*****
Forget about the dead fish part and watch the video at the link with the interview of the Coast Guard swimmer. That kid's got great big balls.
Friday, February 10, 2023
Stunning video shows Coast Guard rescue man
ASTORIA, Ore. - A man who was saved by a Coast Guard rescue swimmer at the mouth of the Columbia River as a massive wave rolled the yacht he was piloting Friday was wanted for a bizarre incident in which police said he left a dead fish at the Astoria, Oregon, home featured in the classic 1985 film, "The Goonies."
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One of my uncles was a Coastie, and he served his tour at Cape Disappointment. He had some jaw-dropping rescue stories.
ReplyDelete"You have to go out; you don't have to come back"
Graveyard of the Pacific
ReplyDeleteHis mom "wasn't happy"...love it.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great young man with all the courage and heart of our finest forebears.
ReplyDeleteSome of the most treacherous water anywhere. I watched a 28ft boat with twin 455 chevy engines fight to get back to the harbor for two hours at the mouth of the Columbia when the tide was going out.
ReplyDeleteYou don't "fight" the tide of the Columbia; you wait for slack tide. Boats bigger than the one in the video have been destroyed. Either as in the video by the standing wave at the bar, or by being carried upstream (during flood tide) against rocks.
DeleteNature is bigger than you. One of the places it shows us that is at the mouth of the Columbia River.
my dad was in the navy during ww2. he said the thing that scared the shit out of him was the typhoon of 44. he was up on deck for something and looked out and saw a ship close by riding a wave. he said you could see both the front of the ship and the blades spinning in the air. after that he said he tried to stay BELOW the deck.
ReplyDeleteand he used to laugh at the idea that we can change the weather. he did say the navy lost ships in that storm. just gone like. the idea that we could change the climate was laughable to him.
Did that reporter actually pay someone to cut his hair like that?
ReplyDeleteNot a surprise to anyone who has seen some of the rescues these guys have pulled off during the run of 'Deadliest Catch'.
ReplyDeleteDangle from a winch line over a crab boat in near hurricane force winds in the middle of a Bering Sea winter?
"Sure. No problem."
Juevas gigante. No fear. Heroes do exist.
ReplyDeleteIt pays to be young and fearless. The Coastie Rescue Swimmers were serious mental cases, in Alaska they would fly out into a blizzard to rescue crab fishermen whose boat got sunk, they’d drop the swimmer in the drink, he’d hook up the survivors and, after winching them up they’d quite often have to leave the swimmer behind. Picture it… 70 miles offshore, freezing spray, 17 degrees, 35 foot seas and pitch black and, due to weight limits, the swimmer watches the chopper fly off into the dark. They wait for 2-3 hours for either that chopper or another to come and get them. I get nauseas feeling just thinking about it.
They are seriously ballsy guys.
The fishermen had a lot of respect for the coasties knowing that no matter the time, location or the weather they’d come if called and would put their life on the line if need be.
The mouth of the Columbia is some of the most dangerous waters in the world.
ReplyDeleteThis was his first time making a rescue too!
ReplyDeleteThe rescue swimmer, a student of the Advanced Helicopter Rescue School, was deployed to the water using a winch cable before swimming toward the vessel. As a rescue swimmer, this was Aviation Survival Technician 3rd Class John "Branch" Walton's first life saved. Hours later, he and his classmates graduated from the Advanced Rescue Helicopter School.
The Columbia river bar is serious. Not only the shoaling waters and the large waves and outflowing current of that very large river but moving from salt to fresh, or vice versa is itself hazardous. There are also eddies and cross currents to contend with. They move around so sometimes difficult to anticipate where and when.
ReplyDeleteThe navigation chart is littered with the symbol for sunken ships. Oh yes, ships of hundreds of feet length have foundered and sunk at or just inside the bar.
On one trip we tacked back and forth just outside the bar for 17 hours waiting until conditions were an acceptable level of risk to cross the bar. That's right, risk can only be managed, it never disappears.
The graveyard of the Pacific, indeed.
Rock, paper, scissors.
ReplyDeleteSorry rookie, in the drink with you.
A big save and on video too!
ReplyDeleteI remember an article about George C Scott deciding to run that inlet in his yacht after his paid captain told him it was to rough to try. Scott ended up rolling the boat and was lucky not to lose the boat. I think his wife broke her pelvis. There were pictures as well. I watched knuckleheads do it in Barnegat Inlet and the poor Coasties would go out and try and save their lives.
ReplyDeleteGerry, that was Morro Bay in California. His boat named MOJO. The tourist traps in town still sell photos of that.
DeleteBeen there many times. They actually train the coast guard in Astoria. I’ve seen many training jumps, pretty amazing!
ReplyDeleteA bit of hyperbole in Fox "news" to proclaim the perp as an "international fugitive" for whatever is the Canadian incident. Was there an Interpol BOLO issued? Details are lacking.
ReplyDeleteDid he leave a dead fish on a porch in BC also? Maybe we need a few dozen new laws to protect us from dead fish deliveries.
Weird guy. Lucky to have lived. If the CG had been 10 minutes later we wouldn't have to feed and house him for the next few years. Instead we'll need to pay for the prosecutor, and for his lawyers, and for his cell, and even after then we probably won't deport him.
Rumor was the boat was stolen. Dunno if true.
ReplyDeleteI got to drink on St. Patrick's day at a bar in Maine with a bunch of rescue swimmers who were training in the insane currents in Passamaquoddy Bay. I was the only person in the bar with actual Irish ancestry, so I got blackout drunk, obviously, since I can sing a couple of songs in gaelic and got free drinks over it. The swimmers made me drink 5-6 Irish Car Bombs with them, which I don't like because it's an easy way to get a front tooth knocked out when the shot glass dislodges. The next day when I got up at about 2pm to drink some water and throw it back up, I saw them about a half-mile off the town pier, getting their asses kicked in 34 degree water in about 7 knots of current. No way they weren't hung over. Those men are insane.