A Speck in the Sea

by John Aldridge

  This is not a good spot. It is not a useful spot. I thought it would be my salvation. I thought it would give me buoyancy and visibility—let me float and let me get seen. But it’s not doing either of those things.

  The buoy is too big: I can’t get on top of it, and I can’t get my arms around it. What I am holding onto is the rope, and the rope attaches through the tapered part of the polyball, which is underwater. So holding onto the rope is not keeping me particularly buoyant—the boots are doing that, and they are doing it better—and I feel like I am holding the string of a balloon. I’m also almost underneath the buoy, so anybody who can see the buoy from the air won’t necessarily see me.

  The bottom line is that I’ve killed myself to get here, and I’m not getting what I need from it. But I hold on anyway because at least I am not having to propel myself forward, and I do need to let the muscles in my legs recover, let all my systems get renewed or whatever it is—get the blood flowing to the right places again. I have to reassess, but I have to let some renewal happen first.

  And all the time I’m seeing boats go by in the distance, and I hear the helicopter overhead. So I know they’re looking for me. But it’s all happening over there, to the west. The copter is going back and forth, back and forth. He’s definitely flying a pattern. What he is not doing is flying the pattern over here, where I am. I realize they have concluded that I have been drifting west. They don’t know—how could they?—exactly when and where I went overboard, but whatever ideas they’ve come up with have told them I’m going to be over there, where I quite definitely am not.

  I keep holding on.

  Then, when I figure I’ve been here now, holding onto this rope, maybe an hour, hour and a half, I decide that if my blood flow hasn’t revived whatever needs reviving by now, hanging on longer is probably not going to make things any better.

  So what should I do? Do I stay or go? What’s best? My options boil down to these: if I stay, I’m yielding to whatever happens here, where I am far from the search parties and laboring hard to be visible. But if I leave here, I might create another possibility.

  Conclusion: I need to be proactive for my own recovery, and I should get the hell out of here. I’ve got to swim to the next buoy on Pete’s line, still farther west.

  So think. Assess: What do I have with me for that task? What is my equipment? I have my boots for flotation, my knife, and it is suddenly clear to me that when I leave this spot, I am going to take this buoy with me. This buoy can benefit me, the same as the boots and my knife have benefited me. Anything that can advance my goal I have to keep. I have to keep this buoy because it is a big red ball and more visible than I am in an endless, dark ocean.

  But it is a scary thought. I am cutting myself off from the safety—sort of—of a fixed point to head back into an ocean that is always moving, never still, that is churning with energy in the form of waves that batter me and currents that grab and hold me. Cutting myself loose to go back into all that is both scary and exhausting.

  Also, figuring out exactly how to get the buoy isn’t going to be easy. I am still holding onto my boots, one under each arm, tight and close. So it isn’t like I have the free use of my arms and hands. A big, red, visible ball the buoy may be, but getting hold of it is going to be tricky.

  I am right-handed, so with my right hand, still wearing my sock “mitten,” I grab the four- or five-foot rope that tethers the buoy to the main rope anchoring it to the ocean floor. Now I have to cut that rope, and I need my right hand to do that, so I move the tethering rope to my left hand and use my right to get the knife out of my pocket. I got the boots under my arms; I got the rope in one hand. Careful, I tell myself. I need to be careful. But I guess I make some sort of awkward move because the boots almost slip out of my grasp. I clutch them tighter, wait for a few seconds to catch my breath, then slide my right hand into my pocket and grip the knife. I am still holding the rope with my left hand, as stretched as I can manage on a swirling, rocking ocean. Now very, very carefully, with the knife in my right hand, I start cutting the tethering rope. I cut as close as I can to the main anchoring rope because I want as much rope as possible to work with, and suddenly, with a jerk, the buoy comes free and pops me up to the surface of the ocean.

  What now? I need one arm to hold both boots and the other, my right arm, gloved with my sock, to swim with. There are three-plus feet of buoy rope left, so I put the knife away, clip it securely, then tie the rope around my left wrist with a simple overhand knot; the buoy is now basically locked onto me, tied to my left arm. I start swimming, but I realize very quickly that I cannot swim with the buoy—the ocean swells just won’t let me. I also realize that I cannot let the buoy drop behind me when I swim because it will be a drag on my forward notion. What I have to do instead is push the buoy ahead of me. To do that I have to treat it like a balloon. I have to use the swells, letting each wave catch the ball and advance it forward. Then I can swim to the ball and push it ahead until the next swell catches it, and then the next and the next.

  I know also that I have to plot a trajectory that makes use of the waves in such a way that I can fall onto the next buoy from forward of it. I need to get dragged onto it by the drifting swell. Otherwise, I will shoot past it or behind it or miss it altogether; I won’t be able to fight the ocean. I’ve learned this the hard way, the very hard way, and I’m not going to forget it. What makes the lesson particularly critical is that I don’t know what’s out there once I pass Pete’s buoy. His line of traps is almost like home ground to me, but for all I know, once I’m past his “turf,” there may not be any buoys at all. So I can’t miss Pete’s buoy. It could be my last chance. In other words, this swim matters a whole hell of a lot.

  The plan is that I will push the buoy forward the length of the rope tied to my wrist—about three feet—then swim to the buoy. Push it, swim to it. A three-foot goal. And at the top of the water surface, check the direction. I’m figuring one goal a minute.

  Time to go.

  The plan works pretty much the way I had figured: I am on my side, swimming with my right arm, and a wave comes past my face, grabs the ball tied to my left wrist, and pushes the ball forward. Then I take another sidestroke, and by the time I get to the ball, I’m on the crest of the wave and can catch a visual of my destination. A goal per minute. I go hard for about seven minutes, and then I rest. Ready again, I look up for the buoy, replot my trajectory, then it’s head down and swim again.

  I have gone maybe an hour and am in the middle of nowhere when I again see the Anna Mary up ahead. I am looking at the portside of the boat, and I see Mikey up on the roof staring in my direction through binoculars. I stop, scream, thrust the buoy up in the air, try to splash the water. Why doesn’t he see? Why doesn’t he notice this totally unusual buoy, well outside the prescribed area, in a place where no buoy should be? It is irregular, unexpected, not normal—just the sort of thing a searcher should pick up. But it doesn’t happen. My boat is right there, not more than four hundred yards away from me, and it steams on by, out of sight.

  Stay positive, I remind myself. Stay positive. They’re looking for you. You’re not alone if they’re looking for you. I go back to my mission: a goal a minute—push the buoy, swim to the buoy. Three feet forward, every minute.

  Minute by minute, this is the longest swim of my life, and a very hard, very painful one. My arms, my legs, every muscle is killing me. I feel the fatigue everywhere but especially in my leg muscles—they are locked up in spasms, charley horses. The pain is excruciating, the muscles hardened like rocks. And what can I do about it—stop and stretch? massage the muscles? grab a heating pad? I kick through the charley horses and put the pain aside, just put it aside because I have to keep swimming. If whatever leg pain I’m feeling is not killing me, then it just does not fucking matter because I know absolutely that stopping my legs from kicking will kill me.

  I estimate the swim has taken about two hours when I see the buoy. The northeast trajectory se
ems just right. I give it everything I’ve got. Every last bit of strength now—reach for the buoy, grab it, hold on. I’m there! I catch my breath while a sense of real accomplishment flows through me. I am fired up. I made it!—and I suddenly think I am Superman. This long, hard, kind of gutsy swim—and I did it.

  But with the buoy tied to my wrist, I am still getting pulled under by the waves, and I am tired of it. I want to be on the surface of the water, not fighting its swells and drifts. What if I tie the two buoys together? I slide down the pole of the buoy to the ball, take the rope off my wrist, and knot it to the ball on the new buoy—again with an overhand knot. Then I straddle the rope connecting the two so that I am seated between them.

  I am seated and I am not sinking. I am on the surface of the ocean, no longer just at it, no longer just chinning it and having to fight to keep my head up. For a split second I wonder if I really need the boots now. I think how nice it would be not to have to clutch them every second. But yeah, I need them. They were my indispensable lifeline, and how do I know what’s next? Why would I jettison anything until the end, whatever it turns out to be?

  I have a better view now. I see the helicopter. I hear boats going up and down. Why aren’t they closer? Why don’t they come over here and see me?

  I feel a small shiver and realize that I am getting a little cold. I’m reminded of why I need the boots. I remember how warm they felt clutched against my chest. The water around me is warm, so I fill the boots with water and hold them close to warm my core. I need to keep my core temperature up, and they act as a kind of wetsuit.

  I know that my legs are pretty much spent. The charley horse in both legs was almost unbearable during the swim. I say almost because, obviously, I bore it. But it feels like that was the end of my strength, like my legs have no more to give.

  I can also feel the skin on my face getting really tight. I know I must be burned all over. This is the first I’ve thought about sunburn. Not that there was ever anything I could do about it, any more than there is anything I can do about it right now. I want to be seen.

  Speaking of seeing, I’m worried also about my eyes. I have glaucoma in my left eye and had surgery maybe a month ago to treat it. Basically the doctor put an implant on the outside of the eye under my eyelid, with a tube that drains the fluid around to the back of the eye in order to decrease the pressure. I have a prescription for drops I’m supposed to be putting in my eye daily; the bottle is somewhere on the Anna Mary. I think it is probably safe to say that the salt bath and the sun and everything else I’ve endured today aren’t doing my eyes a lot of good.

  The rest of me is okay. Well, it is and it isn’t. If I acknowledge my physical deterioration, then I open myself up to the possibility of succumbing to it. That’s scary, because if I succumb, then this is the day I die and I have to go all through that mental torture again—all the worry about the lives going on without me in them: my parents’ lives, my friends’ lives, my nephew Jake’s life. The thing is that if I tell myself I am not okay in my body and brain, then dying becomes easy: just sink to the bottom. Staying alive is harder, and I have to believe that I can, that I am okay enough to stay alive. I believe it.

  So my assessment right now grades me at unbelievably thirsty and hungry but basically okay. The thirst is pretty intense. I have taken in only seawater and a fair amount of it: as much as I tried not to ingest any, I was up against the constant onslaught of swells and currents that were far more potent than my efforts to keep my head high and dry. There was just no way to avoid ingesting what I’ve ingested. I think of all the water bottles I’ve seen floating by when we go out to fish—part of the junk people drop or throw into the ocean. Where is that garbage when I need it? There hasn’t been a bit of debris around me since I fell overboard—what? ten hours ago now?

  I would kill for a hamburger, of course, but I would also kill—literally, using my knife or my bare hands or my teeth—for any one of these mahi-mahis exploring around me. They light up with many colors, and they are beautiful, and having one to eat would give me protein and moisture, but catching one is out of the question—they are too fast to grab. They’re like spectacular lightning strikes of bright color that dart away before I can lift my hand.

  Meanwhile Pete Spong is so fastidious about his trawls that he has scraped all the algae off his buoys. They’re too clean. There’s nothing left on this buoy for me to eat.

  I think about swimming home. I do. All day I have thought I would be found and rescued. Now that I’m not fighting anymore, am just hanging on, I have second thoughts. Maybe swimming home is the only way. Can I? I feel that nothing really bothers me. I have been in the water for about ten hours, have spent maybe eight hours getting here—why couldn’t I swim home in twenty hours?

  The answer is in the question: I have been in the water for ten hours already, have expended eight hours’ worth of physical energy and who knows how much mental, emotional, psychic energy. The reality is that I cannot swim home in twenty hours. Or ever.

  I hold my hand up toward the sun and squint as I count the hand widths between the bottom of the sun and the top of the horizon—a wilderness way to estimate the time until sunset. One, two, three.

  If it is going to start getting dark in three hours, I had better not leave this buoy. Floating in the middle of the ocean for a second night would definitely be a bad idea. So okay. Let’s just stay here, see what happens.

  I’m as visible as I can manage. I am seated between two buoys, and two buoys close together like this constitute a situation that is out of place, unusual, worth taking a look at. I’m still bobbing around like crazy, but I am on the surface of the ocean, not being pulled under. There’s nothing to do but think, and my mind turns to all the people I know who have died. Am I going to meet them, or is all of that afterlife stuff just bullshit, as I suspect?

  Should I carve or scrape a message in my boots? If I sink and die, the boots will still float and may carry my farewell to my parents. I think what I should say. I would like them to know what happened, but it seems a lot to write. Maybe just say that I tried my best and I love them. I begin scraping at the rubber with my knife, but it doesn’t work.

  I am going to spend the night here. I see that now. Okay, the thing to do is to set myself up in such a way that I can sleep between the two buoys, and if I fall over, the fall into the water will wake me. The hope is that somebody coming by—some fisherman heading for his traps—will shine a light on this unusual grouping of buoys and will see me. If I am awake, I will say hello, and if I am asleep and drooping, the fisherman will wake me and save me. Except that I know it is possible to become so tired you don’t care if you wake up or not, so falling into the water might not be the wake-up call I think it is.

  I see the helicopter to the west. Then the fixed-wing jet flies over, relatively close to my position. It is clear he doesn’t see me, but it looks like he is flying a pattern. I turn my body the other way on my rope perch, facing him so that I will be looking right at him on his return pass.

  He turns, makes the pass. He is coming toward me. He is even closer to me now than before. I am looking right at him, waving. But he doesn’t see me this time either.

  Chapter 13

  Found

  2:46 p.m.

  The way it works in the MH-60 rescue helicopter is that the SAROPS search pattern from the command center—New Haven, in this case—gets punched into the on-board navigational computer, which then translates the pattern into a flight plan for the guidance system to follow on autopilot. The idea, says Lieutenant Ray Jamros, the pilot of MH-6002, which had launched from Cape Cod air station at 6:30 that morning, is to “minimize the flying work and maximize the searching.” Since a little after 7:00 a.m., when the helicopter had arrived at the designated starting point for the first search pattern, four pairs of eyes had been trained on the ocean looking for John Aldridge.

  Jamros, copilot Michael Deal, flight mechanic Ethan Hill, and rescue swimmer Bob Hovey had
seen a lot of “stuff” in the water that day—turtles, sharks, buoys, all sorts of debris—but nothing resembling a human being, dead or alive. That was the case through four search patterns over a period of more than seven hours in the air. Eight hours is the maximum flight time for the MH-60, so the crew was now at that point when any “landing” would have to be their last. Copilot Deal calculated that the copter was twenty minutes away from “bingo fuel”—military slang for just enough fuel for a safe return to base—and he was on the radio to the New Haven command center asking for a new search pattern.

  But the team at New Haven was in a funk. SAROPS had crashed, Rodocker had rebooted and started over, and it would be a couple of hours before the system could come up with a new pattern. That didn’t mean that the search stopped—not the Coast Guard’s search by boat and plane nor that of the volunteer fleet—but it did mean that a new search pattern incorporating all the latest data was still being processed and was not forthcoming any time soon. Command Duty Officer Mark Averill, conferring with Jonathan Theel just outside the communications suite about plans for extending the search overnight, told Sean Davis to tell the helicopter crew to just “go on home and refuel” and they would start up the search again once SAROPS had a pattern and there was a new crew on a fresh copter. Deal could hear the frustration and weariness in Davis’s voice.

  “We’re approaching fatigue status,” Deal argued. “If we go back to base, we’re done, but right now we’ve still got a half hour of fuel, so give us a quick trackline search we can run.” He added. “We have absolutely perfect conditions for searching.”