Allie Kurtz gave up a job in movie industry to live her dream of working on water, and when she landed a job as a deckhand on a scuba diving boat, she was thrilled. She was on that boat, Conception, when it caught fire and sank, only crew member among 34 people trapped below deck as flames blocked ir only way out. Five crew members, including captain, who were above deck mand to escape after a fire engulfed boat as victims slept early Monday during a three-day scuba diving excursion off Sourn California coast.

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She died doing what she loved most

Friends from South America to Europe are mourning 26-year-old, whose family said y will miss her lively, venturous spirit but kw she died doing what she loved most. “She wanted to go on Conception so b. She wanted to work that boat, and she was finally able to work that boat,” her 20-year-old sister Olivia Kurtz told Associated Press. “She left this world doing something she absolutely loved. This was her dream, and she was finally able to fulfill this dream.” Flames moved quickly through 75-foot (23-meter) boat, blocking a narrow stairway and an escape hatch leing to upper decks and giving those below virtually chance of getting out, authorities said.

Olivia Kurtz said she believes crew typically h one person sleep below deck to help passengers. Her far, Robert, said he doesn’t blame diving company that gave his daughter chance to pursue her dreams. “She’s still in seas,” he said during an interview Wednesday in Santa Barbara. He said he hopes to scatter her ashes in ocean from an earlier scuba boat she worked on. “She passed away doing what she loved.”

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Tributes pour in

Both flew out to California immediately after fire. y wore navy hooded sweatshirts from scuba tour company where Allie Kurtz worked and heart-shaped pins with her name. Olivia said she planned to get a tattoo to remember her older sister. Kurtz was free-spirited and determined, her family said. She worked in office for Truth Aquatics, scuba tour company, and started out on ar one of ir boats as a cook before moving to Conception. Passengers who knew her have been sending messs to her family saying how much she touched ir lives during ir travels. 

She also did volunteer work to help wounded sea lions, her family said, joking that she loved water so much that she h gills and fins. Kurtz, who also has a younger bror, grew up in Illiis. She was well-travelled, studied atre and opera and always loved water, said her grandmor, Doris Lapporte. When she was younger, she was on dive and swim teams and used to joke that she wanted to be a pirate. “Her love was just always, always water,” Lapporte, 71, told AP in a phone interview. “She would joke, ‘I am going to be a pirate one day.’”

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She always felt her heart wasn’t in anything else

For a while, Kurtz worked in movie promotions at Paramount and lived in Santa Monica, near Los Angeles. She put in long hours but felt her heart wasn’t in it and went earlier this year to Santa Barbara, an idyllic seaside city about 100 miles (161 kilometres) to rthwest, to he out on water, Lapporte said. Kurtz was recently promoted to work as a deckhand on Conception. She went on a five-day trip and n three-day excursion to wind-swept isles that form Channel Islands National Park in Pacific Ocean.

An avid reer, Kurtz planned to collect books on history of islands so she could share more about m with tourists. She received her most recent diving certification in August and obtained an Australian work visa with idea of travelling re to work during California’s scuba diving offseason, Lapporte said. She loved diving, but above all travel, and she wanted to own a boat someday, Lapporte said. After getting visa, she texted her grandmor and told her she h finally achieved her dream “of being a pirate,” Lapporte said. “She h so much life in her. So much everything,” she said.

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