A man found clinging to his capsized boat some 86 miles off of Florida’s Atlantic coastline returned to dry land on Tuesday, two days after his dramatic rescue.
The discovery of Stuart Bee, 62, in the open ocean is nothing short of spectacular.
“It is absolutely a needle in a haystack,” Capt. Mark Vlaun, commander of Coast Guard Sector Jacksonville, told News4Jax.
Bee, who lived on his boat, left the Cape Marina Friday, and when he didn’t come back on Saturday, he was reported missing. But with no float plan and a giant ocean, it was statistically impossible to find him.
“While the boater went missing from Port Canaveral in Central Florida, it’s in the jurisdiction of Coast Guard Sector Jacksonville, so crews here led the mission,” Vlaun said.
They had their doubts.
“It is the most miraculous case I’ve seen in my 27-year career. It’s that extraordinary,” Vlaun said. “The probability of detection here was almost zero.”
Bee also had his doubts.
“I had an incident out there. It was pretty dire. Looking back -- thanks to the crew of the Angeles, picked me up -- it seems like not so bad after all,” Bee recalled Tuesday. “For a minute, I was thinking, ‘This is very bad. There’s no one around.’ I’m trying to think what I can do to get help.”
Bee explained that several hours after his boat started taking on water, he said he saw the container ship Angeles on the horizon.
“Fifteen minutes went by, they seemed to be getting closer. Thirty minutes, I realized it was coming this way toward me. I took my shirt off, waved it several times, waited, waved several times,” he recounted. “I continued to do that until about 45 minutes later the boat was close enough. He blew his horn. I figured since no one was around, that was the signal that they were on watch and saw me.”
Vlaun is still amazed at the good news, too. The Coast Guard put out a message to ships off the coast of Florida, and Angeles happened to be in the right place at the right time. The crew spotted Bee hanging on for his life, with only 5 feet of the boat sticking out of the water, on Sunday. An exhausted yet appreciative Bee climbed on board his lucky break.
“My crew is taking care of him, give him some blankets and some dry clothes,” the captain of Angeles can be heard telling the Coast Guard in audio released Monday. “Once I get more information I will just call you back.”
Bee returned to land Tuesday when the ship arrived in Delaware.
“It turns out the crew, the entire crew, had this sense of joy when they found me. For me, I went from major concern to a sudden feeling of relief, calm, this is over,” Bee said. “It was better than a cruise ship. I’ve been on one once. These guys were the nicest people ever. They kept feeding me. I said, ‘I don’t eat that much. I’m good.’”
While this story has a happy ending, Vlaun knows this boater could have never been found.
“Tell somebody that is close to you where you are going and when you expect to come back,” Vlaun said. “You can help us take the search out of search and rescue. You can make it a much narrower swath that we can look at if we do have to come find you.”
The Coast Guard also recommends getting an emergency locator beacon that sends a precise distress signal to the Coast Guard.