Speaker 1: Andrew stared back at the approaching boat in disbelief. It
Speaker 1: was closing in on them, now less than fifty yards away.
Speaker 1: How could they not see his boat. If they didn't
Speaker 1: change course soon, Andrew feared they'd collide in the middle
Speaker 1: of the ocean. This is the Miracle Files.
Speaker 2: I'm Emily Jones and I'm Holly Worthington. We're two sisters
Speaker 2: who love a captivating true story, but we're also seeking
Speaker 2: more light in our lives.
Speaker 1: So we're on a mission to find and share unforgettable,
Speaker 1: uplifting stories of God's miracles. We hope you'll join us
Speaker 1: on this journey.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to the Miracle Files. This story is a
Speaker 2: really good one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love doing the interview for this one. I
Speaker 1: always think that, you know, our most recent episode is
Speaker 1: my favorite, but this one is just really, really interesting. Yeah.
Speaker 2: It's full of twists and turns. And it's called the
Speaker 2: Mystery Boat for a reason because this has a lot
Speaker 2: of mystery in it too, So.
Speaker 1: We won't give away any more details.
Speaker 2: Right So here it is the Mystery Boat.
Speaker 1: It was a perfect day to go deep sea fishing
Speaker 1: off the coast of North Carolina. The sun shone brightly
Speaker 1: in a nearly cloudless summer sky. Andrew Sherman and his
Speaker 1: twenty one year old son Jack headed out, like they
Speaker 1: had done many times, to troll offshore near a place
Speaker 1: called twenty three mile Rock. They cruised along slowly with
Speaker 1: several baited lures hung from their boat, but found no fish.
Speaker 1: They decided to head out further and further. They eventually
Speaker 1: worked their way about thirty seven miles off shore, the
Speaker 1: furthest they had ever gone out to fish. Hoping to
Speaker 1: change their luck, the father and son duo decided to
Speaker 1: take a break from trolling and dropped some lures to
Speaker 1: the bottom of the ocean. Their boat drifted along, bobbing
Speaker 1: above depths of one hundred and ten to one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifteen feet of deep blue water. Nothing seemed out
Speaker 1: of the ordinary on this beautiful summer day until Andrew
Speaker 1: spotted a distant boat heading straight at them.
Speaker 3: I looked out in the distance and heading dead center
Speaker 3: towards our boat was another boat, and I was like,
Speaker 3: what is going on here? We're in the middle of
Speaker 3: nowhere and this guy is just running towards us.
Speaker 1: At that point, the stranger's boat was about two hundred
Speaker 1: yards away from them. Andrew looked down at his rod
Speaker 1: to reel it in.
Speaker 3: I looked up again. The boat is still right on
Speaker 3: our path one hundred and fifty to one hundred yards.
Speaker 3: I looked back at Jack to see where he is
Speaker 3: in terms of what he's doing, and I'm like, hey,
Speaker 3: are you almost off the bottom? And he was like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm almost off the bottom.
Speaker 1: Andrew looked back at the boat. It was closing in
Speaker 1: on them, now less than one hundred yards away and
Speaker 1: still heading straight at them.
Speaker 3: And I say to Jack, you know, I can believe this.
Speaker 3: We have some yahoo and he has no idea we're here,
Speaker 3: and he's going to run straight into us.
Speaker 1: The mystery boat closed in on them. Jack finished reeling
Speaker 1: in his lure. Andrew knew they had to move quickly.
Speaker 3: And I went to turn the boat on, and there
Speaker 3: was a brief moment where I thought to myself, I
Speaker 3: really hope the boat doesn't, you know, have a problem.
Speaker 3: And it turns on, no problem, because if not, this
Speaker 3: guy's going to run into us.
Speaker 1: Andrew turned the ignition to his relief, the engine fired up.
Speaker 3: We put the motor in year and we started puttering forward.
Speaker 3: And as we powdered forward. This boat just passed within
Speaker 3: ten yards or so of our stern.
Speaker 1: In disbelief, Andrew and Jack watched the boat drive past.
Speaker 1: They thought it was strange that they hadn't noticed the
Speaker 1: boat sooner, and wondered why the oh had almost run
Speaker 1: straight into them. But stranger still was what they observed
Speaker 1: as the boat drove past. Here's Andrew's son, Jack, explaining
Speaker 1: what happened next.
Speaker 3: As the boat drove by, you could hear the radio
Speaker 3: was playing on the boat. There was like music. He
Speaker 3: had like five rods out or something, and he was trolling.
Speaker 3: As it goes by. We look in the cabin and
Speaker 3: there was no one behind the steering wheel.
Speaker 2: And we're like, what the heck?
Speaker 3: And I just like super bizarre.
Speaker 1: The two men wondered if the boat's owner could be
Speaker 1: down in the cabin unaware of how close they'd come
Speaker 1: to colliding.
Speaker 3: So it's like goes by, we like yell at him
Speaker 3: to try to get his attention, and there was no response,
Speaker 3: So we like put our rods in the rod wolvers
Speaker 3: and we took off after him. I think he was
Speaker 3: going like eight or nine knots, so like ten miles fryar,
Speaker 3: and we were coached up alongside him, and we had
Speaker 3: an air horn and my dad dug that out and
Speaker 3: he starts blasting air horn and kind of dropped next
Speaker 3: to him, and there's no response, and we were like,
Speaker 3: oh my gosh, like, what is someone like had a
Speaker 3: heart attack or a stroke below deck? So we'd talk him.
Speaker 3: We're like, if there's no response to the next two minutes,
Speaker 3: we should probably go and try to board the boat.
Speaker 1: Minutes ticked by with Andrew and Jack coasting alongside the
Speaker 1: boat trying to get someone's attention with no response. So
Speaker 1: a debate ensued between the father and son about who
Speaker 1: would make the treacherous leap onto the mystery boat to investigate. Jack,
Speaker 1: a midshipman at the Naval Academy, was younger and felt
Speaker 1: he would be better to make the leap. Andrew feared
Speaker 1: what Jack might find aboard the boat.
Speaker 3: You know, as we're having this joking conversation about who's
Speaker 3: jumping in the boat, I actually did say to him
Speaker 3: very seriously, are you prepared for what you may find
Speaker 3: when you go on this boat.
Speaker 1: Jack assured his father that he was prepared to deal
Speaker 1: with whatever lay beyond the deck of the boat, but
Speaker 1: he still couldn't help but wonder what he was about
Speaker 1: to face.
Speaker 3: Mcamp alongside, and he kind of like match the waves
Speaker 3: and everything does that flamed, big, big adrenaline ross just
Speaker 3: jumping in like somebody's boat forty miles off shore, and
Speaker 3: you didn't know like anything. I was like, for sure,
Speaker 3: there's gotta be some dead guy down here.
Speaker 1: Jack made the leap and was stunned at what he found,
Speaker 1: or perhaps more accurately, what he didn't find.
Speaker 3: So he jumped on board and look, there's no way
Speaker 3: in the deck. I'm like, all right, cool, and like
Speaker 3: ease my way to the cabin, expecting to find something.
Speaker 3: And the cabin's just completely empty. So I put the
Speaker 3: boat in neutral, turn everything off, reeling off the lines.
Speaker 3: I called my dad and like the boat's empty, and
Speaker 3: my dad goes, are you sure, Like check again, it's
Speaker 3: like a twenty boat. I'm like, Dad, it's like twenty
Speaker 3: three feet I promised. There's like nothing here to see
Speaker 3: and there's secret doors.
Speaker 1: No secret doors. But Jack did soon find some items
Speaker 1: that alarmed both father and son, a wallet and a
Speaker 1: life jacket. These articles spelled that one thing for entering
Speaker 1: Jack man overboard, and even worse, man overboard without a
Speaker 1: life jacket. Had this this man been fishing and somehow fallen,
Speaker 1: All they had to go on was an empty boat
Speaker 1: with some eerily important belongings on board. Beyond that, the
Speaker 1: two men had no idea how long ago the boat's
Speaker 1: captain might have gone over. It could have been hours ago.
Speaker 1: If the boat's captain had survived the fall, it must
Speaker 1: have been horrific to watch his boat drive off into
Speaker 1: the distance without him. Andrew and Jack had a sinking
Speaker 1: feeling that someone was likely out there forty miles from shore,
Speaker 1: fighting for their life, if they were even still alive.
Speaker 1: The father and son hurried and tied the boats up
Speaker 1: together and radioed the coastguard. Here is the actual call
Speaker 1: Andrew and Jack made.
Speaker 4: Coastguard station, will right still beach. Coastguard station, right still beach.
Speaker 5: Come in. That's hailing this coast guard.
Speaker 4: Go ahead, Coastguard station, rightful beach. We just found a
Speaker 4: boat at thirty three fifty one three sixty two north
Speaker 4: seventy seven ten one seventy seven west.
Speaker 5: There is no one aboard rodacab Can you see a
Speaker 5: description of the vessel in the vessel name.
Speaker 4: Uh, we will check for vessel name. I can give
Speaker 4: you the IV we found.
Speaker 5: On board Sheller s C H E L L E R.
Speaker 5: When we found the vessel, it was doing about eight knots.
Speaker 3: Roger Cabam. We copied seller is the last name?
Speaker 2: Can you say again?
Speaker 5: First name?
Speaker 4: First name, Sasha s A s c Ha Roger Cabam,
Speaker 4: Sasha Sheller, request you say again?
Speaker 2: Was a boat moving when you came upon it?
Speaker 4: Boat was moving. It almost ran us down, so we
Speaker 4: moved out of the way. Followed the boat, hit it
Speaker 4: with four or.
Speaker 5: Five blasts on an air horn. Waited about ten minutes.
Speaker 5: My son found no one on board boat. Vessel number
Speaker 5: is NC two six A three. He is an echo
Speaker 5: and is a Nancy.
Speaker 4: Roger that gab Other than the idea on board?
Speaker 2: Did you see the other sign of any other person's
Speaker 2: on the boat.
Speaker 4: We went over the entire boat.
Speaker 5: It's a twenty three foot Parker cutty cabin. No one
Speaker 5: on board that we can find. Lines were all deployed
Speaker 5: like he was fishing a spread.
Speaker 3: Rod. That gab.
Speaker 1: The coast guard encouraged Andrew and Jack to access the
Speaker 1: GPS system on the boat to see if they could
Speaker 1: give any coordinates of where the boat might have come from.
Speaker 1: With the two boats tied up and drifting together, Andrew
Speaker 1: boarded the mystery boat and joined Jack in the cabin,
Speaker 1: where they radioed the coastguard again with the history.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so the boat leaves like a track essentially, so
Speaker 3: you'd see where the boat left, where he started, where
Speaker 3: he came out, and then he went like twenty three
Speaker 3: miles off shore, actually the same place that we initially
Speaker 3: were at, and then he began pushing off for further
Speaker 3: and further. So we could see where the boat went.
Speaker 3: We were able to like report those coordinates to the
Speaker 3: coast guard. We probably talked to the coast guard for
Speaker 3: twenty or thirty minutes on the radio, and the coast
Speaker 3: guard was like okay, like Roger, thank you, and I
Speaker 3: was like here in the conversation were like boys, like
Speaker 3: there's a dude out here with no life jacket, all
Speaker 3: what do you mean? Like thank you? So we're like golly,
Speaker 3: like we gotta we should go try to find this guy.
Speaker 3: We can't just let him drown out of here, which
Speaker 3: we knew was pretty futile. Like, I mean, the chances
Speaker 3: of I was I was convinced the whole time that
Speaker 3: we were probably gonna wait for like a body to
Speaker 3: gas up and then float back of the surface. Is
Speaker 3: a chance of like floating out there with no life
Speaker 3: jacket for a while, it's not too high.
Speaker 1: There are critical moments in life, forks in the road,
Speaker 1: some call them, and this was one of those moments
Speaker 1: for Andrew and Jack. They could go home and leave
Speaker 1: everything in the hands of the coastguard, or they could
Speaker 1: search for the man overboard, this stranger now known to
Speaker 1: them as Sasha Scheller. The ocean is vast and endless.
Speaker 1: Only those who spend time out on the ocean truly
Speaker 1: understand how vast it is, and these two men understood
Speaker 1: it well. They knew any attempt at rescue would be
Speaker 1: almost impossible, like trying to find a needle in a haystack.
Speaker 1: But they weren't the type of men to just give
Speaker 1: up when someone could possibly still be alive and in
Speaker 1: a desperate situation. In fact, as soon as the coastguard
Speaker 1: said thank you, Jack said we're going to go find him.
Speaker 1: They ended the call with the coastguard and immediately devised
Speaker 1: a plan.
Speaker 3: So end up looking on the GPS we deemed he
Speaker 3: was making normal fishing patterns. They're trolling around, and then
Speaker 3: at one point we saw the boat kind of go
Speaker 3: straight for a while and then it just kind of
Speaker 3: veered off and it was like weird abnormal pattern where
Speaker 3: it intersected our about a few miles later, and we're like,
Speaker 3: that seems like where he may have fallen off, and
Speaker 3: he did fall off, so to give this some more perspective.
Speaker 3: On his GPS, he saw this dotted line, a trail
Speaker 3: that came out, you know, fished around a little bit,
Speaker 3: fished around a little bit, fished around a little bit,
Speaker 3: got out to the area that we were in, and
Speaker 3: then what it did was it made this looping turn
Speaker 3: ross back on itself, curved back around, and then headed
Speaker 3: back towards land and encountered us like right there.
Speaker 1: As Andrew and Jack mapped out the coordinates, they also
Speaker 1: noticed that Sasha had several way points on the GPS system.
Speaker 1: A waypoint happens when the GPS is manually touched and
Speaker 1: is a point of reference kind of like dropping a
Speaker 1: pin location for navigation purposes.
Speaker 3: And not far from where we were, it had a waypoint,
Speaker 3: so we knew that he had touched his screen there.
Speaker 3: So we came up with a plan. Then I will
Speaker 3: run Sasha's boat and Jack will run mine, and I
Speaker 3: can see the GPS for Sasha. And I said, Jack,
Speaker 3: I'm going to take you back to his last waypoint
Speaker 3: where we knew he was on the boat. And when
Speaker 3: we get to that waypoint, I want you to make
Speaker 3: ever enlarging circles from that waypoint. Just keep going out
Speaker 3: from that waypoint. I'm going to go back over here
Speaker 3: to where the boat made this big loop, and I'm
Speaker 3: just going to crisscross through that whole area. I mean,
Speaker 3: I had no idea why I was doing it that way,
Speaker 3: but anyway, that's what we did.
Speaker 1: Jack traveled to the last waypoint for several minutes, he
Speaker 1: made concentric circles around it, and then he spotted something
Speaker 1: in the water.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you started a search, and I guess like
Speaker 3: twenty or thirty minutes in, I saw this in the ocean.
Speaker 3: But I found a pair of boots like floating the water.
Speaker 3: It's regular deck boots he'd be fishing with. I scooped
Speaker 3: those up, raided in the coast guard, raided into my dad,
Speaker 3: and I thought, I'm like, oh my gosh, I did
Speaker 3: his boots slip off from when he like drowned or something.
Speaker 1: While Jack saw the boots as a bad sign, Andrew
Speaker 1: had a different thought.
Speaker 3: So I was about three quarters of a mile from Jack,
Speaker 3: searching through this big loop. I don't know why. It
Speaker 3: wasn't based on anything really concrete, but I just thought,
Speaker 3: if I had fallen overboard, I would take my boots
Speaker 3: off because I could swim easier with my boots off.
Speaker 3: And so that said to me he fell off and
Speaker 3: he was still alive. And then for some reason, that
Speaker 3: said to me between where he had touched the screen
Speaker 3: and there was a straight line before it made this
Speaker 3: big courage. I don't know why. In my mind I
Speaker 3: thought he fell off somewhere in that straight long.
Speaker 1: Andrew drove his boat back to the start of the
Speaker 1: straight line and let his boat drift rifted south, which
Speaker 1: made Andrew think that Sasha may have drifted south as well.
Speaker 1: He chriss crossed over the line slightly to the north
Speaker 1: and then back towards the south, scanning the horizon for
Speaker 1: any signs of life. He took another turn and went
Speaker 1: northward over the line and again headed south, and that's
Speaker 1: when he saw it.
Speaker 3: I all of a sudden saw this big splash on
Speaker 3: the surface, probably like three hundred yards away, and I thought,
Speaker 3: that is either a big fish or that is somebody.
Speaker 3: And I sped the boat up as fast as it
Speaker 3: could go cut the distance, and then I just saw
Speaker 3: this hand come out of the water and reach across
Speaker 3: in a big arc like that, and I just came
Speaker 3: on the radio and I was like, Coast Guard Radio
Speaker 3: station Wilmington, I have found him. I have found him.
Speaker 1: Earlier that day, Sasha Sheller, an experienced swimmer, surfer, and fishermen,
Speaker 1: had been out fishing on what started out to be
Speaker 1: a perfect day. Sasha heard over the radio the other
Speaker 1: fishermen were catching gaffer mahi mahi, which are very large
Speaker 1: mahi mahis, and he saw several boats heading that way.
Speaker 1: The waves were unusually calm, so he decided to drive
Speaker 1: out further than normal until he reached about forty miles
Speaker 1: off shore. Sasha had always been very safety minded, however,
Speaker 1: he let his guard down just for a moment, and
Speaker 1: a moment was all that it took.
Speaker 6: I was out fishing and I set up on my rigs.
Speaker 7: I was trolling them behind me, and it was calm,
Speaker 7: and say beautiful, and I'm gonna take my life jacket
Speaker 7: off just a little while and get some sun. And
Speaker 7: that was the biggest mistake I ever made. So I'm
Speaker 7: just cruising along. You're listening to some music, and this
Speaker 7: is a part of a lot of people kind of
Speaker 7: make fun of. So standing right here by a steerwheel,
Speaker 7: and I had to relieve myself. So I turned to
Speaker 7: the side of the boat right next to the steeringwheel,
Speaker 7: did what I had to do, and when I was
Speaker 7: turning back around to face the steeringwheel, my foot slipped
Speaker 7: and I just rolled right over the side of the boat.
Speaker 1: He first tried to grab the side of the boat
Speaker 1: without success. He had one last chance to grab the
Speaker 1: back platform of the boat, but it was impossible with
Speaker 1: the boat moving so quickly.
Speaker 7: That boat was gone in a matter of a minute.
Speaker 7: I mean, when your whole body's in the water and
Speaker 7: on your head's sticking up and you're watching that boat go,
Speaker 7: it's a minute or two and you can't see it anymore.
Speaker 6: It's gone.
Speaker 1: Sasha watched in horror as his boat got further and
Speaker 1: further away. So much went through Sasha's mind in the
Speaker 1: moments that followed. At one point he saw a boat
Speaker 1: in the distance. He tried yelling and screaming as loud
Speaker 1: as he could, but his hopes were quickly dashed as
Speaker 1: the folk captain didn't see him and drove out of sight.
Speaker 1: He was left alone with only his thoughts in what
Speaker 1: felt like an endless see.
Speaker 7: I was pretty angry, pretty upset with myself. When I
Speaker 7: started to talk about the details. Is when it kind
Speaker 7: of floods back. You have a bunch of different thoughts
Speaker 7: that go through your head. The first one was kids, Yeah,
Speaker 7: you got to leave your kids. You thinking about your
Speaker 7: children growing up without you.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 7: Now that I'm older and mid forties, and I think
Speaker 7: you started thinking about man, I don't have enough life insurance,
Speaker 7: realizing what all this would do to them, And you
Speaker 7: start thinking about long term, what your actions did and
Speaker 7: what the consequences are.
Speaker 6: So that's why the anger was there.
Speaker 7: It was really anger at myself for the one simple
Speaker 7: decision I made that risked everything.
Speaker 1: After several minutes of treading water, Sasha's fear and anger
Speaker 1: gave way to thoughts of survival.
Speaker 7: I think your mind automatically turns itself onto preservation mode
Speaker 7: so pretty fast, I would say fifteen to twenty minutes,
Speaker 7: I was like, you know what, I know, I'm about
Speaker 7: three miles away from where those other five boats were,
Speaker 7: and that's where I remembered the swell direction. So I
Speaker 7: started swimming in the direction of where those five boats were.
Speaker 7: About every ten minutes or so, I ducked my head
Speaker 7: underwater and listen. It's found travels much better underwater, so
Speaker 7: i'd listened for boats. Yeah, every now and then. I
Speaker 7: think two times I heard a boat, but they were
Speaker 7: way off in the distance.
Speaker 6: So I just kept swimming, and after about an hour.
Speaker 7: Or so, I started trying to spot some star gas
Speaker 7: of seaweed, And if you're not familiar, it's a seaweed
Speaker 7: that floats. It has a little airsacks in it. So
Speaker 7: I was going to take my shorts off and stuff
Speaker 7: them with as much stargas as seaweed as possible, so
Speaker 7: I had something to mentally hold on too if it
Speaker 7: went into the night.
Speaker 1: Agonizing hours pasted before he saw another boat.
Speaker 7: After two hours, I saw a boat coming towards me
Speaker 7: at a high rate of speed, and then it started
Speaker 7: leaving again, and I thought that was quite strange, But
Speaker 7: then about five minutes later it was doing it again.
Speaker 6: It was coming towards me.
Speaker 7: And then when it happened the third time, I just
Speaker 7: started kicking my legs as much as I could and
Speaker 7: waving my arms and splashing water, just trying to get
Speaker 7: anything to get attention. And then next thing you edded
Speaker 7: boat speeding straight towards me and not so it was
Speaker 7: probably five yards away from me. I realized it was
Speaker 7: my boat and it was Andrew driving my boat.
Speaker 1: This is the point where Andrew called into the coastguard.
Speaker 5: Coast Guard, does this parker over, I have found him.
Speaker 5: Coast Guard, does this Parker? I have found him.
Speaker 3: And then at that point Jack heard all of that
Speaker 3: on the radio and he raced to where we were.
Speaker 3: I raced up to Sasha in the water, spun the
Speaker 3: back of his boat around him, chuck the motor off,
Speaker 3: ran to him. He was cramping up pretty badly, pulled
Speaker 3: him up onto the swim platform on the back of
Speaker 3: the boat. Initially just laid on a swim platform and
Speaker 3: recovered for about thirty seconds, and then he was able
Speaker 3: to get up and come into the back of the
Speaker 3: boat and sit on the back of transom up the boat.
Speaker 3: At that point Jack was there. He tied up to
Speaker 3: the boat again. I asked Sasha if he had anything
Speaker 3: on board, like gatorade, and he was like, yeah, I
Speaker 3: had a cooler and he got my gatorade. He just
Speaker 3: sat on the back of the boat for like ten
Speaker 3: minutes and drank a gayarade and kind of recovered, and
Speaker 3: you know, we were just like, I'm so happy to
Speaker 3: see you, and he was like, I'm so happy to
Speaker 3: see you, and it was Yeah, it was pretty special.
Speaker 3: Marker from the coast Guard, Roger, good guy, that you
Speaker 3: found one of those persons in the water.
Speaker 5: You have them on board and over you guys guard
Speaker 5: rightful beat you guys guard rightful bee. I confirmed this
Speaker 5: is Parker, we have him. He has safe on board.
Speaker 3: Roger kap could you say to confirm he was the
Speaker 3: only person on board in the boat?
Speaker 5: That's ten for only person on the beat.
Speaker 1: We asked Sasha how he felt when he realized he
Speaker 1: was going to be rescued. This was his response.
Speaker 7: So, it's a crazy good feeling. I don't know if
Speaker 7: I could put it in the words. I mean, it's
Speaker 7: just to be able to relax and not realizing how
Speaker 7: tense you actually were until I could grab a hold.
Speaker 6: Of that boat.
Speaker 7: I mean, you know, I'm in good shape, but as
Speaker 7: soon as I grabbed that boat, my legs cramped up.
Speaker 7: I mean, who knew how long I could have lasted,
Speaker 7: could have been in those five minutes in my legs cramped,
Speaker 7: who knows.
Speaker 6: But yeah, it's.
Speaker 7: Just such a mixed emotions of relief, ecstasy, and it's
Speaker 7: kind of hard to describe. As then as my legs
Speaker 7: became uncramped, now, just bear hug Andrew.
Speaker 1: It was truly a miracle that Sasha had been found.
Speaker 1: Part of this miracle is that Sasha's boat had driven
Speaker 1: directly at two men who were willing to do all
Speaker 1: it took to find him. But even more miraculous is
Speaker 1: how the boat ended up turning with out a captain
Speaker 1: steering it from its original trajectory to drive straight at
Speaker 1: Andrew and Jack.
Speaker 3: I think the coolest part of the story for me
Speaker 3: is what Sasha got back home. He called us and
Speaker 3: he said he just got back to my boat. Like,
Speaker 3: I don't care at all, because you guys just saved
Speaker 3: my life and everything. But did you guys take one
Speaker 3: of the rods off the boat? I was trolling six
Speaker 3: rods when I had Followen off and we were like, no,
Speaker 3: he didn't pick any rods, So he went back at
Speaker 3: his GPS and back to my dad was talking about
Speaker 3: the way the boat was moving, initially where it made
Speaker 3: big arc and then kind of shot on the straight
Speaker 3: line where it had gone straight towards us. The rod
Speaker 3: that he was missing was on his left out rigor,
Speaker 3: which is where the boat turned towards And the only
Speaker 3: possible explanation for why a rod would just raandly followed
Speaker 3: an out rigor is if like a huge fish beyond belief,
Speaker 3: grabbed the bait that he was trowling, pulled all the
Speaker 3: line off the rod, like three four hundred yards, tilted
Speaker 3: to the side to the rod. When someone bore his
Speaker 3: out of the water, it was it'll pop out of
Speaker 3: the outrigger, and the boat straightened out again directly on
Speaker 3: a course straight towards us. So I think that is
Speaker 3: like the craziest part of the story. I'm a math major,
Speaker 3: So like random numbers, on the chances that we would
Speaker 3: have seen his boat out there, the chance of his
Speaker 3: boat going close enough to ours much less on the
Speaker 3: direct trajector where we had to move our boat out
Speaker 3: of the way. It's like point zero zeros like nine
Speaker 3: or ten zeros like one percent. So it's just like
Speaker 3: completely unbelievable that that would have happened.
Speaker 1: Sasha agrees that this is the only way his boat
Speaker 1: could have turned the way it did.
Speaker 7: So the interesting part is, about three quarters of a
Speaker 7: mile or so after I fell out of the boat,
Speaker 7: my boat started turning to the left, and then all
Speaker 7: of a sudden it may in ninety degree turn. The
Speaker 7: interesting part about that is is that I was missing
Speaker 7: a fishing rod, one of the ones I was using
Speaker 7: control with, and it happened to be on the same
Speaker 7: side that that boat turned to on the left side. Yeah,
Speaker 7: it's not like a river or lake, and there's not
Speaker 7: a whole lot of debris out there, and a little
Speaker 7: bit of sea weed's not gonna be able to pull
Speaker 7: a boat. So the only real kind of explanation is
Speaker 7: that I actually call a fish and they started taking
Speaker 7: line out and drag, causing it to drift to the left,
Speaker 7: and then when it got to the end of the
Speaker 7: line where it's tied off on the reel, it was
Speaker 7: enough to pull the boat. That changed the direction of
Speaker 7: my boat to make it go towards Andrew and Jack,
Speaker 7: which is pretty pretty crazy.
Speaker 1: Sasha didn't grow up a religious man. He feels more
Speaker 1: connected to nature than anything, and attributes his survival to
Speaker 1: both nature and the courageous men who saved his life.
Speaker 1: Andrew and Jack see things a little differently.
Speaker 3: It's like, there's no way that would have happened without
Speaker 3: America or divine intervention. That's like it just wouldn't have happened,
Speaker 3: you know, no way would have happened. It's like, why
Speaker 3: do some miracles happened while like other super tragedy horrible
Speaker 3: things happen. I think you get to press like that
Speaker 3: I believe, but have like blind say, and just know
Speaker 3: there's a higher power and a higher plan that you
Speaker 3: don't fully understand. You may maybe using a higher power
Speaker 3: and higher plan, like we're used and put in the
Speaker 3: right place at the right time. I don't think any
Speaker 3: like moral mind comprehend why miracle happens.
Speaker 1: Andrew, Jack, and Sasha have all shared this experience with
Speaker 1: the media and in various settings. Sasha has gone on
Speaker 1: to emphasize how important safety gear is. He knows that
Speaker 1: even the most experienced sports enthusiast can get into trouble
Speaker 1: if they let their guard down. When it comes to safety.
Speaker 1: His hope is that this experience may very well save
Speaker 1: others' lives. Both Andrew and Jack received commendation medals from
Speaker 1: the Coastguard, but these two heroic men are also incredibly humble.
Speaker 1: Both men said, far more than any medals, they're grateful
Speaker 1: for how this experience has changed the course of history
Speaker 1: for not only Sasha, but Sasha's family.
Speaker 3: I will tell you the most profound thing that came
Speaker 3: out of this entire thing for me was it was
Speaker 3: about a week later that we had Sasha and his
Speaker 3: family and his parents to our house. And they came
Speaker 3: and it was really funny. Sasha brought some gifts with him,
Speaker 3: one of which was the castaway volleball, so that sits
Speaker 3: in my health now. But his wife, during that visit said,
Speaker 3: and I can never get through this easily. She said,
Speaker 3: you know that day, you didn't just save Sasha, you
Speaker 3: saved our family. I'm just thankful that we were put
Speaker 3: in the right place at the right time. You know,
Speaker 3: I've had the right skill set that we were able
Speaker 3: to do something.
Speaker 1: Oh man, can you imagine being out in the ocean
Speaker 1: without a life, and you know, when you're almost forty
Speaker 1: miles away from shore and no one in sight.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, I would be so scared, terrifying. I
Speaker 2: get scared in a lake thinking the fish is gonna
Speaker 2: bite my toes me too, seriously, Like Jaws messed me up.
Speaker 2: I still am traumatized.
Speaker 3: By that movie.
Speaker 1: And when you're in a lake there's no shark, thinking
Speaker 1: about in the ocean, You're like, what is beneath me?
Speaker 2: It would be so scary.
Speaker 1: Yeah, at that point you are completely helpless.
Speaker 2: Right, And he was in really good physical health, but still,
Speaker 2: I mean, you can't just swim forty miles into.
Speaker 1: Shore against the current. Yeah, And in those two hours
Speaker 1: he only had gone a mile and if he would
Speaker 1: have kept swimming, everyone would have been gone for the day.
Speaker 1: There was no hope.
Speaker 2: Really yeah, he knew that too. He knew that the
Speaker 2: boats were probably all going to be heading in soon
Speaker 2: and that the chances of getting to them before they
Speaker 2: left were pretty slim.
Speaker 1: And if they had left, I mean, yeah, he.
Speaker 2: Was really smart. I do have to say, like when
Speaker 2: he was talking about getting those seaweeds that he could
Speaker 2: use to kind of help him feel like you had
Speaker 2: something to hold on too, I thought, what a smart
Speaker 2: thing to do. I don't know that my brain would
Speaker 2: have ever gone there.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Kind of reminded me of that show Alone. If you've
Speaker 1: seen Alone, and it's the survival show, how creative people
Speaker 1: get when they're in a survival situation. Yeah, I thought
Speaker 1: I would never have thought of that, but who knows
Speaker 1: what you would think of when you're actually put out there.
Speaker 2: True. One thing that was really important to him was
Speaker 2: to give a message about safety and to make sure
Speaker 2: you use your safety equipment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we have a SoundBite that we want to
Speaker 1: play to honor his wishes of the message he wanted
Speaker 1: to get across.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 7: The reason why I like to talk about it is
Speaker 7: to make people aware. I've got every creditation behind me.
Speaker 7: I was a surfer of a lifeguard and went coast guard.
Speaker 7: You know, I knew all the safety protocols and had
Speaker 7: every kind of safety equipment you can imagine.
Speaker 6: It was just one really stupid decision.
Speaker 7: If I would have had that life jacket on that
Speaker 7: I took off, there's a whistle.
Speaker 6: That boat would have heard me. With a whistle. I
Speaker 6: had a VHF radio.
Speaker 7: All the boats within five miles would have heard me
Speaker 7: on the VHF radio. Yeah, I mean, it would have
Speaker 7: been a fifteen minute ordeal. So it's the big thing
Speaker 7: I really want people to understand when I shared it
Speaker 7: is regardless of what you're doing, if.
Speaker 6: It's snowboarding, if it's fishing in the ocean.
Speaker 7: If it's hiking in the mountains, safety equipment is relatively
Speaker 7: expensive to the actual toys that you're using out there.
Speaker 7: So get it and use it. Don't just have this
Speaker 7: so you can say you have it, but actually use it.
Speaker 1: I know he's gone around to several trainings and meetings
Speaker 1: and has presented about his experience.
Speaker 2: Well, and he very well could be saving lives by
Speaker 2: sharing that message, So we definitely want to help him
Speaker 2: spread that message.
Speaker 1: Yeah. You know, without that life jacket, the only way
Speaker 1: he could have survived in the vast ocean is through
Speaker 1: a miracle.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree, And I just want to say, don't
Speaker 2: you think it's incredible how this father and son went
Speaker 2: so above and beyond?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that there are lots of people who
Speaker 1: would just call in the coastguard report it and feel like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I've done my duty.
Speaker 2: Well, and who knows that the coastguard would have found him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, in that instance, minutes were so crucial.
Speaker 2: And I thought it was so cool that when the
Speaker 2: coastguard said Roger that thank you and just hung up,
Speaker 2: that they were like, we're gonna go out and find
Speaker 2: this guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I wasn't so cool to have the coastguard call.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like I'm eavesdropping listening.
Speaker 1: To this call. You can hear the elation in Andrew's voice.
Speaker 2: They were really smart too, the way they went about things.
Speaker 2: But I'm also sure that they were given divine guidance
Speaker 2: to find Sasha as well well.
Speaker 1: Whether you attribute it to luck or you attribute it
Speaker 1: to divine intervention. I'm grateful Sasha is alive.
Speaker 2: I am too, and I'm sure his family is so grateful.
Speaker 2: I'm sure Andrew and Jack, Yeah, they're heroes, they really are.
Speaker 2: Thank you for joining us. If you have a miracle
Speaker 2: to share, contact us at the miraclefiles dot com or
Speaker 2: find us on Facebook.
Speaker 1: We'll post new episodes on the first day of each month,
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Speaker 2: Join us next time as we discover more of God's miracles,
Speaker 2: and don't forget to look for his light in your
Speaker 2: own lives.
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