Shipwrecked

May 10, 2015, Sunday, Mother’s Day, 7:00 AM

Ana has begun her trek up the coast, having come ashore last night. At 5:30AM this morning she was centered over Myrtle Beach. Lots of rain last night, but much diminished winds. Basically a big rain storm. Kind of a bust, at least in terms of wind. We would have been safe on an anchorage pretty much anywhere, but who knew? Predictions are still, however, for winds gusting to fifty knots on the backside of the storm and just now the Charleston Harbor (50 miles south) is closed to shipping in anticipation of high winds.

So today here, we expecting more rain and diminishing winds. After a consult with Marc, the French Canadian with whom we are considering an off shore run, we are probably better off staying here for one more night, in the staging of that possibility. We will have to cover eighty miles in the next two days on the ICW to arrive at Wrightsville Beach and Masonboro Inlet, the next relatively safe inlet to navigate outward into the Atlantic, find a good anchorage and consider conditions for an off shore run up to Beaufort, NC, a distance of approximately seventy miles. To arrive at Beaufort in daylight (highly advisable unless you have lots of night sailing experience) we will have to leave Masonboro at 2:00AM or so and run the first part of the trip in the dark, that is, go out Masonboro in the dark. The channel is well marked and deep. What could go wrong?

Enter Marc, the single handed French Canadian sailor from Quebec in his 32 foot Morgan sloop Cap Jeseux. We have been playing leap frog with Marc for the last one hundred miles or so. Now we are here together and finally met formally, or as formal as it gets out here. Great fellow, very competent sailor. He left Quebec last fall solo and sailed some off shore, some on the ICW, bound for the Bahamas, which he did make and where he spent three months. Friends came down and spent time with him and also his girlfriend. Now he is bound for home. Cap Jeseux is well equipped and he has her set up perfectly for him to handle solo. He has made many passages and negotiated lots of inlets.

So who to follow out Masonboro at 2:00AM other than Marc? Good idea! We will see. We have to arrive at Wrightsville Beach at the right time and the winds have to cooperate. It looks like we might have a favorable WSW wind pattern for two days starting maybe Wednesday, then it looks life that window will close quickly and we will be back to ENE. 

So that is a short story about Marc. Now for the big one. A story about a shipwrecked sailor, a true story that made national news and that just happened this past fall. You may have read about it.

Louis Jordan a 37-year-old South Carolina man, decided one day to go fishing. He had been living aboard his 35-foot sailboat, Angel, for some time, in the very marina where we are now parked. He simply got up one day and left without telling anyone. Sixty-six days later, two hundred miles off the North Carolina shore, the crew of a German tanker spotted Jordan sitting atop Angel’s upturned and dismasted hull. As a Coast Guard helicopter raced to the rescue, Jordan climbed aboard the tanker on his own, a little weak and much thinner than he had been, but none the worse for wear. The Coast Guard transported him to Norfolk, VA for recovery and return to his one-time bereaved but now over joyed family.

Jordan told the Coast Guard that he had survived on rainwater and raw fish he caught with a net and by rationing food he had packed before he left. This guy survived on an overturned boat for sixty-six days in the Atlantic Ocean. He says that on his way out to the Gulf Stream, where he says he was planning to catch some big fish, Angel capsized while he was sleeping. The boat probably rolled a time or two and in the melee Jordan broke his collar bone.

If you Google Louis Jordan you will find numerous news reports concerning this story. It was big. Jordan ended up on the “Today Show”. The Associated Press and NBC News did stories as well as numerous local news outlets. Look for the book he says he is going to write.

So that is basically the story.

Now, for the rest of the story, as told by Jeff Weeks, the marina manager, from Verona, VA. His grandparents live on Mill Race Road, close to none other than Joe McCue.

But first a little more on Jeff and his son Jeff Junior. In an earlier blog I spoke about Jeff Junior and his notable wrestling career. Well, after Jeff’s high school days, he joined the National Guard and on a leave weekend, wrecked his father’s motorcycle just outside Staunton, our home town of course. He was “drag racing” and ultimately running from a sheriff when he lost control of the cycle at better than one hundred miles an hour, according to the sheriff who was chasing him. It’s remarkable that he survived, but survive he did.

After spending a month in a coma, he had lots of recovery therapy to accomplish. He has a brain injury and resultant reduced mental function along with some paralysis, but he can walk and talk and seems to be quite well. He lives here with his father in Conway. He is a very pleasant young man and easy to talk with.

So Jeff tells us that Lewis Jordan and his father, Frank, show up one day at the marina about six months before Jordan’s disappearance. They were looking for a “cheap” marina where Jordan could keep and live aboard his sailboat, Angel. The father drew Jeff aside and explained that when Jordan was a young boy, he had almost drown, and as a result he has some permanent brain damage and was a little “strange”, perfectly harmless, but strange. He had a difficult time holding jobs and had some social anxiety issues, but was competent and worked hard when he had proper direction.

Of course Jeff could relate to Jordan’s story and he and Jordan’s father worked out a deal that had Jordan doing some odd jobs around the marina in exchange for a free berth for Angel, electricity, water and such.  

The very morning after Jeff, Lewis and Lewis’ father did the deal Lewis was up at 6:30AM pulling weeds and over time he proved to be reliable, pleasant and competent but somewhat withdrawn. Somewhat of a loner. He apparently had his ways. Her was barefoot most of the time and for the most part spent his days fishing. He ate whatever he caught raw and he canned some. He would not drink water from the tap, preferring to catch rain water in his dingy and drink that. Jeff says that, as far as he could tell, Jordan’s diet was ninety percent fish. He never traveled far from the marina and when he did it was on foot.

Over a time he painstakingly restored Angel, using all hand tools. He hand sanded and painted the entire hull. He spent months fixing up the boat and taking it on short, inland fishing trips. Over the coming months, he uploaded pictures of food he had jarred and fish he had caught for dinner. Jordan, it seemed, was preparing for a journey. He kept in touch with his father, mother and other family members by Face Book, but never said anything about an off shore cruise.

On January 23^rd Lewis got up and simply sailed away without telling Jeff or anyone else. It took Jeff a day or two to realize he was gone.

Jordan’s father, Frank, is a retired teacher and avid sailor so he didn’t worry when his son didn’t contact him for a few days. By Jan. 29, however, Frank was concerned enough to contact the Coast Guard about his son’s disappearance.

Alerts went up and down the Atlantic, and an official search was launched on Feb. 8. At first, Frank was optimistic. A week later, however, the Coast Guard abandoned its search. Several sailors had claimed to have spotted Jordan’s sailboat, but there wasn’t enough concrete information to narrow down his whereabouts.

So the family waited and waited to hear any news about Lewis, but as the weeks dragged on, their faith began to waiver.  “Nothing from or about Louis,” he wrote on March 10. “You don’t know whether to mourn or what. When they’re lost at sea, only God knows where they are.” As his family began to mourn his death, Jordan was drifting about 200 miles off the coast of North Carolina.

Jeff says that on Wednesday morning, before the very day that Lewis was rescued, Frank’s father and mother came to the marina to thank Jeff for what he had done for Lewis. They reported that had been up all night praying and had finally accepted Lewis’ death. Jeff told me he had never seen people in such a state of despair as this mother and father. Imagine that pain.

Then Thursday came and Frank got the call from the Coast Guard announcing that Lewis had been found.

That is the story, all true. Unpublished parts told to us by Jeff Weeks, from good old Verona, VA, other parts extracted from various news sources.

 And the moral?

 Very advisable to learn now to eat lots of raw fish. You just never know!

 Tomorrow, northward bound.