Gratitude

Last night I cut a sunset cruise short and gave our guests their money back.

When we left that dock at 6PM there was a line of thunderheads over Connecticut, but they were heading away from us. But when I check the radar at 6:45 a squall line had formed over the midriff of Long Island and it was heading our way. We were already in the lake, waiting for the CT thunderheads to clear out, before we went out on the sound. But when I saw the east-bound LI squall line, we dropped our sails, put the engines in full forward and made for our berth at top speed.

This morning I woke to the news that a lobsterman off the Montauk based Anne Mary had fallen overboard while she was coming back from an offshore trip. He was last seen at 9PM last night when he took his watch. His absence wasn’t discovered until 6AM this morning when he fellow crewman woke and he wasn’t there.

We ran our noon trip as normal. It was a good trip with nice people, but my heart was heavy.

At 4PM I saw on Facebook that the missing lobsterman had been found, alive, 40 miles offshore, after 12 hours in the water, and he was being transported by helicopter to Cape Cod hospital to be treated for exposure, dehydration, and hypothermia.

At the beginning of our 6PM trip I told our guests a miracle had happened in Montauk today, and told them the story of rescued lobsterman. On our way out we saw the Cape Cod based USCG cutter Sailfish tied up at the Montauk Coast station. She had been a part of the search efforts. Inbound we saw Sailfish on her way out of Montauk Inlet. She gave Tiki a close pass and it warmed my heart. Behind us as we came in were the Montauk draggers Rhianda S and Act 1. Both gave long blows on their horns as they passed the tourists at Gosman’s dock.

The above photo is from this evening’s trip, another gorgeous Montauk sunset. It is titled Gratitude.