"Wayne.B" wrote in message
...
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.


I know the feeling. I heard one on my first significant cruise.
We were heading for Florida in the Navigator and were off the coast of
Delaware.
A tropical storm had passed by offshore the day before and the seas were
getting rough.
It was weird because they were fine for most of the day and we were making
good time, but within 2 hours in the afternoon, they starting building fast
with short, confused chop.

We were about 15 miles offshore, heading in towards a backup port for the
night to wait for the seas to flatten out. I was concentrating on entering
a new course in the chartplotter when
I heard the "Mayday" on the radio. Normally, my mind filters out the
occasional chatter, but the Mayday registered right away.

It was a small, 20 ft CC that was caught in the seas and having some sort
of problems.
My brother came up with me at the helm and we plotted the distance to him
(it was about 5 miles) and were about to answer and head towards his
location when we heard a commercial ship respond to both the boat and the
Coast Guard who were now on the channel. The ship was closer to him and
indicated he would provide assistance.

The adrenalin was pumping, and I was relieved the other ship was there. I
was still a bit of a novice in heavy seas and had my hands full just keeping
us out of trouble. I can't accurately state what the seas were, but my
guess is at least 6-8 footers and increasing. It got rough fast.

Eisboch