LUCKY TO BE ALIVE

  My wife and I watched as the big blow hit town. The weather service was calling for 40 knot blows out on the ocean. "Should have the commercial fleet scurrying to town," I commented

Little did we know the drama that was unfolding at that time on the ocean just a short 20 miles from our comfortable house.

  One of my friends who charters, dives, and dabbles in commercial trolling was, at that very time fighting for his life.

  Stonie (we call him Mac) and his deck hand, 19 year old Ryan were trolling off Cape Edgecumbe when the weather blew up. They knew the forecast, but due to some problems with the troll gear delayed their run

to town. Once they got things squared away the wind was pushing some large waves into their path to town.

  They were fishing out of Macs 28 foot bow picker aluminum boat, the Kaitlin Rae.

  As the wind pushed the rollers into breakers, they battled their way into the growing sea. They took a big wave over the bow filling the front to the house in an instant.

The boat started foundering only to be hit in the stern by another huge wave. The boat rolled over before they could get a Mayday call on the radio. They tried getting their survival suits out but the boat

sank out from under them. It was about 1:00 pm Friday.

  One of the fish totes from the boat floated by and the two men swam to it. Mac helped Ryan get into the tote but could not get himself up over the three foot side himself. He found a tote lid nearby and clung to that

Then a fortunate stroke of fate happened, one of the survival suits became dislodged from the sunken boat and floated to the surface near Mac. He was able to swim over and retrieve it.

  As the waves reached 8 foot in height, and the wind howled, the two became separated. As they drifted apart Ryan shouted to Mac, "We're not going to die here!"

  Mac was able to get into the survival suit in the water, not an easy task in a calm swimming pool, let alone a raging ocean with wind tossed waves.

  The long drift had begun. No one was aware of their problems until they did not return home that evening. At midnight the families declared an emergency and called the coast guard. A rescue helicopter was dispatched to the general area the men were supposed to be fishing. They could be anywhere.

  Daylight Saturday a massive hunt was underway. Sitka's search and rescue was called upon, troopers were out as well as the fishing fleet and the coast guard in their choppers.

  I received a call from my friend, Scott, saying Mac was in trouble. I turned on my radio and we listened for hours as the search continued.

  Our thoughts were that no one could survive that long in the water. If they made it to the beach they might have a chance, if there were no hungry bears getting to them first.

  After 24 hours a trooper boat spotted someone on the beach waving his arms. Mac! He had drifted from the corner of the cape to Point Amelia, about 12 nautical miles.

  Some 26 hours after the boat went down one of the fishing boat happened upon a floating fish tote. The captain of the Nerka motored up to it with high hopes only to find it empty. He scanned the sea again to see another fish tote floating... this one had a young man waving frantically from inside it! The captain contacted the coast guard chopper and they swooped over to pluck a freezing Ryan up to safety.

Ryan had drifted about 17 nautical miles straining to keep the tote floating upright in the raging waves. His hands were blistered and he could hardly straighten his legs from the long strain.

  I am so thankful these two good men survived.

  Living on the ocean is fraught with danger. We all face it on a daily basis. One can never take the ocean for granted. You must respect its raging power.

  A happy ending to a harrowing ordeal.

  We all breathed a, "thank you Lord", when we heard the chopper pilot radio com center Juneau with the report, "Roger Juneau, we have the survivor on board and are heading to Sitka Air station."