaker

SWAMPSCOTT – Massachusetts State Police are still searching the surrounding waters off Fisherman’s Beach in Swampscott where a kayak belonging to a Lynn man washed up empty Saturday night, even after the Coast Guard suspended its search Sunday evening.”State Police marine unit has never stopped looking and are out there looking [today],” said Trooper Todd Nolan, a spokesman with State Police, on Tuesday.Nolan said State Police have deployed a 40-foot boat patrolling the ocean floor with sonar as well as a helicopter scanning the waters from above in search for Maryan Lisovich, a 23-year-old reported missing around 6 p.m. Saturday after he failed to return to Fisherman’s Beach in Swampscott from a fishing trip.An empty kayak police believe Lisovich used to go fishing in Saturday night washed up on the beach a few hours later.The Coast Guard, which initially took the lead Saturday, suspended the on-water search for Lisovich at sunset Sunday after a “small armada” of local, state and federal boats searching the 64-degree waters failed to find Lisovich.”We have to suspend [the search] if there’s no outcome,” said Lt. Garrett Meyer, a spokesman with the U.S. Coast Guard’s Boston office. ” ? We didn’t locate the person in whatever condition they’re in and really have run out of options as to where to search.”Meyer said crews with the Coast Guard combed more than 420 square miles through Nahant Bay, which is about 2-by-3 miles but that searchers feared the worst with rip currents and Saturday’s storm.”It was kind of a bad timing in a bad location, with rip currents and the storms rolling through. That is not a good scenario,” he said.But Nolan said State Police haven’t stopped their search and that the helicopter and boat will continue to be in operation as much as weather permits during daylight hours.”They’ll go out there looking until somebody makes a decision that all reasonable efforts have gone above and beyond to locate him,” Nolan said.Amber Parcher can be reached at [email protected].