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A man and his dog.
Separated at sea, man and dog make it back to South Florida beach
Sun Sentinel POMPANO BEACH — David Land didn't tell his wife, Felicia, he was going fishing Tuesday morning. Instead, he summoned his usual fishing partner, Lucy, loaded up his 23-foot Ranger open fishing boat, and headed offshore to try his luck. Lucy, a 2-year-old Jack Russell terrier, is the constant fishing companion of the 45-year-old welder from Oakland Park. "I always take her with me," Land said. Though the wind was blowing from the southeast, creating rough conditions and seas that got worse the farther out he went, Land was not deterred. As the Ranger rolled with the waves, he said, "I sat down on the side of the boat rigging my pole, and just as I got my knot tied, a wave knocked me over." Advertisement Before he knew what was happening, he was in the water, and the waves were so high, he couldn't see his boat — or Lucy. "I never even got a lure in the water," Land said. He was about a mile and a half out, near the lighthouse at the Hillsboro Inlet. Land swam to a nearby buoy and climbed it to get a better vantage point. From there he could see his boat drifting away, but not his canine fishing partner. With no other boats nearby, Land decided swimming ashore was his best bet. The current and the waves worked with him and he was able to ease into some body surfing as the water pushed him toward the beach. Kaitlyn Stallings, 11, and her dad, Donald, vacationers from North Carolina, saw the beached boat from the balcony of their hotel room. They ran down to investigate and found the engine running and no one at the helm. Something small was wriggling in the stern. "When I looked inside I saw the dog, and she was shivering and soaking wet," Kaitlyn Stallings said. "She was acting like she wanted to jump out of the back of the boat." Lucy was so excited to leave the Ranger that she scratched the helpful girl on the way out. Meanwhile, Felicia Land got a call about her boat and her dog — but not her husband — washing up on the beach. "I was freaking out. I didn't know where David was," she said. She rushed to the beach to find the boat bobbing in the surf and her husband safely back on board. "I guess he came swimming up," Felicia Land said. Nearly in tears, she ran over to thankfully retrieve Lucy from her rescuers. Donald Stallings said when he first spotted David on the beach, "He was more worried about his dog than anything." Once safely on land, Lucy got to run down the beach chasing seagulls. "It was a happy ending," Kaitlyn Stallings said. |
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