Here’s a somewhat strange story of a situation gone bad that the Coast Guard and other rescue services along the California coast worked together to remedy.
Earlier this week Coast Guard Sector Los Angeles received a distress call at 8 pm. The call was from TowBoat US in Ventura which was relaying a VHF call from a sailor on a sailboat in distress 18 miles east of Catalina Island.
Apparently, the sailor had fallen asleep and when he awoke his friend and his friend’s dog were missing and the dinghy they had been towing was gone. The sailor reported that the man and dog had been missing for four to five hours.
Sector Los Angeles coordinated the rescue effort. They launched a helicopter, sent a rescue craft from their base and diverted the cutter Narwhal to the scene. They also alerted Sector San Diego and both BayWatch Avalon and BayWatch Cabrillo.
The helicopter crew located the man and dog in the dinghy 1400 yards from the sailboat. The BayWatch Cabrillo crew took them aboard their rescue boat and transported them ashore where paramedics were waiting. The man was reportedly suffering from mild hypothermia.
The coast guard towed the dinghy back to the sailboat then the Narwhal took both in tow and brought them to Newport Beach harbor.
All’s well that ends well but you have to wonder what those two men and their dog were up to that required the aid of four different rescue services?
