Charter boat capt found swimming towards shore after falling overboard 14 hrs earlier

Justin

Old Mossy Horns
roundball said:
In the water for 7 hours ?
No floatation assistance ?
Swam 14 miles ?

Is that actually possible?
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The human body is buoyant if not injured and lungs/guts haven’t filled with water forcibly.
Swimming 14 miles I’m sure is possible, but I’d like to know the tides.
 

darenative

Twelve Pointer
Happened to a buddy of mine when we were about 20. He was the mate on a charter boat at the inlet and was scrubing the cockpit on the way in. Ended up getting snatched out of the boat trying to fill a 5 gallon bucket. He got picked up an hour or so later by another boat headed back to oregon inlet.
 
Jake NFC

Jake NFC

Ten Pointer
In the late 70's/early 80's the mate who worked on my uncle's boat ran a trip for another boat one day. He was running it as the Captain. It was a rough ride in from Gulf Stream (fishing out of Morehead) and the guests were in the cabin. As they were getting closer to the inlet they came out and this guy running the boat was no where to be found. Was never seen again. Fell overboard somewhere between the Big Rock area and the inlet.
 
Blackwater

Blackwater

Twelve Pointer
Swam 14 miles in 7 hours ? That's 2 mph for a solid 7 hours! A healthy walker with a good stride usually walks at a pace of around 3 mph so this guy must be an awfully strong swimmer.
 

The Mad Duck

Button Buck
Jake NFC said:
In the late 70's/early 80's the mate who worked on my uncle's boat ran a trip for another boat one day. He was running it as the Captain. It was a rough ride in from Gulf Stream (fishing out of Morehead) and the guests were in the cabin. As they were getting closer to the inlet they came out and this guy running the boat was no where to be found. Was never seen again. Fell overboard somewhere between the Big Rock area and the inlet.
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@jake..In your quote about Bill Duncan, You really should include a mention of the awesome BBQ he made. Bill was an awesome guy and I miss him terribly!
 
CutNRun

CutNRun

Eight Pointer
Contributor
Sorry for the long story & not to hijack the thread, but here goes;

About 20 years ago, my wife and I got separated from the 4 other divers and the divemaster on a trip to Gordo Banks out of Cabo San Lucas in the Sea of Cortez. We were after schooling Hammerheads on seamounts approximately 9 miles off shore. The captain said he was hooked up to the bottom, so we geared up and dropped in. Along the anchor line on the way down, we went through several layers of water, from kind of hazy poor vis, to crystal clear, colder water. When we got to the chain on the anchor line, anchor had pulled loose, the divemaster snatched on the line, and the captain pulled it back in the boat. So we lost the only point of reference all of us had in 125" of water in low visibility. Normally, we'd all just follow the anchor line back to the surface. As the anchor was coming up through the group, we all backed up, so we wouldn't get hung on the hook. We immediately lost contact with the other divers. As we started back to the surface we heard a boat moving close by (I figured it was the sportfishing boat we'd seen earlier trolling the seamounts for tuna, mahi, or marlin), not wanting to get snagged, we held our position at about 60' for around 3-4 minutes until the boat was gone by. It turns out we were in a cross current and the boat we heard was our dive boat going the opposite direction looking for us. When we surfaced, our boat was just a speck on the horizon in about 5' seas and we were adrift 9 miles offshore. We hooked our BCDs together and every time we got to the crest of a wave, we tried waving to catch their attention. My wife was wearing her mask on her forehead (just like you're not supposed to do) and the captain just happened to see the sun reflect off the glass and they came to recover us. We were only adrift for less than 2 hours, but it felt like WAY longer than that. That fishing boat did pass by us less than 400 yards when we were adrift, but they weren't expecting to see anything and the clients were in the cabin drinking beer and listening to loud music, so they never saw or heard us. Talk about feeling like a speck in the sea or a grain of sand on the beach. First thing I did when we got home was buy surface marker buoys and pocket signal mirrors for each of us. We have them along on every dive ever since, even if the water is dead flat calm like a swimming pool.

We did have a school of yellowfin tuna split and zip past us as we were headed to the surface, so at least part of the experience was cool. The rest, not so much.

Jim
 
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