A fishing boat captain who disappeared on his boat in the St. Petersburg area Wednesday night as Hurricane Milton made landfall was found floating in the Gulf of Mexico the next day with nothing but a cooler and a life jacket.
A Coast Guard Air Station Miami helicopter located and rescued him approximately 30 miles from Longboat Key about 1:30 p.m. Thursday, officials said in a news release, over 12 hours after he was first reported missing.
“This man survived in a nightmare scenario for even the most experienced mariner,” said Lt. Cmdr. Dana Grady, Sector St. Petersburg’s command center chief.
According to the Coast Guard, a little after noon Monday, the boat captain, who was not identified, had first contacted Coast Guard Sector St. Petersburg watchstanders to tell them that he and a crew member were stuck about 20 miles off John’s Pass, a fishing village on the coast near St. Petersburg. A Coast Guard Station Sand Key rescue boat and an Air Station Clearwater rescue helicopter arrived and hoisted the captain and a crew member, bringing them back to Air Station Clearwater and leaving their boat adrift in the ocean to be salvaged later.
But about 3 a.m. Wednesday, the boat captain decided to return to his boat to make repairs, according to the release. When he didn’t check in by noon, the owner of the boat contacted the same Coast Guard watchstanders. They managed to reach the captain by radio, who told them his boat’s rudder was entangled with a line and had again stopped working while he was making his way back to the port.
By that time, the seas had reached 6 to 8 feet, the winds had reached 30 mph, and the weather was “quickly deteriorating as the storm approached,” the release said. The Coast Guard told the captain to put on a life jacket and stay with the boat’s radio beacon, which indicates someone’s position in an emergency. That evening, shortly before 7 p.m., crews lost contact with the captain.
Hurricane Milton made landfall about 8:30 p.m. that night.
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Grady estimated that the captain “experienced approximately 75-90 mph winds, 20-25 foot seas, for an extended period of time to include overnight. He survived because of a life jacket, his emergency position indicating locator beacon, and a cooler.”
Video footage shared by the Coast Guard shows the helicopter arriving the next day and sending a crew member into the turbulent water to rescue the captain as he holds onto the cooler.
The captain is now at Tampa General Hospital receiving care.
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