Randy Waldorf said he mostly shut his eyes and kept an ear out for breaking waves as he endured 18 hours floating at sea in the Gulf of Mexico this weekend.
Waldorf ? a Lenexa man who grew up in Cowley County and graduated from Winfield High School in 1978 ? was rescued Saturday morning along with two other friends he’d met up with for a three-day fishing trip off the coast of Florida.
He returned to Kansas Sunday to be reunited with his family.
Waldorf, Arlen Gastineau of Orlando, Fla., and Ken Harper of Colorado Springs, were forced into the water around 6 p.m. Friday when their boat capsized about 25 miles off the coast. They tied themselves to the overturned vessel and floated until being rescued around noon Saturday.
The men put into the Gulf around 10 a.m. Friday and had wrapped up an hours-long fishing trip around 3:30 p.m. It was at that point they realized the craft wouldn’t get to a proper speed for planing. The boat was also starting to take on water and a pump meant to remove that water wasn’t functioning properly.
After an hour-and-a-half of troubleshooting, it became apparent the anchored boat was in trouble and wouldn’t be seaworthy for long.
"It all happened so quickly that there wasn’t much time to think about the fact we were going into the water," Waldorf, who turns 50 next week, said in a phone interview with NewsCow. "The boat was taking on water and we were bailing it. But it became obvious, eventually, that the boat was going to sink."
Actually, the 23-feet-long Schools Out, as the fishing boat was named, was designed to overturn after taking on too much water. It flipped over as expected as the men’s bailing became more and more futile.
Waldorf and his friends each took down a bottle of water and put on life jackets, and in an instant they were floating at sea.
A trust of his friends and overall sense that things were going to be OK kept the mens’ spirits up as they were battered by the three-to-five-feet-high waves that sometimes sent them bashing into the boat. Waldorf said three things helped play in the mens’ favor: they had the capsized boat to aid them in floating; family in nearby Tampa knew they were to be back by dark because the boat wasn’t equipped for night fishing; and those family members knew almost exactly where the fishing trio were to set up.
Which is why the rescue took longer than it might have – the men stopped about 20 miles short of their originally-planned fishing destination because the Gulf’s waters were becoming too choppy.
"We could see a helicopter, we knew they were searching for us in the spot where we were supposed to be," Waldorf said. "So there was no sense of panic. But we knew it was very likely that we’d need to spend the night in the water. They’d need daylight to see us."
So Waldorf kept his eyes shut tight against the splashing saltwater and listened to the movement of the waves to know when to brace himself. When he did open his eyes, he watched the moon as it moved across the sky.
The men also tracked a bright star they figure was Mars.
There was little talking between the men, who conversed only to check on one another. Even with their mouths closed most of the time, the three swallowed a lot of saltwater and were scraped and scuffed from the waves. Early on Saturday, heavy waves brought jelly fish that stung each man a number of times.
But then a C-130 search plane passed by in the sky. At first pass, the men thought they’d been spotted, on the second pass they knew it was true. A short time later a private catamaran showed up and the ordeal was over in time for Waldorf to make his regularly-scheduled flight back to Kansas.
Arlen Gastineau collapsed briefly after being taken from the water, but he is expected to make a full recovery.
Waldorf said he never lost hope that the men would be rescued and mostly was concerned about the worry he was causing his family, who had no idea how he was faring. His parents, Delbert and Glenda Waldorf, and a brother, Rick, and his wife, Becky, still live in Winfield.
Randy’s wife – Kathy (Rice) Waldorf, also a Winfield native – met him at the airport upon his return.
"You know, really it didn’t seem that big a deal to me until I got back and all the media were there to talk to me," he said. "Then my wife looked at me and said ?yes, it was big deal.’"
