Shipwrecked Secrets

Alone at Sea: How a Signal Mirror Saved Christine Bauer A single four-by-three-inch military signal mirror, wet with salt and stamped "BAUER, C.," washed ashore thirty yards from a Pelican Flat dock - but Christine Bauer was already alive, pulled from the Gulf less than a mile away after five and a half days on a life raft. How did a woman with a dead emergency beacon and corroded flares attract a Coast Guard aircraft using nothing but reflected sunlight and practiced patience? In this episode, you will hear the sequence of events from a February morning at a Texas marina to the days Christine spent adrift, the exact decisions she made beforehand, and how a small, deliberate object became the lifeline that signaled her rescue. What lessons did Christine's years of private preparation and one tiny mirror provide about survival at sea? Person: Christine Bauer Date: February 14, 2019 (mirror found) Location: Pelican Flat, Texas Event: Five and a half days alone on a life raft Item: Signal mirror, 4 inches by 3 inches, marked "BAUER, C." - The mirror was found at 6:40 AM on February 14, 2019, thirty yards from the dock in the shallows. - Christine was twenty-eight years old and from Port Lavaca, Texas when she spent five and a half days adrift. - She purchased the Arroyo Chico, a twenty-two-foot sloop, in 2017 for $8,000. - Christine called her father on February 6, 2019, and that was the last time she spoke to him for seven days. - She filled eleven gallons of diesel at Pass Cavallo, with the receipt time-stamped and signed at 3:40 PM on February 7, 2019.

The Dry Mug: How a Raft, a Rogue Wave, and One Woman Survived A dry ceramic mug with a painted bluebird was found upright in a life raft three days after Gulf gales, its coffee ring undisturbed - and the woman who owned the boat was missing at sea. How can a mug stay dry inside a raft that crossed the Gulf in January, and what did that small clue reveal about survival, loss, and what happened on board Carver's Run? In this episode, you will hear the sequence of events from the morning a walker found the raft to the logged preparations and the moment the yacht went sideways, and follow the single surviving crew member as she fights to keep the damaged sloop afloat. Did April Young manage to survive the night while Tommy Greer disappeared, and what does the dry mug tell us about the final hours? Person: April Young Person: Tommy Greer Vessel: Carver's Run Date: departed January 9; raft found January 19 Location: roughly 140 miles west-southwest of the Dry Tortugas - A life raft was found on a tidal flat on January 19 at 6:52 a.m. with a white ceramic mug upright and a dry coffee ring at the bottom. - Carver's Run is a 42-foot sloop registered out of Portsmith Landing with a float plan listing return on January 22. - April Young departed Portsmith Landing on January 9 at age 54 and had lived aboard for 11 years after refitting the boat over 14 months. - During the incident on January 12 at about 4 p.m., the mast fell over, the hatch was gone, four inches of water covered the cabin sole, and the helm navigation station was swept clean. - April powered a handheld GPS that ran for exactly 11 seconds before shutting down, and she cut the mast free with bolt cutters and sailed under a storm jib while bailing by hand.

The Raft's Secret Pencil: How One Tiny Find Rewrote a Rescue A single flat carpenter's pencil, dry and unused, sat in a hidden compartment sewn into a life raft - untouched through salt, biological residue and a storm that tore a mast down. That pencil, found when the raft beached at Heron Flat on December 19, 2004, became the small object that unraveled eight days of search-and-rescue assumptions; how could one pencil change everything about where rescuers looked and why Rhonda Griffin was almost lost? In this episode, we follow the timeline from departure to discovery: the December 8th sail from Port Cabrillo aboard the Patrice Ann, the debris-avoidance turn, the 22-foot wave that ripped the stern rail and washed the EPIRB overboard, the emergency raft deployment and Rhonda’s nine days adrift - and the question the pencil forced investigators to answer about three overlooked decisions and a faded piece of equipment. Person: Rhonda Griffin Date: December 8-19, 2004 Location: Port Cabrillo to Heron Flat, eleven miles southeast of Port Cabrillo Vessel: Patrice Ann, 38-foot fiberglass sloop built in 1981 Equipment: life raft with sewn compartment containing a flat carpenter's pencil stamped with a Houma company name - Departure on December 8, 2004 from Port Cabrillo with a one-person crew (Felix Cord, age 26). - Turn of thirty degrees south to avoid a quarter-mile field of debris on December 9, a deviation that took about forty seconds. - Wave estimated at 22 feet broke over the stern at ~04:00 on December 10, tearing the stern rail and washing the EPIRB into the sea. - Life raft deployed in approximately 40 minutes; Rhonda entered the raft after retrieving the ditch bag and finding the painter line. - Raft beached at Heron Flat on the morning of December 19, 2004; inside, everything ruined except a dry, clean, unused flat carpenter's pencil.

Dry List, Drowned Coast: The Seven Names Found on Highway 12 A bone-dry zip-lock bag holding a folded sheet marked "WHO CAN SWIM - NOV 4" was found four miles from the nearest saltwater, containing seven names and two letters beside each. The list linked to a November 4 collision at sea that left seven crewmen adrift with only about twelve liters of fresh water - how did that paper travel from a sinking lifeboat to a roadside, and what choices did it record? In this episode, we follow the sequence of events from the collision of the Caldwell Spirit to the lifeboat's eleven-day ordeal, detailing the technical failures, the survival calculations, and the human decisions that followed; what does that list reveal about who survived and who did not? Person: Marie Wells Event: Collision between Caldwell Spirit and Esterbrook Maru on November 4, 2017 Location: Outer Passage, 31 nautical miles south‑southeast of the Louisiana coast Date found: November 19, 2017 Status: Seven crew reached the lifeboat; four later died - The EPIRB transmitted for approximately eight minutes, then stopped, giving coordinates about forty nautical miles east-northeast of the lifeboat’s actual position. - The lifeboat's water maker had been logged as functional on October 28, 2017, but produced roughly twelve liters total for seven people after the membrane had dried. - The Caldwell Spirit lost electrical power within six minutes and sank over the following forty-seven minutes after impact at approximately 23:40. - Two crew members - the helmsman and Patrick Corso in the forward pump room - died in the immediate aftermath of the collision. - Marie Wells, then thirty-eight and Second Officer, wrote "WHO CAN SWIM - NOV 4" on a torn page and marked four names with S and three names with N.

Why He Walked Ashore: The Garmin That Shouldn't Have Been There A perfectly upright orange Garmin inReach was found on a dry fence post at Heron Point, Oregon, battery at 61% and case unscratched - yet every active search asset had tracked its owner, 62-year-old Roger Myers, as roughly 130 miles offshore. How did a device from a man presumed lost at sea end up positioned like someone set it down on purpose, and what choice did he make in fog and cold water that no maritime protocol would recommend? In this episode, we follow the records, log entries, and physical evidence from Roger Myers’ solo October 2019 passage and the eleven-day search that followed to understand what happened between a failed watermaker, seven empty satellite calls, and a device left dry on the shore. Can the discrepancies in fuel and log entries, the extreme water rationing, and the physical state of the Garmin reveal the moment he chose how to survive? Person: Roger Myers Date: October 3-14, 2019 Location: Heron Point, Oregon; departed Warrenton, Oregon; approximately 130 miles offshore Vessel: Meridian Blue, 1984 38-foot cutter-rigged sloop Device: Garmin inReach satellite communicator, orange float case, battery 61% - Garmin found upright on a wooden fence post at Heron Point on the morning of October 14, 2019, unscratched. - Roger departed Warrenton at 06:41 on October 3, 2019, with 120 liters of fresh water and a failed watermaker eight hours into passage (log entry at 14:37: "Clark pump seized. Irreparable at sea."). - By October 6 he reduced water intake to 0.5 liters per day, roughly one-quarter of the normal resting adult requirement. - Vessel left with 46 gallons of diesel; 31 gallons remained when recovered, leaving about 15 gallons consumed but with 8-10 gallons unaccounted for per NTSB analysis. - Roger volunteered weekly at the Clatsop County food bank for 11 years and had lost two fingers on his left hand in an industrial accident, adapting to single-handed sailing.

The Life Ring That Came Home: Why Dawn York Was Nowhere Nearwreck A single bright-orange life ring washed ashore forty miles from the burned boat it belonged to, arriving on a cay opposite the Gulf current - an impossible detail that started a search in the wrong direction and forced a rescue coordinator into a four-minute decision. How did a ring from the Celia Dawn travel northeast when wreckage drifted northwest, and what did that mean for Dawn York’s fate? In this episode, we follow the timeline from the Celia Dawn’s departure through the galley fire at 11:58 p.m., the impossible discovery of the life ring at 5:52 a.m., and the choices that shaped the search. Which single decision, shaped by currents and a thirty-year fishing story, changed everything? Person: Dawn York Date: September 9, 2019 Location: Cuero Cay; Barrow Bank; Palmetto Reach Event: Galley fire at 11:58 p.m. Item: Life ring photographed at 5:52 a.m. - The life ring was found wedged in red mangrove roots on Cuero Cay at 5:52 a.m. - The life ring came from the Celia Dawn, which burned approximately forty miles southwest of Cuero Cay. - The Gulf current off Barrow Bank in September runs northwest, while the life ring arrived northeast. - The chart plotter logged the Celia Dawn’s anchor position at Barrow Bank at 8:47 p.m. - The chart plotter recorded a temperature anomaly in the galley at 11:58 p.m., and the fire reached the stern in under two minutes.

Lifeguard Ring Found Miles Inland: The Lady Breen Survival Salt, a frayed rope and the faded stamp LADY BREEN - OCRACOKE showed up forty-three miles from the nearest navigable water, smelling like the ocean and tied to a story of a solo sailor whose log recorded nearly double the expected motor hours. What did a life ring from a thirty-four-foot sloop do on Dunmore Avenue, and what chain of failures turned a routine passage into a near-disaster? In this episode, we follow the timeline from the August departure to the damaged rig and the log entries that don’t add up, tracing the events that left a life ring far inland and a sailor fighting to regain his planned route. How did a turbonada, a failed shackle, and a mast collapse combine to create a survival story that ends with that buoy on a suburban foundation? Person: Randy Simmons Vessel: Lady Breen (34-foot sloop, built 1991) Date: Departure August 13, 2019; mast event early morning August 16, 2019 Location: Dunmore Avenue (life ring found 43 miles from nearest navigable water) Event: Anchor dragged during an unforecasted turbonada around 4:30 AM, August 15, 2019 - Randy cast off from Dunbar Creek Inlet at 06:40 on August 13, 2019. - By the end of August 14, Randy had covered approximately 90 miles. - Motor hours logged on the night of August 14-15 were almost double the expected amount. - Around 04:30 on August 15, 2019, an unforecasted turbonada struck, causing the anchor to drag and a corroded shackle to give way. - Shortly after 07:00 on August 16, the mast came down to starboard and Randy spent about two hours cutting it free with a hacksaw and a rigging knife.

Dry Life Ring, Missing Sailboat: Who Dragged Celia Dawn Ashore? A dry life ring stamped Celia Dawn washed up eleven nautical miles inland from Tanner Creek, its junco-stalk waterline absent and the sloop itself last seen sixty-three nautical miles offshore - who or what carried it ashore? The ring bore the boat’s name and no one reported a tow, leaving a single unsettling question: if Celia Dawn did not simply founder, what moved that ring so far from the sea? In this episode, we follow the timeline from pre-departure checks through a sudden squall and a critical communication failure, tracing the moments that left a delivery crew stranded sixty-three miles from shore and a life ring inexplicably inland. How did missing safety gear, a severed VHF wire, a wrapped propeller and an absent EPIRB converge into a mystery that begins with one dry ring? Person: Marie Brooks Date: July 9 (departure at 5:40 AM; man-overboard at 2:57 PM) Location: Sixty-three nautical miles offshore, Dawson Inlet departure Status: Vessel missing; life ring found inland on Tanner Creek Topic: Man-overboard, failed communications, missing EPIRB - The life ring was found dry by Alan Becker on a Wednesday at 6:40 AM, eleven nautical miles inland from Tanner Creek. - Celia Dawn was last making seven knots on a comfortable reach at noon, sixty-three miles offshore. - The squall hit at 2:40 PM, increasing wind from 14 knots to over 40 knots in three minutes. - Dan Vickers went overboard at 2:57 PM and was in the water for roughly 23 minutes before being recovered with blue lips and a broken collarbone. - The VHF radio failed because a corroded wire severed when the boat heeled 40 degrees; the EPIRB was not mounted in its reported stern bracket.

The Laminated Card That Pulled Her Back From the Sea A dry index card found eighteen feet from the waterline on Pelago Island led rescuers toward a woman who had spent seven days and nine hours adrift after her thirty-eight-foot sloop sank; how did a bone-dry laminated card survive two inches of rain and an eleven-mile gap from the nearest launch to carry a single line that would reconnect two worlds? Who was the woman it belonged to, and why did that card become the only link between her and the search still one step behind? In this episode, we follow the timeline from a Wednesday night call that ended and a departure from Leland to a mast failure at 3:17 a.m., a failed EPIRB, and a methodical survival that left one laminated card as the last tangible trace; will that card be what brings her home? Person: Teresa Gallagher Event: Boat sinking and week-long survival Location: Pelago Island (card found), departed from Leland Vessel: Hollis Mae, 38-foot fiberglass sloop built in 1989 Time adrift: Seven days and nine hours - The laminated index card was found face-up, ink bright, and bone dry eighteen feet from the waterline in wax myrtle roots. - Teresa logged roughly 40,000 miles aboard her vessel since 2017 and had been a delivery captain for eleven years. - The mast parted at 3:17 a.m., went over the port side in under four seconds, and caused the EPIRB to submerge and fail. - Teresa abandoned the Hollis Mae at 8:52 a.m. on June 12 and took a ditch bag with seven liters of water, a few tools, and the laminated index card. - Every Wednesday at 11:10 p.m. for eleven years Teresa called her sister Patrice; the last call occurred on the night she departed Leland on June 11.

The Pink Shoe in the Trotline: The Miracle That Didn't Make Sense Fear and bewilderment settle faster than cold water - a pink canvas high-top, size seven, appeared on a trotline nine miles from open water after ten days in the tidal current, with a folded white sock inside that stayed clean; how did a child's shoe from a forty-minute ferry crossing end up tangled in hooks, and what did it mean for the missing? In this episode, we follow the sequence of events from the May 9, 2009 Miriam Grace ferry crossing to Nicole Phillips pulling a pink sneaker from her trotline on May 14, 2009. We trace the ferry's inversion in the Perdido Straits, the people on board, and the shoe that wouldn't make sense until days later - what connects the sneaker to the overturned ferry? Date: May 14, 2009 Event: Miriam Grace ferry inversion on May 9, 2009 Location: Perdido Straits, between Elba Landing and Tanner's Point Person: Nicole Phillips (fisherman who found the shoe) Person: Earl Wagner (passenger, age 44) - The pink canvas high-top was a child's size seven and contained a white sock folded into itself, found on May 14, 2009 at 5:15 AM. - The Miriam Grace was a 212-foot double-ended roll-on roll-off ferry in service since 1988. - On May 9, 2009 boarding began at 7:50 AM with 41 vehicles and 87 foot passengers aboard the Miriam Grace. - The ferry rolled past point of return and fully inverted by 8:21 AM into 63°F water, with 41 vehicles still in the hold. - Earl Wagner, age 44, surfaced holding his daughter Sophie and had lost his son Terrence during the inversion.