Dream fishing trip turns to nightmare
Brother, sister’s charter boat sinks, forcing them to swim to St. Lucia
SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO— The fishing trip off the rugged north coast of St. Lucia — the planned highlight of a Caribbean holiday — was supposed to last all day, but about four hours into the journey the boat’s electric system crackled and popped.
Dan Suski, 30, of San Francisco, was wrestling a 200-pound marlin in rough seas with help from his sister, Kate Suski, 39, of Seattle. It was around noon April 21.
He was still reeling in the fish when seawater flooded the engine room, prompting the captain to radio for help.
As the waves pounded the boat they had chartered from a local company, Reel Irie, more water flooded in. The captain threw life jackets to the Suskis.
“He said, ‘Jump out! Jump out!’ ” Kate Suski recalled Thursday.
They obeyed and jumped into the sea with the captain and first mate. Less than five minutes later, the boat sank. They were at least 13 kilometres from shore. “The captain was telling us to stay together, and that help was on its way and that we needed to wait,” Kate Suski said. The group waited for about an hour, but no one came. “I was saying, ‘Let’s swim, let’s swim. If they’re coming, they will find us. We can’t just stay here,’ ” she recalled. As they began to swim, the Suskis lost sight of the captain and first mate amid the swells. Soon they also lost sight of land in the rain. “We would just see swells and grey,” Dan Suski said. A plane and a helicopter appeared in the distance and hovered over the area, but no one spotted them. Then the sun began to set. “There’s this very real understanding that the situation is dire,” Kate Suski said. “You come face to face with understanding your own mortality . . . We both processed the possible ways we might die. Would we drown? Be eaten by a shark?” They swam for 12 to 14 hours, talking as they pushed and shivered their way through the ocean. Dan Suski tried to ignore images popping into his head of the movie Open Water, about a scuba-diving couple left behind by their group and attacked by sharks. When they finally did near land, Kate Suski realized they couldn’t get out of the water: “There were sheer cliffs coming into the ocean.”
They kept swimming until they spotted a sand spit. There they collapsed, barely able to walk. It was past midnight, and they didn’t notice any homes nearby.
“Dan said the first priority was to stay warm,” she recalled.
They hiked inland and lay side by side, covering themselves with grass and brush to stay warm. Kate Suski had only her bikini on. Dan Suski had gotten rid of his shorts.
As the sun came up, they began to hike through thick brush, picking bitter mangoes and green bananas.
Three hours later, they spotted a young farmworker walking with his dog. He fed them crackers, gave them water and waited until police arrived.
The Suskis were hospitalized for dehydration and received IV fluids.
And they heard great news: the captain and mate had been rescued after spending nearly 23 hours in the water.
“We are so grateful to be alive right now,” Kate Suski said. “Nothing can sort of puncture that bubble.”