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I work as a charter boat captain. I have been chartering in Southern California for thirty years and this is one of the scariest experiences of my life.

We had been fishing for sharks for about 6 hours, my friend Mal and I had caught about 15 sharks, 12 blue sharks, and 3 makos. All were released except 1 small Mako of about 20 lbs, which would make a couple of tasty BBQs. A couple of high fives for a great day's fishing and we were about to head for home. I opened the engine hatch to shut off the bait tank pump and to my horror I saw the boat was half full of water. I yelled to Mal, "Get the bailing buckets we're sinking!" Glancing in the water below the boat, I saw a dozen or more hungry sharks that had come up our chum slick during the days chumming. If the boat sank we would be eaten!

We were in dire straits, 25 miles offshore, cellphones or radios don't work at this distance, and even if we could contact somebody, it would be an hour for them to get to us. I needed to get away from the area the sharks were in, that way if the boat went down, we wouldn't be in the middle of a large number of hungry sharks. I ran up the ladder to the flybridge, and quickly turned the key to start the port ( left side ) motor. Nothing! Why won't the motor start? I turned the key for the other motor, nothing! Now we were really up the creek without a paddle!

Things were getting worse by the minute, due to the boats rocking in the swell ( waves ). I hadn't noticed that the boat was slowly getting lower in the water ( SINKING! ) . Now the water had risen over the batteries and quickly drained the charge from them. The batteries were dead, nothing left to do but try to get the water out of the boat so we don't sink, as long as we could keep the boat afloat the sharks would not be able to eat us. I had taken so many of the sharks relatives home to dinner, I knew the sharks were waiting with relish at the thought of returning the favor!

We worked feverishly with the buckets to empty the water from the boat.
After about 45 min. most of the water was gone, and I could see no new water coming in. I looked over the side of the boat and noticed since we had stopped chumming most of the sharks had left. Now how were we going to start the motors with 2 dead batteries? I went to the medicine chest and got the bottle of aspirin, then I dropped 1 in each battery cell. The acid in the aspirin would give me one quick burst of power. I waited about 15 min for the aspirin to work, then used my jumper cables to hook both batteries to the engine that started the quickest. Crossing my fingers and holding my breath I turned the key...

The engine turned slowly, rrrrrr, rrrrrr, rrrrrr, varoom! What a sweet sound. I let the engine run for about 10 minutes to charge the batteries up then started the other engine, when both engines were running smoothly I went back to the engine compartment to see if I could discover where the water was coming from. I immediately saw water coming from the rubber hose that connects the riser to the exaust system, it had split and a good amount of water was flowing out into the bildge. I shut the motor down and tightly wrapped duct tape around the hose, that quick repair would get me home, the hose could be replaced tomorrow.

Learn more about this author, Roy Lawson.
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