Meeting the Coast Guard

On our second day in Alaska my uncle Richard takes me, my mom and my dad fishing.  He decided to take us to a spot that was about an hour and a half away from the harbor.  About an hour into our trip there was a bang and smoke started coming out of the back of the boat.  My uncle ran back there and opened the engine and it was filling up with water. He immediately runs back to the wheel and says that we have to get to shore ASAP.  But, when he tries to start the boat again it wouldn’t start.  So, he tosses me and my dad a bucket and says “Bail!  Bail!”  So, we start bailing as he makes a mayday call to the effect of “We’re taking on water and need help!  Any boats in the area?  Help!”  One boat responded and said that they were about 25 min away.  All Richard could say was “ok – come – and we’ll keep bailing and try not to sink”.

So, my dad and I are bailing and my mom is at the front of the boat terrified (she’s afraid of water and doesn’t know how to swim) and Richard is getting more worried because my dad and I can’t keep up with the water that is coming into the boat.  So, he tosses my dad a 5 gallon bucket and tells him to use that to bail with.  That seemed to help a little.  So, about 20 min later we see the coast guard helicopter coming towards us.  We give a little shout of “We’ve been saved!!” and are quite excited at the thought of not having to bail anymore.  I was trying to be funny and relieve some of the stress and anxiety, so I told my uncle “Richard – if you would have told me there was a chance we would meet the coast guard I would have done my hair.”  He didn't think I was very funny and replied with "Bail! Bail!  This isn't a time to be talking!  Bail!".

The helicopter comes close and starts lowering down the guy.  All of a sudden, they start raising him back up and they fly away.  We were stunned and were like “WHAT???  We’re still here and we’re still bailing!”  Then they radio and say that they have too much fuel so they have to go a ways off and dump some.  By the time they make it back to us the other boat had also arrived.  

The coast guard dropped a diver into the water and he swam to us and climbed on our boat and looked in the engine and exclaimed “You’re taking on water!” to which we replied “DUH!”  He said they had a pump on the helicopter and he radioed for it to be dropped down to us.  Luckily, once they had the pump working it could keep up with the water coming in.  So, the coast guard guy gave us some instructions and said they’d be flying over us for the next 30 min or so to ensure we would be okay as the other boat towed us to shore.  Then the coast guard guy jumped back in the water, swam out a little and then was lifted back into the helicopter.  

The other boat was able to tow us half way to shore and then another boat came and towed us all the way into the Cordova harbor.

It was all like a movie!  We were glad that we didn’t have to end up in the water and that the coast guard came to our rescue.