Jefferson Sykes of Chesapeake and Allen Fuller of Portsmouth died Friday as they fished on the Chesapeake Bay near the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel.

Fuller, 75, and Sykes, 83, were both found dead in the water at about 1 p.m., The Virginian-Pilot reported. Their boat – a 28-foot Boston Whaler – was found later in the day by the Virginia Beach Police Department’s Marine Patrol Unit.

How the men ended up out of their boat remains a mystery. Neither fisherman was found wearing a life vest, and a seat cushion was found floating nearby.

John M.R. Bull, a spokesman for the Virginia Marine Resources Commission, told the Pilot that the recovered Whaler had no structural or mechanical problems and only some scraping on the hull.

Fuller had worked for General Electric for a quarter-century, the Pilot said, leaving as a manager. He retired six years ago from Life Fitness, where he worked as a manager.

Fuller’s son Jeff Fuller told the Pilot that his father "was very, very careful about not going out when the wind and the waves were too high, and by all accounts (Friday) was a pretty good day, so it's a mystery to us."

Sykes had worked as a school teacher and administrator in Portsmouth before retirement, the Pilot said.

Boston Whaler’s Web site bills itself as “the world’s leader in unsinkable boats.” It claims that it has even successfully loaded 20 people into a 19-foot boat to demonstrate its buoyancy.