SITKA, Alaska — September 11, 2012 — A fisherman who spent a night adrift in a 4-by-4 foot plastic fish bin after his boat sank off Alaska says he gave himself pep talks and sang ‘‘Rudolf, the Red-Nosed Reindeer’’ and ‘‘Row, Row, Row Your Boat’’ to keep his spirits up.
His fellow crewmember managed to get into a survival suit and washed ashore on a beach after his own night afloat.
A Coast Guard helicopter hoisted Ryan Harris, 19, of Sitka, from his plastic ‘‘lifeboat’’ on Saturday, more than 24 hours after the boat sank on Friday, the Daily Sitka Sentinel (http://is.gd/bgoPcT) reported Monday.
Two hours before Harris’ rescue, crewmate Stonie ‘‘Mac’’ Huffman of Sitka was rescued from a beach about 25 miles northwest of Sitka.
Harris told the newspaper he’s happy both he and his buddy survived after their 28-foot aluminum boat got hit by big waves and overturned.
They were dumped into the water before they could send a mayday. The search for them started after friends reported them overdue Friday night.
‘‘It’s truly a miracle they survived,’’ said Sitka Mountain Rescue Director Don Kluting, who helped in the search.
‘‘I never thought I was going to die, but I was worried about Mac,’’ Harris told the newspaper Monday. ‘‘I'm glad to be here.’’
The two men were fishing for coho salmon about two miles off Cape Edgecumbe when the hydraulics failed on their boat. They fixed that problem, but decided to head back to port.
Then they encountered waves, one of which tipped the boat onto its side.
Two survival suits were on board, but neither man was wearing one when the boat went down. After the boat capsized, the two men climbed onto the upturned hull.
‘‘We had no radio, no cell phones,’’ Harris said.
Huffman later found a survival suit that floated from the wreckage.
Read the full story by the Associated Press in the Boston Globe