the latitude interview: autopilot. But she made a slow 90-degree turn, and of all the unbelievable things, kept a straight course for Catalina! We know because the chartplotter recorded her course. 38: So your boat was kinda like an old horse heading back to a familiar barn by herself?
"They circled four times, getting closer to me each time, but they never got close enough to hear." McCabe: Absolutely, I'd taken her to Catalina hundreds of times. For the previous several months I'd been debating career paths. I was either going to do legal work protecting neglected children — which I'd done early in my career in San Francisco with satisfaction — or go back into corporate law to make the kind of money necessary to support a 65-ft motoryacht. I'd already started to fix Heather up, but as I paddled to stay afloat in the chilly waters and watched her disappear in the distance, I thought, 'I could give a shit about the boat.' It was obvious that the boat wasn't that important to me anymore. Actually, I'd gotten Heather as a salve following a difficult divorce eight years before. She'd become a big part of my ego. 38: Is it mutually exclusive to be an advocate for neglected children and own a boat like that? McCabe: Sure it is. A slip for Heather in Newport Beach would run $4,000 a month, and maintenance is expensive, too. So Heather was gone, I hadn't been run down or rescued by the ship, but now a fishing boat was coming my way. She was close enough that I could hear the crew talking. Then she started to circle, the crew not hearing my cries over the sound of their diesel. They circled four times — they were setting nets or something — getting closer to me each time, but they never got close enough to hear. 38: You must have been starting to get cold? McCabe: I was. I'd been in about an hour, and it was clear that I wasn't going to be rescued quickly. It was like one of those movies where the guy has fallen into the crevice and soon realizes that he's really got to focus on how he's going to save himself. I was clearly in deep shit, as the breakwater was too far away to swim to, and so was the more offshore buoy. I decided that I would try to make it to the #2 Sea Buoy. Initially, it would turn out to be a bad choice for two reasons. But first I had to swim there. I started by laying on my back, but when I kicked my slippers would come off. I had to stop and collect them because I needed the warmth they provided. Then I tried to swim breaststroke, but I immediately started swallowing seawater. I must have swallowed two gallons. It was then I came to the conclusion that I was going to die. For some reason I started saying the Lord's Prayer. And after a couple of recitations — and this is miraculous — this frigging blue and silver mylar balloon came out of nowhere. 38: Pollution, eh? McCabe: It was pollution, but I was damn glad to see it! The wind had come up a little and was blowing the balloon along, so I only managed to grab it by swimming as hard as I could. It took all I had, but I couldn't let it get away. I stuck the balloon under my fleece-lined windbreaker, and it helped keep me afloat and prop up my chin. Thanks to the balloon, I could breaststroke without swallowing water. I also noticed the sun had come out, and since I was wearing dark clothes, I should be pretty easy to spot from another boat. I was only about half a mile from the buoy, and with things starting to Page 140 •
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look good again, I stopped praying. It's not clear what happened next. In fact, my recollections from then on aren't going to be that accurate, because when I was finally picked up, I thought I'd been in the water for two hours. In reality, I'd been in for almost six. So I obviously wasn't conscious for a significant amount of the time. Having lost track of time and consciousness, the next thing I knew I was underwater and gasping for breath. That gave me a shot of adrenaline, and I came to again. I touched my chest, and that deflated the balloon — which put me into a full-blown panic. You see movies of guys who are about to drown, and they flail their arms wildly. That's exactly what I started to do. My situation seemed hopeless. The closest thing around was the buoy a half mile away, and I wasn't making any progress toward it. Plus I was exhausted. Over and over again, I found myself slipping beneath the surface and having to struggle to come back up to get a breath. Then for some reason I started repeating the first two lines of the Lord's Prayer: 'Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, because thy [God's] rod and staff will comfort me.' After repeating this for about the tenth time, a two-foot section of 2'x2' floated right in front of me. It's wasn't very big, but I reached out and grabbed it, and found it was enough to keep me afloat. [One has to wonder about McCabe's mental state at this point, because he's a big guy, and a little piece of wood couldn't provide much flotation.] I kept saying this psalm over and over again. Then I started screaming out for my daughters Katie, 24, and Kellie, 21, telling them that I'd be a better father. And I started praying that I would somehow make it to the buoy. I was delirious, but somehow did make it to the buoy. But as soon as I got there, it seemed as though I'd made a terrible choice. For one thing, the platform of the buoy is about three feet out of the water, so even in the best of conditions, I don't think I could have scrambled up on it. The buoy did have a handle-like thing that perhaps they use to tow it, so I figured that maybe I could use it to climb on the platform. But there was a second problem — four sea lions and two seals on the platform! One was a male, and let me tell you, there's a reason they call sea lions 'lions'. He was barking and lurching at me, protecting his harem. If I'd put a hand on that handle, he would have bit it off. In fact, I was worried that he was going to jump in the water and attack me. Then I heard a sound behind me — it was my brother Lance!!! He was aboard a Tiara 36 motorboat with a bunch of people I knew. I was dumbfounded. I thought I might be rescued, but not by my brother! He started to take off his shoes to jump in and get me, but Jeff Marshall, a 280-pound football player, beat him to it. When he got his arms around me, I remember thinking, 'I'm saved!' I'm a bossy kind of guy, so even in the state I was in, I'm told I was telling them how to get me out. They ignored me and just pulled me out of the water. I was sort of conscious again at that point. I remember being taken inside the boat and my brother not saying anything, but just hugging me to try to warm me up. I'd been in about six hours, and it was clear I was suffering badly from hypothermia. In about 10 minutes, Long Beach Harbor Rescue #1 showed up with this guy named Duree, who is the senior medic in Long Beach. He would later tell me it was nice for him to see me because I was still alive. Usually he only gets to pull dead people out. But it wasn't such a pleasure for me, as he kept