The following story is true. I harvested this tale from the Techsideline Lounge Message Board. The author, known to me as DixieHokie, went on a hunting expedition last week that nearly ended in tragedy. Here, like the good people of Reader's Digest like to promote, is a ...

Drama at Sea

Thursday morning a group of four of us ( Jason & Chris in one boat and myself and Chris in my boat) get done hunting in the Campbell’s Creek area in (Eastern North Carolina) around 10am.. We head back to the house to regroup grab a bite to eat and plan our afternoon hunt. Jason checks the weather on 2 different sites using his computer. Weather forecast was for 1 to 2 foot seas for the afternoon and building Thursday night to 2 to 4 and sustained winds for Friday blowing 20.. We made the call to go Seaducking since it wasn’t to suppose to turn windy until Thursday night… and Friday we would be sidelined to creek hunt.. We prepared my boat a 2005 20’ Center console Crestliner with a 75hp Etc. We took my hard blind off and got all the unnecessary stuff off the boat that we normally take with us just so we have room for the four us and all of our 3 bags of sea duck blocks and long line gear. we load the boat with 5 guns. I bring 2 guns just cause I like to have a back up gun on the boat.

We hop in the truck and head to the oyster creek boat ramp in Lowland.. then out of the creek we head north east toward the middle of the mouth of the Pamlico river in search of seaducks. We pick a spot that we see some birds in and set up.. At this point the seas are a nice 1 to 2, and we are having a good time. Getting everything set.. After a few attempts of setting the anchor we finally get it set and we are hunting. A few birds are working us and we are getting shots here and there. We shoot a Old Squaw that comes though and we cut anchor to chase him down. As we are coming back to the moor buoy we take a wave over the bow. Jason is getting soaked. and it was then we all look at each other and decide we should pick up before it gets bad.

At this point we know its going to be a bumpy ride in but nothing I haven’t done before. it s going to take some time. and we plan on getting wet. The time is approximately 3:30 I have a hard time figuring the times but I’ll try my best. We pick up the anchor out of 17feet of water. and turn to the decoys. We neatly load the first line. by the time we are picking up the second line the seas have turned BAD, and about to get a whole lot worse..
We now just are pulling in the remainder of the lines and throwing them in the boat so we can get to shore. the waves are now a easy constant 4 footers with the occasional 6 footer mixed in. We each have on our live vest.

I look at my GPS and take a heading to the nearest land, Pamlico Point, witch is approximately 6miles away. The boat is only able to run about 2 knots and is getting beat pretty hard. The bilge pump is on and pushing water out. in what seems to be a blink of a eye we were in bad shape. I am so focused on running the boat that I have not looked down. Chris asked me where the back up bilge was because my bilge pump cannot keep up. I looked down and I was standing in a foot of water. with wave after wave now breaking over the bow. I give the controls over to Tester and I grab the back up bilge pump and a battery out of the back.

Jason is trying to bail with a empty cooler. I attempt to hook the back up bilge pump up and I get it working as I’m getting shocked as I am holding the positive and negative leads on to make it work I look over and it is spitting some water out.. but it is useless we are getting pounded by a gallons of water every few seconds… the motor is now half way under and shutting off. It is now that we are done our fight to make it to shore. It is now time to take on a entirely new fight, the fight for our lives. I got on the radio while others got on their cell phones. I called mayday, and yelled out our position. We got in touch with Coast Guard station Hobucken and they said help is on the way.. Now was survival time and the minutes now passed like days. We got as much weight off the boat as we could. The boat at this point was almost completely full of water and we watch as our floating gun cases mix in with the decoys and make their way off the starboard side. I am standing in 2’5 and sometimes 3 feet of water depending on the wave that was come over the side. It was at this point I have to call my wife for what could be the last time I ever get to talk to her. I wish this phone call on no one.

I tell her to listen to me. I tell her what the situation is and to call someone anyone and let them know where we are. I then tell her that she is the light of my life, and that I love her. I tell her to tell Hunter ( my 8 month old son ) that I love him and always will. I hang up with her with a tear in my eye and a lump in my throat. I was more worried about her
than me. The boat now is under water but still up right. we are all hanging tough.. all four of us were lined up in a row surfing the now 4’ to 5’ waves. At this point most cell phones are low battery or toasted due to water..

Approximately one hour goes by and we are just waiting. Searching the skies and the horizon toward Hobucken for the Coast Guard. The water temperature is 45* we are all doing ok. The only worry I had was about Chris F, he was the only one of us who was not wearing waders. he has been standing in water for over a hour. I was truly worried about my friend.

Rescued at sea…
It was at this time we spot the twin bladed Marine helicopter that later I find out is named call sign Pedro. I will forever call this a gift from god. The problem now was that Pedro was searching for us at our original mayday call about 5 miles from our current position. We make one more phone call to the CG and tell them that we see the Helicopter and that he need to come about 180* and head east about 5 miles. He does. We are waving everything that I have in the boat that has some other color that camo or white. I do not have flares on the boat, which will change in the future.

Pedro finds us!

The Helicopter spots us and proceeds to fly over head to access the situation. He flies about 30 feet above us on our starboard side and opens his door. A rescue swimmer is deployed. He swims to the side of our boat and asked us how we are physically, and informs us the coast guard has a boat that will be hear shortly and that it is more safe for them to pick us up versus us going in the helicopter. So we wait. The 25’ Coast Guard boat pulls up to us a short time later and we board the boat.

After we all board and are safe I say a prayer thanking God for the ultimate gift, life. I then call my wife and let her know we are ok. I look behind me and see my boat still afloat and think to myself that’s a hell of a boat to be completely submerged and to hold 4 good size men and still be floating. The trip back to Oyster Creek took close to a hour and a half. It was the worse seas that I have ever been in. On the way in the captain of the Coast Guard boat mentioned that the “Weather service sure missed this.” We make it back to land and are meet by our friend Richard, and are checked out by the Pamlico EMT’s. All of us are shaken up a little, but we all decline to go with them. There is nothing a warm shower and some hot food won’t take care of.

I would once again like to thank the US Coast Guard, The Marines, Pamlico county EMT’s . They saved our lives! I also want to Thank Richard for being there on the phone for us and being a great help once we got back to shore. Thanks to all of you who have prayed for us and the phone calls and emails of support. Lastly Thank you to Chris T, My friend you are one steady dude. Thank god you had the Coast guard phone # programmed in your phone. I hope you are able to get your others number off of your fried phone.

Jason, You also have ice in your veins. You were always checking on each of us, and I truly appreciate that.

Chris F, What a great calmness and encouragement you provided us. Thank you for getting your prayer chain involved so quickly! I can’t think of anyone better than you guys to be to be in that situation with. You guys are my heroes and I love you guys.


Foot Note…

Boat is found! I get a call from the coast guard on Saturday morning at 10am. A fisherman is on the scene with my boat a few miles south of Cedar island ferry dock. (25miles from where we were rescued ). The Boat is afloat and most of the water that was in it had been pumped out by the bilge before the battery died., The guy who found it towed it in and trailered it to his house. My insurance adjuster will be on the scene first of next week

http://coastguardnews.com/north-carolina-coast-guard-station-responds-
to-two-rescue-calls-five-miles-apart/2008/01/24/