Epilogue
Dear Mates:
It’s almost Thanksgiving 2010, and I have as much or more to be thankful for than anyone.
Something that I have never mentioned to anyone else about the “event” has to do with how I made the decision to head South into the Gulf and actually make it the 14 miles to the rig.
I knew that no help was coming from the beach and if I were to have a chance of surviving the night, I had to make to shelter on one of the offshore structures.
About 1 AM (I had now been paddling hard for 9 hours) the hypothermia was so bad that I couldn’t count to 50 by 2’s to keep up my cadence. I thought about a lot of different things; one was humming the theme song to “Gilligan’s Island”.
The other was remembering swab year and the Christmas Purge. I thought about how I feared not making it through the harassement and just throwing in the towel. Now, faced with a real threat to my survival, I sucked it up and paddled that last mile to the rig.
Once I got on board and climbed 60 stairs to the office, I went inside and 70 degrees never felt so good. I looked down at my arms and legs: they were both pale grey due to the shunted circulation. I have seen 2 corpses that had more color than I did.
Thanks to swab year, I never gave up and I get to celebrate another holiday with friends and family.
Never quit; your life might just depend on it.
Be safe,
Bakes
John Baker
johnbaker3@charter.net