Posted on 01/13/2020 6:03:01 AM PST by artichokegrower
“Find the feet first,” I kept saying to myself. “Feet first, not the head.” I did not want to find the head. I had to find the body. There was no-one else in the small fishing village of Cordova AK who had SCUBA gear. The fisherman had fallen from the Cordova fishing pier, falling 20 feet into freezing Alaskan waters.
(Excerpt) Read more at gcaptain.com ...
Words to live by in today's world.
Late ‘80s an off shore storm drove some huge swells into the NY Bight. On Sunday night while returning from an off shore fishing trip we learned that a boat had overturned and sunk outside Rockaway inlet which precipitated a large rescue operation. Also, two fishermen had been swept off the jetty. The body of one fishermen was recovered in short order.
The following Wednesday, returning to the inlet from another fishing trip, I spotted some blaze orange in the water. Thinking it might be flotsam from the sinking, we went to see. As we approached, the toes of two boots appeared and on another swell I could make out a set of skins, a plaid shirt and head.
We stopped, radioed the CG (inside 3 mile so not their job) NYPD Harbor G jumped in to take the recovery. We slowly circled the body at a good distance until they arrived. It was the second man from the jetty.
Having been a fisherman all my life, having spent many nights fishing from that same jetty - on occasion being cut off on the tip for hours by tides - it is hard to explain the feeling in the pit of my stomach that afternoon. Even today, recounting the event, a muted version of that feeling emerges.
“There, but for the Grace of God, go I.”
We may not like to believe it but no matter how much we love boating and fishing in the Ocean, we are not in our element and unexpected things can and do happen.- Tom
“Find the feet first” — more of a wish in low viz diving. I did some of these kinds of searches. You don’t so much “find” the body as swim into it.
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