The Norwegian captain who found Perry Cohen and Austin Stephanos’ tiny boat bobbing off the coast of Bermuda last month called it an extraordinary coincidence over which he’s still marveling. 
 
 In an interview with The Palm Beach Post from Norway, Håvard Melvaer, 40, said the discovery happened while captaining the Edda Fjord, a massive multipurpose supply ship, on its route from Port Fourchon, La., to its home port in Haugesund, Norway. 
 
 A week into their voyage, on March 18, Melvaer said he was in his office working on some Excel spreadsheets when his wife came up to see him in the afternoon. 
 
 “You look tired,” she said. “Let’s go out for some fresh air.” 
 
 The second he stepped out the door, he spotted the 19-foot SeaCraft in the water about 30 to 40 feet off the port side. 
 
 + Håvard Melvaer, captain of the Edda Fjord (Courtesy Håvard Melvaer) × 
 
 Nobody else in the 16-person crew noticed it. The officer on the bridge was using binoculars to keep lookout, but at that moment was looking off the starboard side, Melvaer said. Had his wife not asked him to step outside, he would have missed it, too. 
 
 “We were basically just crossing exactly where it was at the time,” Melvaer said. “It’s just a stroke of luck. There was no skill involved. It just took a pair of eyes looking in that direction at that particular time.” 
 
 Melvaer said he’s tried to wrap his head around how unlikely it was. 
 
 “You kind of think a little bit and try to understand the concept of how big it really is,” he said. “It’s amazing. We kind of felt like it wanted to be found.” 
 
 The discovery, nearly eight months after Austin and Perry left the Jupiter Inlet and never returned, has been called a “miracle” by the U.S. Coast Guard. Coast Guardsmen initially found it floating 67 miles off the coast of Daytona Beach two days after the Tequesta teens disappeared. They attached a data marker buoy to it and continued searching for the boys, but the device failed. When they went to retrieve the boat, it was gone. 
 
 The boat is now packed in a shipping container and expected to arrive May 16 at Port Everglades. Its contents — Austin’s iPhone, two fishing rods and two small tackle boxes — have been returned to the families. The phone could offer clues to their disappearance if the family wants to pursue them. 
 
 Melvaer said Sunday that after spotting the boat, the crew hoisted it on board to remove it from the shipping lane, a standard practice. The boat was intact and had a serial number on the engine, so he notified the Coast Guard. 
 
 In the meantime, he wondered about the boat and its crew. 
 
 “I went up to my office and basically Googled ‘missing fisherman,’ I think, and it (Austin and Perry’s story) came up as one of the first ones,” he said. 
 
 He had never heard of the boys, but when the Coast Guard confirmed his suspicion and asked him to send photos, Melvaer was stunned. He and the crew felt they had to protect what was now precious cargo, he said, and they made sure it was kept out of harm’s way while on board. 
 
 “I’m a parent myself, so I can identify with the situation,” he said. “I’ve been boating since I was a kid as well. 
 
 “That goes for all the crew, as well. They had the same reaction. They felt that it was important to get this properly done and try not to do extra damage.” 
 
 Since he started training at age 17, he’s only twice run across abandoned vessels in the water — one time the bow of a boat off the coast of India, and a second time a downed helicopter he happened to be searching for. 
 
 “It’s not something that happens every day,” he said. “When you’re at sea, things have a tendency to blend in.” 
 
 Melvaer declined to discuss particular details about the boat or its contents, citing the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission investigation and concern for the boys’ families. He wouldn’t say whether Austin’s cellphone was in usable condition. 
 
 His hope is that the chance discovery might bring some peace to the families. 
 
 “Let’s hope that this leads to something good,” he said. “Of course, nothing can ever replace what’s lost. We’re just crossing our fingers and hoping for the best.” ||||| Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings. 
 
 The boat belonging to two teenagers who went missing off the coast of Florida during a fishing trip last year was discovered off Bermuda nearly eight months after they vanished, authorities said Saturday. 
 
 The Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission said the 19-foot single-engine boat that Austin Stephanos and Perry Cohen, both 14, sailed off the coast of Jupiter on July 24 was found by a Norwegian supply boat on March 18 while on the way to Norway. 
 
 Multi Purpose Supply Vessel Edda Fjord, while enroute to Norway, discovered a capsized small craft approximately 100 miles off the coast of Bermuda. The boat belonged to Austin Stephanos. Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission 
 
 The vessel was discovered about 100 miles off the coast of Bermuda, or about 1,000 miles from where Stephanos and Cohen were last seen before setting off on their fishing trip. 
 
 An iPhone and a tackle box were found on the teens’ recovered boat, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. 
 
 The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission notified Stephanos and Cohen's parents of the find “very quickly” after confirming it was Stephanos' boat, said Rob Klepper, a spokesman for the Fish and Wildlife Commission. The families were told they could come forward with the information “in their own time,” Keppler said. 
 
 Perry’s parents, Pamela Cohen and Nick Korniloff, told the “Palm Beach Post” of the find on Saturday. 
 
 “This is an open missing persons case, and we hope that FWC reopens their investigation and utilizes the expert resources of other government agencies as well as the private sector if necessary to extrapolate the data from the recovered iPhone,” Cohen and Korniloff said in a statement released to NBC News. 
 
 Multi Purpose Supply Vessel Edda Fjord, while enroute to Norway, discovered a capsized small craft approximately 100 miles off the coast of Bermuda. The boat was subsequently confirmed to be the boat that belonged to Austin Stephanos. Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission 
 
 The boat is set to arrive in the U.S. in mid-May, and “personal effects that were on-board the boat will be returned to the families of the victims, and subsequent information retrieval efforts from any of those items will be at their discretion," Keppler said. 
 
 The Coast Guard called off the search for the teens a week after they went missing after covering nearly 50,000-square nautical miles along a stretch that extended from the shore of Jupiter to Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. 
 
 The families ended their own personally funded search for the two on Aug. 10. "We love our boys and want them home. Today, our hope becomes our prayer — that one day Perry and Austin will be returned to us," the families said in a statement at the time. 
 
 The Coast Guard had initially located the teens' boat, capsized, two days after they went missing, but when a salvage crew returned 12 hours later to secure the boat, it was gone.
– A Norwegian ship captain says it was an incredible "stroke of luck" that he discovered the boat of two teenagers lost at sea last July, the AP reports. Havard Melvaer was in his office aboard the huge Edda Fjord supply ship last month when he stepped outside for fresh air and spotted the 19-foot boat, the Palm Beach Post reports. Nobody else on the 16-person crew spotted the boat, and Melvaer says he would have missed it if he hadn't stepped out at that exact moment. "You kind of think a little bit and try to understand the concept of how big it really is," he said. "It's amazing. We kind of felt like it wanted to be found." The captain says that after the boat was hoisted aboard, he Googled "missing fisherman" and was stunned to discover that it belonged to Austin Stephanos and Perry Cohen, both 14, who left Jupiter Inlet, Fla., in it and never returned. Melvaer tells the Post that he and his crew treated the boat, which is being shipped to Florida, as very precious cargo. "I'm a parent myself, so I can identify with the situation," he says. "I've been boating since I was a kid as well." Items found inside the boat, including Austin's iPhone, have been returned to the US. Austin's father, Blu Stephanos, said in a statement that he received a heartfelt message from the captain, explaining that he's the father of three boys and was deeply affected by the story of Austin and Perry. "He went on to say that, since recovering the boat, his entire crew had thought a lot about the boys and said, 'I think they will follow us in our hearts and minds for the rest of our lives,'" Stephanos said.