After a lifetime of listening to marine radio frequencies I had never
heard a mayday call until yesterday. We were motoring north from the
Florida Keys in the late afternoon headed for Little Shark River inlet
in the Everglades Park wilderness area. It was a cool windy day with
winds out of the north east at 25 knots. Suddenly the VHF sprang to
life with the unmistakable words: Mayday, mayday, we are in distress
and need help, mayday, mayday. It was absolutely electrifying to
hear the words. With no one else responding, we returned their call
and offered to relay their situation to the coast guard. It turns out
that three people in a 17 ft Boston Whaler had become ensnared in a
back country mangrove marsh and could not free up the boat. All
three of them were on shore but they were cold, wet, and about 30
miles from the nearest civilization. Unfortunately there was nothing
we could do to help them but pass on all of their information to USCG.
The Coast Guard called the National Park Service ranger station at
Flamingo for their help. We have no idea how it all turned out but
hopefully someone was able to get them out of there quickly.
Temperatures got down into the 40s last night and spending the night
in cold wet clothing could have easily been life threatening. Other
then getting in over their heads in the wilderness, their other
mistake was not having a GPS. Without that the best we could do was
approximate their position based on the description they gave.