The group planned on camping on the island through Sunday, and were well-prepared with food and supplies. They were not yet overdue, and a search had not yet begun.
The pilot of a small plane passing overhead saw the letters "S.O.S." the group had spelled out on a beach in driftwood, and alerted the Coast Guard, according to Petty Officer Russ Tippets. A charter boat, the M/V Delta Fox, responded to the Coast Guard's request for assistance, but the boat's captain said he was unable to get close enough to pick up the men.
Air Station Kodiak deployed an HH-60 helicopter crew to pick up the boaters. No injuries were reported.
Jim Turner, 47, of Palmer, planned and lead the trip with his two sons, Joe, 16, and Dan, 14, and family friend Clark Russell. Turner spent part of his childhood in Seldovia, and said he often comes to Homer for boat trips.
He spoke to the Homer News a bit sheepishly about his weekend adventure.
"We planned on spending the weekend on Augustine Island, and hiking the volcano," Turner said.
He loaded his 22-foot Boston Whaler, the M/V Danny Jay, with camping gear and a week's worth of food, he said, plus fishing gear, two firearms and emergency safety gear.
A gale was forecast for Thursday evening. Turner hoped to beat it to Augustine, he said, and was well on his way.
"It was pretty flat in Cook Inlet," he said. "I was checking the weather from the station there every hour, and everything seemed okay."
But when the group got within about 15 miles of the island, the wind picked up to about 35 knots, he said, with gusts as high as 45 knots.
"It got plain rough," he said.
Still, Turner managed to get his boat to the lee side of the island, and planned on beaching it.
And then he ran out of fuel.
"Well, I had plenty of fuel on deck, but I had to refuel," he said. "That's a little tricky when the seas are rough."
He dropped the anchor to keep the boat from drifting, and began to refuel. But the boat, which he said rides low in the water with the big twin 140-horsepower outboards on it, started taking water over the transom.
"We weren't sinking or anything, but when you're getting six or eight inches of water on deck, and you've got battery boxes and things there, it starts to become a problem," he said.
Turner refueled one engine enough to restart it, but could not pull the anchor. After 15 minutes of trying, he tied it off to a buoy and cut the line.
From there, the group made it to the island <> but without the anchor, he said, there was no way for him to secure the boat. "There was nothing for me to tie it off to," he said.
With his options, and his fuel, dwindling, and the storm still gaining steam, Turner made a decision:
"We abandoned the boat," he said.
The Turners and their friend unloaded their gear, emptying the boat, and took the raft they used as a dinghy. Leaving the boat on a sandbar, with the tide coming in, they headed for the beach. When they made it, it was about 3 a.m., Turner said.
When the tide came in, it took his boat.
They set up camp on the beach, and the next morning collected enough driftwood to spell out the "S.O.S."
The Turners were prepared. In addition to a VHF radio and cell phone, they'd packed nine signal flares, an orange signal flag and mirrors. With firearms and fishing gear, Turner said, in addition to the extra food he'd packed, he believes they could have survived almost indefinitely.
That day they found the boat. It had washed up on the beach about a mile from where they had landed. Turner tried to use to the VHF radio, and each day went back to try again, but was unable to raise any contact.
"I don't know if the VHF is broken or what," he said. His cell phone was out of range, as well.
All July 18 and 19, each time a plane flew overhead, Turner tried to signal it. He was unable to attract attention with either the flares, the flags or the mirrors.
"By the time you hear the plane coming, it's 90 degrees to you," he said. "Even the plane that finally saw us, he didn't see our flares. He only saw the 'S.O.S.' letters."
The pilot saw the boat on Saturday, but not the men. He returned Sunday, and when he flew overhead looking for the boat, this time he saw the boaters.
Turner had two types of flare, smoke flares and meteor flares; neither, he said, seemed particularly effective in the long daylight hours.
Still, he said, even after he used his last flare on Sunday, he wasn't worried.
"My wife knew where we were," Turner said. "We weren't overdue yet. I was just trying to save my wife even that one night of anguish."
Turner said though he was well-prepared, he learned a few things from his ordeal.
"I should have refueled on the move instead of waiting for the tanks to run out," he said. "I should have had two anchors."
Most importantly, he said, he should not have tried to beat the storm.
"They seemed pretty prepared for this emergency," said Lt. Cmdr. Guy Pearce, one of the Coast Guard's HH-60 helicopter pilots on the rescue. "They had written S.O.S. on the beach, had flares and signal fires going. They had their camping gear and plenty of food and water."
Tippets said that though the boaters were well-prepared, there is always more you can do.
"They were well-prepared, just in terms of what we encourage people to plan for when they go boating," said Tippets. "We definitely encourage people to carry a VHF or even an (Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon)."
Turner agreed. And though nobody was injured, his boat hull was roughed up and will need repair, and his outboards sucked sand into their water pumps. He's currently negotiating a way to get his boat back from Augustine Island.
"We just thought it would be a good adventure to come down, camp a little bit and hike the volcano," he said. "We had our adventure, but we never made it up the volcano."
Chris Bernard can be reached at cbernard@homernews.com.
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