August 1, 2013 — “Oh God, I’m going to die,” John Aldridge said was his first thought after he fell off the Anna Mary over 30 miles south of Montauk in the dark early morning of July 24. “I remember almost grabbing the transom,” he said extending his fingers toward the memory during an interview Monday afternoon.
He had been on watch as Capt. Anthony Sosinski, known as Little Anthony, slept. No yell for help would be heard over the engine as the Anna Mary moved away beyond his reach. “I felt so helpless.”
“It was the end of my watch. I was about to wake him up. I was getting the refrigeration going, setting up the holding tanks, getting the system working. There were two coolers on top of the hatch. I grabbed the top one with a box hook like I’d done a thousand times, but it was heavy and I remember thinking, ‘This is a bad move.’ The handle snapped and the force of my pull put me over.”
The thought, “Oh God, I’m going to die” changed to the question, “Is this how I’m going to die?” he said. And then came the answer: “I’m breathing. The water’s warm. I’m living. It was the process of elimination. Survival.”
“I’m laying on my back with my feet in the air,” he said. He realized that his boots were designed to float. “I took them off and held them to my chest. I don’t know what made me do it, but I was this high out of the water,” he said pointing to his chest. “I thought, ‘I’ve got to stay positive. No negative thoughts.’ I didn’t allow them. The floating boots were a major high.”
The lobsterman looked within himself as he described the scene: alone on a dark sea in the moonlight with the boat heading away, and, at one point, fins on the surface. “I pulled out my pocket knife. I was looking at the boat in the moonlight. I saw a fin or two. I looked down and saw my feet, my white socks.”
Asked about the fear of sharks, he said, “I blocked it out. I would think about it every once in a while, but thought, ‘I can’t worry about it until it happens. I can’t waste my energy.’ I live offshore, so I know about the Golden Hour,” he said, meaning dawn, when fish, including the big predators, start to feed. “I’m freaking out on the surface and swimming like a frog,” he said with a laugh full of relief.
Read the full story from The East Hampton Star