BODY PULLED FROM KELP IDENTIFIED AS CANOEIST'S.

Byline: Sylvia L. Oliande Daily News Staff Writer

Coroner's officials positively identified the body found floating in a bed of kelp off Channel Islands Harbor as that of canoeist Scott Sullenger, who was lost early this month when he swam away from his fellow crew members after their craft capsized.

The recovery of the Oxnard man's body on Friday brings closure to his family, who, along with hundreds of volunteers, spent weeks after the accident combing the beaches and remote islands looking for him and holding out hope that he would be found alive.

``You can begin to heal if you know something is over,'' Arlene Sullenger, Scott's mother, said Saturday. ``It's when you don't know, you keep hoping. Every time the phone rings, you feel like it might be someone saying it might be him alive.

``This way, we'll have him home, and we will be able to properly bury him, and we'll know at last that he's at peace and he's not going to come back to us.''

Arlene said that despite being told that the chances of finding Scott Sullenger alive were remote, family and friends have gone out on boats several times to deserted islands on the chance that he made it to one and was stranded.

They even checked homeless shelters and missions around the area, believing the 36-year-old may not have been able to get to them or remember what happened to him.

Senior Coroner's Investigator Craig Stevens said the body was found at about 3:15 p.m. Friday by a commercial fishing boat, tangled in kelp about seven miles southwest of Channel Islands Harbor.

The crew of The Capture called the Coast Guard, which then recovered the body.

Stevens said there had been little doubt that the body found near Anacapa Island was Sullenger's, based on the description of the clothes he was wearing when he disappeared and the personal items found with the body.

Funeral arrangements had not yet been made by Saturday.

Sullenger was one of six men who set out on a seven-mile excursion in a 40-foot outrigger canoe from Channel Islands Harbor on Jan. 3. About midmorning, 6-foot swells and offshore winds gusting to 40 mph caused the craft to capsize.

The crew members, who were wearing shorts and T-shirts, were able to hold on for a while, and one, Tino Rico, 38, took off swimming. Sullenger swam off about an hour later.

Rico eventually was rescued by a Harbor Patrol vessel, but Sullenger disappeared and was presumed dead.

Team captain Ben Taitai, 50, and crewmen Justin Heard and Michael Davis were rescued after four hours by a fishing boat.

Another crew member, John Deblin, 50, died of hypothermia before the group was found, but his body was kept aloft by his fellow boaters and was recovered as well.