This sounds like the beginning of a Gilligan’s Island episode, but alas, it is real life. Four friends were sailing to Polynesia but instead had an adventure of a lifetime.
They were eating pizza when their sailboat, the Raindancer, hit a whale. The impact was so great that it caused the vessel to sink. The crew was rescued by the closest ship, the Rolling Stones. The friends now have a heck of a fish tale to tell.
Rick Rodriguez owned the Raindancer and told his captivating story to Today. The crew had no idea what happened at first.
“My initial thought was what the [expletive] was that?” he said.
It soon became evident. "The whole boat shook," Rick recalled. "It sounded like something broke and we immediately looked to the side and we saw a really big whale bleeding." The propeller was ruptured, fiberglass shattered, and the vessel was sinking. They had to act fast.
More from LittleThings: Father And Son Fishing Duo Witness A Breaching Humpback Whale Just Inches From Their Boat
The friends quickly got to work to survive. Rick made several mayday calls, and the group got into an inflatable life raft as the sailboat sank. Alana Litz was one of the people aboard the Raindancer.
"It was just like, such a surreal moment,” she recalled. “And even when the boat was going down, I felt like it was just a scene out of a movie."
Rick sent a message to his friend Tommy Joyce, who also happened to be sailing nearby. "Tommy this is no joke, we hit a whale and the ship went down. We are in the life raft. We need help ASAP,” he wrote.
Tommy took to Facebook boating groups to find help. The closest boat to Rick and his crew was the Rolling Stones. Its crew charted a course to save the day.
"I think (we were) about 60 miles, 65 miles away when we realized that we were the closest boat," said Geoff Stone, the captain of the Rolling Stones.
Nine hours after the impact with the whale, the crew of the Rolling Stones rescued the four stranded sailors. Although it was an adrenaline-fueled event, Bianca Brateanu, one of those rescued, says she was never in fear of losing her life. She believed in herself and the capabilities of her friends and rescuers.
"This experience made me realize how capable we are, and how skilled we are to manage and cope with situations like this," she said.
This does not mean they were not incredibly thankful to be alive and rescued. They did, however, lose their passports and personal belongings to the sea.
Rick mourned this loss and the loss of his sailboat on Instagram. "I’ll remember that boat for the rest of my life. What’s left of my home, the pictures on the wall, belongings, pizza in the oven, cameras, journals, all of it, will forever be preserved by the sea,” he mused.
Rick is reeling a bit with a "temporary mistrust in the ocean," but he knows he won’t stay away for too long. "I'm not sure what my next move will be. But my attraction to the sea hasn't been shaken," he concluded.
