Cold water boot camp

[Wandering Sagebrush]

I received this email from a friend on Chichagof Island. It's an interesting story on being out in cold weather.



"Steve Cold last night. A hunter got his boat stuck about 20 miles up the inlet. Nobody lives there. He shot at a deer and quickly did the Indian Anchor trick and went after the deer. The deer got away and when he got back his stern was aground and the tide dropping. He tried to lever it off but got it stuck on a submerged rock. The tide wouldn't be back up until 2AM or the next afternoon. There were two fishing boats working not far away. His hand held didn't reach. He set off two flairs. His wife by this time was worried and called the Fire Department. We sent 4 guys out to help him. It was about 6PM. I manned the radio at the firehall and we got the Coast Guard appraised of the situation. That way, they can both help out and reimburse expenses. We had GPS coordinates from the fishing boat and he had a big fire going by the time we got there. Our guys picked him up and were headed home when an alarm went off on the Rescue Boat. Water had gotten past the fuel filter and tripped a sensor in the motor. Seas were kind of rough so they took it to the beach to take the cowling off the motor and work on the two filters in the motor. The kicker although new starts hard in cold weather so that wasn't any help. Once they cleared the filters the alarm went off and they made it home. It was the first night that my down coat wasn't warm enough. We met the boat and his wife made sandwiches. The hunter is a capable guy. This could happen to anybody. It would have been an uncomfortable night to spend on the beach. There is a book called Almost too Late that I try to get everybody to read. It's about a family in SE Alaska in the 1970's that lost their boat in the wrong weather and almost died down by Dixon Entrance. When this guy got back to town last night we went over the circumstances. His matches were crumbly and almost didn't light. Old gear. His radio was insufficient at that distance. He liked having lots of plastic quart oil jugs to burn, plastic jug and all. He looked to have camping gear. I've seen guys who didn't have any. His wife was on the ball and was cool about the whole deal. Trusted both that he was able but late. All in all a good excercise. Pete"