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  • The Notebook, the Checks, and the Woman Who Survived Sixteen Days

    The Notebook, the Checks, and the Woman Who Survived Sixteen Days
    2026/09/11
    The Notebook, the Checks, and the Woman Who Survived Sixteen Days

    A desperate act of triage was written in a soaking notebook that washed ashore two hundred and thirty miles from the wreck - and those four small checkmarks would decide who lived. What happened on the Maren Dusk between impact, a burning ship, and a half-buried spiral that turned up in a Georgia marsh sixteen days later?

    In this episode, we tell what the surviving notebook contained, who wrote it, and how its seven names explain why one crew member lived while others did not. How did a damaged lifeboat, freezing water, and a single list determine survival?

    Person: James Ferris
    Date: November 1, 2011
    Location: Atlantic (impact on port quarter) / Harker's Flat marsh, Georgia (notebook found)
    Event: Collision and fire aboard the Maren Dusk
    Status: One survivor from the ship

    - The Maren Dusk was struck at approximately 2:40 AM on November 1, 2011, and was on fire four minutes later.
    - The vessel was a 162-foot product tanker registered in Wilmington, Delaware, carrying industrial solvent and had departed Brunswick, Georgia on October 23, 2011.
    - James Ferris, age 31 and the ship’s second officer, wrote seven names under the heading "CAN SWIM" and marked four with checkmarks while bleeding and hypothermic.
    - Six people launched in the starboard survival capsule in sixteen-foot seas; the capsule held six survivors: Karen Wells, James Ferris, Paula Nance, Rico Sands, Leonard Pryce, and Eddie Thorn.
    - A well-service contractor, Melvin Sullivan, found the rusted, coverless notebook in cordgrass at Harker's Flat marsh on November 14, 2011, about 230 miles from where the ship sank.

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    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    19 分
  • Dry Notebook, Drifting Sloop: How Twelve Days Left Them Four Miles Too Far

    Dry Notebook, Drifting Sloop: How Twelve Days Left Them Four Miles Too Far
    2026/09/10
    Dry Notebook, Drifting Sloop: How Twelve Days Left Them Four Miles Too Far

    A dry composition notebook floated four miles off Gull Flat Shoal with a rubber band still intact, its pages unread by salt despite eleven days at sea - and what was written inside helped explain how three people aboard a forty-two-foot sloop ended up one hundred and thirty miles outside the search box. How did a waterlogged passage, a failed watermaker, and nineteen hours of a drifting, dismasted boat combine to put them just out of reach?

    In this episode, we trace the sequence of small decisions, mechanical failures, and weather that unfolded from departure to discovery, and follow how a dry notebook and a triggered EPIRB set rescue efforts in motion. What do the notebook’s pages and the boat’s logged position reveal about where things went wrong?

    Person: Tom Rafferty
    Person: Nina Vargas
    Person: Douglas Smith
    Date: October 9-23, 2019
    Event: Watermaker failure, dismasting, 11-day drift

    - The boat was a forty-two-foot sloop named Calico Wind with three people aboard.
    - The watermaker stopped at 23:47 on October 9, less than nine hours after leaving Pensacola Pass.
    - The crew rationed forty-six liters of water into one liter per person per day.
    - On October 12 the boat ran under bare poles in eight-foot seas and forty-one-knot winds and broached, causing the mast to fail.
    - The EPIRB broadcast a logged position approximately 210 miles southwest of Dry Notebook.

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    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    20 分
  • She Drank Saltwater, Survived 61 Hours - How One Life Ring Solved It

    She Drank Saltwater, Survived 61 Hours - How One Life Ring Solved It
    2026/09/09
    She Drank Saltwater, Survived 61 Hours - How One Life Ring Solved It

    The first image is a dry life ring propped upright against a fence more than forty miles from the search area, yet the woman whose name was stenciled on it spent fifty-five hours on a burned hull with less than 0.25 liters of water. How did a chain of small, separate decisions - a retired fisherman's map, a teenager's photo, a coordinator's persistence - add up to a rescue that began with a single life ring?

    In this episode, we tell the full sequence of events from the last log entry through the fire, the abandon, and the long wait for rescue, describing who did what and when to change the outcome. What specific moments and missed chances made sixty-one hours between fire and rescue possible?

    Person: Beverly Petersen
    Vessel: Meridian Two
    Date: September 6-9
    Location: Harker's Inlet / Ocracoke Inlet area
    Duration: 61 hours

    - At 11:47 PM on September 6 the last log entry noted “Smell of something electrical. Dennis checking the port engine compartment.”
    - The port-engine fuel return line had been misting diesel for nine hours before fire entered the forward cabin at ~midnight on September 7.
    - Beverly went over the side with a ditch bag containing a handheld VHF, two flares, a mylar blanket, partial energy bars, and a 1-liter bottle that was three-quarters full.
    - Beverly held the anchor chain and Dennis’s wrist for approximately 20 minutes before reboarding the stern grid as the starboard-side fire dropped.
    - The life ring found by a fourteen-year-old Melissa Ford at 6:40 AM on September 9 had traveled over 40 miles and rested dry during a brief dew-free window.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    18 分
  • Left Behind at Sea: The EPIRB Found Twelve Miles Inland

    Left Behind at Sea: The EPIRB Found Twelve Miles Inland
    2026/09/08
    Left Behind at Sea: The EPIRB Found Twelve Miles Inland

    A rusted orange EPIRB, crusted with salt and sand, turned up more than twelve miles from the coast while its owner had been home for eleven days - how did a beacon that should signal rescue end up abandoned inland? If a seasoned sailor tested his beacon, serviced his life raft, and left detailed float plans, what broke down during the thirty-one hours he spent trying to save his own boat?

    In this episode, we follow the timeline from a routine departure to a mast in the water and a stopped tracker, and we piece together the small, concrete failures and decisions that followed. What do the EPIRB, the car trunk with two forgotten bags, and a final GPS ping forty-one miles offshore reveal about those crucial hours?

    Person: Earl Gardner
    Date (departure): July 28
    Date (found object): August 18
    Location (last tracker): forty-one miles south-southwest of Ventura
    Duration aboard boat after damage: 31 hours

    - The EPIRB was found snagged against a cattle grate on a dirt service road more than twelve miles from the nearest coastline.
    - Earl filed a float plan and left Moss Cove at 6:41 AM after loading two bags into his car trunk at 6:22 AM and walking back to the dock without them.
    - The Audra Jean's tracker registered its last position at 11:14 AM, forty-one miles south-southwest of Ventura, then stopped.
    - A microburst at approximately 12:41 PM caused the mast to come down, fouled the propeller, and opened a slow starboard breach in the topside.
    - Earl stayed aboard and worked to save the boat for thirty-one hours, keeping a paper log that was later found water-damaged but largely legible.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    20 分
  • She Survived Thirteen Hours: The Card That Kept Her Alive

    She Survived Thirteen Hours: The Card That Kept Her Alive
    2026/09/07
    She Survived Thirteen Hours: The Card That Kept Her Alive

    The first thing Megan Berry found in the mud after two and a half inches of rain was a dry, laminated card with seven blue ballpoint stars and a note: "two forty-three degrees, hold it on your left shoulder, do not lose it." A woman named Teresa McCarthy spent thirteen hours and thirty-five minutes alone in the Gulf during a nighttime squall clutching that same card - how did handwriting on a scrap of laminate become the tether between life and survival?

    In this episode, we tell the story of Teresa McCarthy from the night she went overboard to the morning she was brought ashore, following the weather, the decisions aboard the forty-two-foot sloop Carver's Rest, and the note that never got wet. What did Teresa write in the dark, and why did that card matter for her survival?

    Person: Teresa McCarthy
    Age: 24
    Vessel: 42-foot sloop Carver's Rest
    Duration in water: 13 hours and 35 minutes
    Date of departure call to mother: July 18, 2017 at 6:03 PM

    - The card Megan found had seven stars drawn in blue ballpoint pen and the handwritten note "two forty-three degrees, hold it on your left shoulder, do not lose it" signed T. McCarthy.
    - Two and a half inches of rain had fallen over the previous 48 hours at the spot where the card was recovered, yet the card was completely dry and unsmeared.
    - Teresa went over the port rail at approximately 1:00 AM on July 20, 2017 after a forced jibe during a squall; Nick Alvarez called MAYDAY at 1:47 AM on Channel 16.
    - A rescue helicopter deposited a barely conscious Teresa at a Pensacola Beach boat ramp three days earlier, with severe dehydration and mild burns across her neck and both forearms, and she was still holding the card.
    - The squall line that caught Carver's Rest was moving north-northeast at approximately 30 knots and had organized along a convergence zone that forecast models failed to resolve.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    21 分
  • The Raft with the Unspilled Glass: How Kathleen Survived Four Days at Sea

    The Raft with the Unspilled Glass: How Kathleen Survived Four Days at Sea
    2026/09/06
    The Raft with the Unspilled Glass: How Kathleen Survived Four Days at Sea

    A sunlit seawall jog discovers an orange life raft with a heavy-bottomed glass filled to within half an inch - unspilled after days at sea - a single detail that did not fit the physics of a four-day drift. What did that still glass, found at Pelican Point on June 14, reveal about the four and a half days that nearly erased Kathleen Richardson?

    In this episode, we follow the timeline from Kathleen Richardson’s departure from Tillman’s Marina on June 10 at 18:45 through the sparse signals that triggered a search, tracing reports from a crab captain, a SAR coordinator, and a diver who recovered evidence from forty feet of water; what do those fragments together tell us about what happened offshore?

    Person: Kathleen Richardson
    Date: June 10, 2019 (departure) / June 14, 2019 (raft found)
    Location: Tillman's Marina departure; Pelican Point seawall discovery
    Vessel: 37-foot cutter-rigged passage maker named Anise
    Recovered item: Fuel tank from 40 feet of water

    - Kathleen departed Tillman’s Marina at 18:45 on June 10, 2019, bound for Cueva Bank, ~60 nautical miles SSE.
    - Beverly Ford found the orange life raft under the Pelican Point seawall at 05:50 on June 14 with a heavy-bottomed glass filled to within 0.5 inches of the rim.
    - Tom Greer logged finding an orange throwable cushion stenciled “A-N” while running his crab boat west-southwest of Marker Island and reported it to Marine Patrol that afternoon.
    - Allen Pruitt last saw Kathleen wave as Anise cleared the dock and noted she missed a scheduled arrival and a 21:00 Wednesday call with her daughter Megan.
    - A diver recovered a fuel tank from 40 feet of water in the northern reaches of Crescent Passage, evidence later tied to a squall that hit within 2-3 hours after Kathleen’s departure.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    19 分
  • The Dry Pink Sneaker: How a Calm Night Became a Deadly Wall

    The Dry Pink Sneaker: How a Calm Night Became a Deadly Wall
    2026/09/05
    The Dry Pink Sneaker: How a Calm Night Became a Deadly Wall

    A single dry size four pink sneaker sat on an overturned hull that had been underwater for seventeen hours - a startling, concrete sign that a routine evening had become a disaster. What unfolded between a calm departure and a sudden wall of wind that hit in less than ninety seconds, leaving twenty-two people in cold water, did not make sense until nine days later; how did that shoe end up dry on a sunken hull?

    In this episode, we hear the timeline from departure at Kellam Inlet through the sudden weather collapse and the immediate aftermath, following crew and chaperones as the Marta Louise capsized and survivors fought to stay alive - can a perfect system fail that quickly?

    Date: May 14, 2019
    Location: Kellam Inlet
    Person: Darlene Gardner
    Event: Capsizing of the Marta Louise
    Number aboard: 22

    - The Marta Louise left Kellam Inlet at 6:55 PM with 14 children aged six to eleven and 6 adult chaperones.
    - Wind increased from 12 knots at 7:39 PM to 31 knots four minutes later, a change that struck as a wall.
    - The hull had been underwater for 17 hours when Teresa Casey found the dry sneaker at 7:42 AM on May 14.
    - Water temperature that evening was 53 degrees Fahrenheit.
    - From first contact with the leading wave to the hull rolling past the point of no return was less than 90 seconds.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    16 分
  • The Dry Logbook: Why Monica Sailed Past the Continental Shelf

    The Dry Logbook: Why Monica Sailed Past the Continental Shelf
    2026/09/04
    The Dry Logbook: Why Monica Sailed Past the Continental Shelf

    A dry notebook washed up forty yards off Crane Harbor, Georgia, after four inches of rain and a breakwater went under - yet the red spiral logbook and its pen were bone dry, sealed in a zip-lock with orange paracord. Inside were twelve days at sea: barometric readings, repeated entries that read "just need to get past the shelf," and a storm that dismasted the Celia Rose ninety-three miles offshore; why had Monica Hall sailed east-northeast into open ocean when her filed float plan showed a coastal trip?

    In this episode, we tell what the notebook recorded and how those entries fit the known facts of Monica Hall's life and voyage, from her Parkinson's diagnosis to the dismasting and lost EPIRB - and we ask the central question left by the evidence: what drove her to go past the continental shelf?

    Person: Monica Hall
    Date: April 29, 2019 (notebook found)
    Location: Forty yards off the east breakwater at Crane Harbor, Georgia
    Event: Dismasting of the Celia Rose ninety-three miles offshore
    Status: Notebook recovered; no boat or debris field found

    - The notebook was found dry and sealed in a zip-lock with orange paracord forty yards off the east breakwater.
    - Four inches of rain fell in the seventy-two hours before the notebook was found, and the breakwater went under at high tide the night before.
    - Monica filed a float plan for a four-day coastal passage to Cumberland Sound but actually headed east-northeast into open ocean.
    - The Celia Rose was dismasted during a storm when winds climbed to forty-two knots and a rogue wave caused an uncontrolled jibe.
    - The EPIRB's mounting bracket sheared during the knockdown and the emergency beacon was lost with the rigging.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    18 分