Photo courtesy of
Rancho Bernardo
Boy Scout Troop 681 Orange County Sea Scout Zack Mayberry (right),
15, spotted scuba diver Dan Carlock bobbing in the ocean
Sunday and yelled to the other Sea Scouts and Rancho Bernardo
Boy Scouts who helped rescue Carlock.
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No
doubt the Rancho Bernardo Boy Scouts were hoping for a little
adventure last weekend when they boarded a century-old tall ship for
a two-day excursion.
This trip delivered.
The Scouts helped pull a scuba diver, lost and bobbing in the
ocean for five hours, to safety.
The miracle rescue came shortly after a near disaster when the
Scouts' ship was almost rammed by two hulking vessels made invisible
by a pea-soup fog, the Scouts said.
"We thought it was going to be an easy ride to Catalina and
back," said Dan Carroll, 14, a member of Troop 681.
The diver they helped rescue was Dan Carlock, 45, of Santa
Monica, who had been diving with a small group in the waters near
Newport Beach.
On Sunday morning, about 15 minutes into his dive, Carlock felt
pressure in his ears and resurfaced. The boat was about 400 feet
away, according to The Associated Press, and Carlock blew a whistle
to attract attention. He thought someone would certainly come back
for him after they discovered him missing.
That didn't happen.
Carlock, a former Boy Scout who grew up to be a spacecraft
engineer, drifted in the ocean for the next five hours. Somehow, he
had the presence of mind to take photographs of himself to offer
proof that he had made it to the surface should the worst-case
scenario occur.
He prayed that wouldn't happen.
"God, I don't want to die," he said, according to AP. "I want to
be saved. I need your help."
The Scouts, too, were facing a bit of drama that morning. They
had boarded the Argus at Newport Beach on Saturday to experience the
challenge and thrill of sailing a wooden vessel. They were taking
the trip with Sea Scouts from Orange County.
The trip out was fine – no problems. But on Sunday morning, they
learned that the ocean can be like Interstate 5 during rush hour.
Ron Jaenisch, Troop 681's unit commissioner, said the fog was so
thick that the two vessels appearing on their ship's radar couldn't
be seen by the naked eye. Fortunately, they could be heard.
The nearing ships blasted their horns, he said, and as the clock
ticked, the deep tones of the blasts grew louder. The Argus stopped.
The situation was so tense that the Argus crew was told to prepare
for possible evacuation, Jaenisch said.
Moments later, the ships passed so close that Jaenisch and the
Scouts could hear the sounds of the propellers and other machinery.
The second adventure began unfolding a half-hour or so later. The
Argus was sailing along and the fog had begun to lift when Orange
County Sea Scout Zack Mayberry, 15, let out a yell.
Zack had spotted someone in the water. He couldn't believe his
eyes, so he gave the binoculars to a buddy.
There, in the water, was Carlock.
"Man overboard!" they shouted.
Just the day before, the Boy Scouts and Sea Scouts had taken part
in a rescue drill. So when Rancho Bernardo High School freshman
David Jaenisch, 14, heard the cry, he thought it was another drill.
"I was surprised that someone could spot a person from that far
in the middle in the ocean," he said. "I didn't really see him until
they started to motor over there on the smaller boat."
Mira Mesa sophomore Kris Sewell, 16, was on bow watch at the
front of the ship when he heard the commotion.
"You had to look really hard," Sewell said. "Once you saw him,
you had to keep your eyes locked on him because the swell would go
up and you wouldn't see him anymore."
A boat was lowered, and Carlock was brought aboard. Kris Sewell's
father, a former Navy corpsman, checked to make sure the diver
wasn't hurt and that he didn't have decompression sickness.
"He actually heard his dive boat leave," Kelly Sewell said. "It
had to have been horrible."
Coast Guard officials told AP on Tuesday they were investigating
why Carlock was found 11 miles from the location where Ocean
Adventures Dive Co. of Marina del Rey reported him missing.
Yesterday, the Boy Scouts were still trying to absorb it all.
"I'm amazed," Dan Carroll said. "I mean, we actually helped
rescue someone."
Michael Stetz: (619) 542-4570; michael.stetz@uniontrib.com
