NASSAU COUNTY, Fla. – A grandfather, grandson and friend launched from a marina off the coast of Amelia Island on Monday around 7 a.m. It was a clear beautiful day that later turned into a nightmare in the ocean.
Brayden Taylor, 12, and his grandfather, Jamie Deonas, went fishing with one of Deonas’s friends, a retired firefighter.
“Being born and raised here we love to fish offshore, and I’ve done that as a kid but we are fairweather fishermen,” Deonas said. “We like the sun out and we like a smooth sea and that was Monday for us.”
The three headed out to sea with sunshine and calm winds, but five hours later, things changed.
“Looking back towards the west, looking back toward Amelia Island, I noticed the sky had changed just a bit,” Deonas said. “We saw a weather system that was west of Yulee so it was about 30-plus miles away from us at that point, we started making our way back in when that took place,” Deonas said.
Deonas put on his life jacket along with his grandson and friend, jackets that had arrived just the day before.
“What we experienced that day was something I had never experienced before,” Deonas said. “It was blowing so hard I couldn’t talk to my friend right next to me.”
“I was screaming,” Taylor said. “I was trying to tell them stuff, things were flying out of the boat and I was trying to tell them and they couldn’t hear me.”
“There was very little time to think about what was going on. It happened just that quick,” Deonas said.
Their boat began to fill with water and the winds were unbearable. Minutes later, the storms took over and flipped their boat upside down. Taylor was trapped.
“I was half under it when the life jacket shot me up, half my body was under it, only my head was sticking up,” the 12-year-old said.
Their life jackets inflated. When asked if he remembered what his grandpa said once the boat capsized, Taylor said, “I just know that I was screaming like scared and I was thinking, we’re all gonna die. And then he said it’s going to be okay and grabbed onto me and pulled us back into the boat and we were all holding on.”
For two hours, as the young boy sat on top of the boat, he saw what looked like a boat in the distance, waving and blowing his whistle.
“All of the sudden, the boat turned very aggressively toward us and I knew at that point at least somebody saw us,” Taylor said.
It was a 61-foot sport fishing boat was traveling from Palm Beach to New York. The captain saw a little boy in a straw hat waving for help, it was Taylor. After enduring three storms and two hours, the three were rescued safely.
“Those guys were the true heroes that day,” Deonas said. “God was certainly with us and we are very blessed to not have had any more catastrophes than what we experienced.”
Deonas said their boat has always had life jackets but the ones used that day were new. He plans on putting on his life jacket first for a long time when getting on a boat.
The family is very grateful to those fishermen, and they are even more grateful to celebrate Brayden who will turn 13 this month.