SAN DIEGO (KNX 1070 NEWSRADIO)  -- The U.S. Coast Guard says the Mexican Navy is now in charge of the search for a missing Oceanside couple whose fishing boat washed ashore just north of Rosarito, Mexico.

The 32-foot vessel, named Pelican, turned up there on Friday with no one aboard (photo above shows the boat, after it was discovered). And there's still no word about the fate of 28-year-old Josh Hartman and his 30-year-old fiance Ana Martin, who had set out on the boat from Oceanside Harbor Thursday morning on a trip to catch bait.

The Coast Guard called off its own search, after combing the waters off San Diego County using a helicopter and fixed-wing aircraft. And official say if the couple wound up in the sea, their odds of surviving in the area's cool waters were very slim.

It's believed that if they are still alive, they're likely to be in waters off Baja California near where the Pelican was beached. And the Mexican Navy is still looking in that area.

Hartman reportedly called family members Thursday afternoon, to say that he and Martin were fishing off Camp Pendleton and getting ready to return to port. He's been described as an experienced boater and fisherman.

The boat washed ashore about 60 miles south of Camp Pendleton, and 15 miles south of the border Friday, and word of the beaching reached the Coast Guard after a Tijuana television station broadcast news of it.

The Mexican Navy has towed the vessel to a marina in Ensenada, for inspection by Coast Guard investigators.

To reach Rosarito, the Pelican would have had to have drifted past San Diego in coastal waters patrolled by the Department of Homeland Security and Coast Guard, and plied by dozens of recreational and commercial fishing boats on a routine day.