Coastal Laker
08-02-2005, 09:41 AM
Just when you think you’ve seen and heard it all…
At approximately 6:30 pm Friday I was just passing Cass Point and heading toward Little Island in Paugus Bay when I saw a few birds in the water quite some distance off to my left, so I stayed clear and went wide heading toward the island. As I continued, now about halfway between the point and the islands I noticed the birds were really two round blobs in the water that had a striking resemblance to human heads. I decided to alter course and check it out – and yes indeed, there were two men in the water. Both were in dark colored PFDs and were swimming toward shore.
These men were out with their friends on two wave runners that overturned and became swamped. All of them couldn’t re-board since the machines had taken on so much water, so their friends told these two guy which direction to start swimming and then left them there, going back to their dock about a mile away to get something else (boat, PWC, who knows) to come back and pick them up. Why two machines had to go for help is beyond me. One of them should have stayed there.
Needless to say, I had the two men board my boat. I told these guys they are lucky to be alive. In the opposite direction, they’d be obscured from view due to the late day glare. They were in dark t-shirts, black vests, and had dark colored hair making it pretty amazing that I saw them. Without losing my cool with them, which was an effort, I told them that their friends obviously were not thinking, placed their lives in jeopardy, and should have used only one a machine to go for help while the other stayed with them and kept them visible in the water.
When I finnally dropped these guys off at the dock, which was a small challenge to find since they had only been there once, there didn’t appear to be any activity with a sense of urgency to get a boat out to pick them up.
At least the two men did say thank you. I don’t think they realize just how thankful they really should be.
At approximately 6:30 pm Friday I was just passing Cass Point and heading toward Little Island in Paugus Bay when I saw a few birds in the water quite some distance off to my left, so I stayed clear and went wide heading toward the island. As I continued, now about halfway between the point and the islands I noticed the birds were really two round blobs in the water that had a striking resemblance to human heads. I decided to alter course and check it out – and yes indeed, there were two men in the water. Both were in dark colored PFDs and were swimming toward shore.
These men were out with their friends on two wave runners that overturned and became swamped. All of them couldn’t re-board since the machines had taken on so much water, so their friends told these two guy which direction to start swimming and then left them there, going back to their dock about a mile away to get something else (boat, PWC, who knows) to come back and pick them up. Why two machines had to go for help is beyond me. One of them should have stayed there.
Needless to say, I had the two men board my boat. I told these guys they are lucky to be alive. In the opposite direction, they’d be obscured from view due to the late day glare. They were in dark t-shirts, black vests, and had dark colored hair making it pretty amazing that I saw them. Without losing my cool with them, which was an effort, I told them that their friends obviously were not thinking, placed their lives in jeopardy, and should have used only one a machine to go for help while the other stayed with them and kept them visible in the water.
When I finnally dropped these guys off at the dock, which was a small challenge to find since they had only been there once, there didn’t appear to be any activity with a sense of urgency to get a boat out to pick them up.
At least the two men did say thank you. I don’t think they realize just how thankful they really should be.