Coast Guard and crews from Manzanita Fire Department respondFour fishermen, on a California crab boat that ran aground south of Neahkahnie Mountain were in no “immediate danger” this morning, as rescuers from the U.S. Coast Guard tried to help the boat off a sandbar.

The Adrienne A, a commercial crab fishing boat from Fort Bragg, Calif., was stranded sometime before 7 a.m., when a Neahkahnie resident called 9-1-1 to report the grounding.

As The Daily Astorian went to press, the rescue operation was still under way.

A Coast GuardHH-60 Jayhawk helicopter from Air Station Astoria was on the scene, between the south side of Neahkahnie Mountain and the Manzanita River. The helicopter was bringing a tow line from a Coast Guard motor lifeboat to the Adrienne A. Two motor lifeboats from the Coast Guard station in Tillamook were on the scene, but could not safely get close enough to the crab boat, stranded in the surf zone a few hundred yards off shore.

The Manzanita Fire Department, first on the scene, launched jet skis into the surf to contact the fishermen on board, who did not want to get off of the boat. After determining the fishermen were all right, the water rescue team stood by to wait for the Coast Guard, said Kim Gibson-Boles, Manzanita public safety officer.

The motor lifeboats arrived at about 7:50 a.m., followed by the helicopter at 8:30 a.m.

The Adrienne A had turned “beam to” in the surf, with six- to eight-foot swells pounding its starboard side, said Coast Guard Petty Officer 1st Class Justin Erdman. But “they’re not in any immediate danger,” he said.

As the tide comes in, rescuers hope to re-float the boat, and tow it off the sandbar.

Gibson-Boles said the area where the boat is stranded can be “deceptively shallow.” He said the Adrienne A ran aground as it attempted to collect crab pots too close to shore.

Dave Dillon of the North Shore Citizen contributed to this story