Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin, and you were listening to Here's
Speaker 1: the Thing from my Heart Radio. Imagine being in the
Speaker 1: middle of the ocean, in the pitch black of night,
Speaker 1: with only a sliver of the moon to illuminate the
Speaker 1: bobbing waves which obscure almost everything from your line of sight.
Speaker 1: The boat you were on moments ago is speeding off
Speaker 1: into the distance, and no one can hear your cries
Speaker 1: for help over the whir of the engine. You now
Speaker 1: only have your wits to save you from this nightmare.
Speaker 1: My guest today knows this feeling from actual experience. John
Speaker 1: old Rich, along with his partner Anthony Sasinski, is the
Speaker 1: owner and operator of the Anna Mary, a lobster boat
Speaker 1: the trolls for its catch off the coast of Montauk
Speaker 1: Long Island. Their book, Speck in the Sea, A Story
Speaker 1: of Survival and Rescue, is the harrowing account of Aldridge
Speaker 1: falling aboard and finding himself alone in the open ocean.
Speaker 1: The Speck in the Sea, the title of the book suggests,
Speaker 1: my name is Anthony Sosinski. My name is John Aldridge.
Speaker 1: Most fishermen will tell you their work is a calling,
Speaker 1: that it's in their blood. Despite it being the most
Speaker 1: dangerous profession in the US. And like many who were
Speaker 1: married to the sea, Anthony and John's called to the
Speaker 1: water began in childhood. So as a youth, I had
Speaker 1: was born in Brooklyn and my father, when I was
Speaker 1: first able to walk, would take me down to the
Speaker 1: shoreline to the Brooklyn Navy Yard. There was a pier
Speaker 1: there and we would fish for goals and little blackfish.
Speaker 1: And then we moved to Long Island Town, Oakdale. And
Speaker 1: when we moved to Oakdale, we had to learn how
Speaker 1: to swim. We had no choice. We couldn't be around
Speaker 1: the bay unless we learned how to swim. So there
Speaker 1: was Byron Lake Park. We went to learn how to
Speaker 1: swim Environln Park. It was always cold, it was spring.
Speaker 1: I hated going in the water because it was so
Speaker 1: damn cold, and my father would take us. We had
Speaker 1: a nineteen foot like Jersey skiff and we would launch
Speaker 1: it at a Great River or Hexha State Park and
Speaker 1: we would fish the Great South Bay. We would go
Speaker 1: out to Fire Island Inlet and uh we would go
Speaker 1: far offshore with just a CB radio and a bottom
Speaker 1: machine and he would teach me how to navigate on
Speaker 1: how to get back to Fire Island Inlet. And this
Speaker 1: one particular time, it was foggy and we wound up
Speaker 1: in Tobay Beach trying to get in, and there's these
Speaker 1: naked people that are jumping like because it was the
Speaker 1: nude beach at that time, And I was like, Dad,
Speaker 1: where did you get us lost to? You know, he
Speaker 1: knew what he was doing. Yeah, I think he did.
Speaker 1: He would think you were you were ready to learn
Speaker 1: a lot of things that day. Yeah, So as a
Speaker 1: kid south Shore and then when did you decide your
Speaker 1: father obviously passes us on Like my dad, My dad
Speaker 1: would be in the water, and we grew up in
Speaker 1: a town down where people along the water. A few
Speaker 1: people would have these bins on the side of their
Speaker 1: house and there was an inflatable inner tube of attire,
Speaker 1: a peach basket and some rope and beat up shitty
Speaker 1: old sneakers tied together with the laces, and you put
Speaker 1: the shitty sneakers on the old youth sneakers, You tie
Speaker 1: the rope around your waist, You put the peach basket
Speaker 1: in the inner tube and it floated out and my
Speaker 1: father would literally go around those great zap ango right foot,
Speaker 1: and my brothers and I would dive down the lamb
Speaker 1: under his foot, go like this and go left foot.
Speaker 1: And when we came home we had baskets full of chowders,
Speaker 1: little necks, you know, you had it on the half shell,
Speaker 1: you had him raw, or we had the ones for
Speaker 1: the soup. And this is a big part of our lives.
Speaker 1: We did it all. We did this by bicycle. We
Speaker 1: would ride our bikes down to the beat down to
Speaker 1: the school and we would walk in with waiters in
Speaker 1: a full wet suit and we would catch a basket
Speaker 1: of clams, put it in a bag and we'd leave
Speaker 1: it on the bottom right by the docks and idle out, uh,
Speaker 1: and then go back, get on the bus and go
Speaker 1: to school. And then in the afternoon, off out of school,
Speaker 1: we would put that bag of clams on the bar
Speaker 1: of our bicycle and we would ride from Oakdale to
Speaker 1: West Sable too to sell our clams. And yeah, we'd
Speaker 1: sold them, like you know, we made a morning's pay
Speaker 1: before school in them. I was in seventh Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: well we did that too, but but so so you
Speaker 1: were a quote unquote commercial fishermen from early on. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: we would go mackerel fishing in the springtime with my
Speaker 1: dad's boat. We would use the garbage cans to fill
Speaker 1: them up with the mackerel, and then we would sell
Speaker 1: them on the side of Montauk Highway. My father would
Speaker 1: leave me there with the cooler. We'd come back an
Speaker 1: hour later and there would be nothing left, and I'd
Speaker 1: have the money and away we'd go, right by J
Speaker 1: and R. Tackle was commercial fishing the way you practice
Speaker 1: it as an adult. With that a foregone conclusion. At
Speaker 1: early I wanted to do that. Always wanted to be
Speaker 1: a fisherman. Yeah, a Montalk. Well, my dad took me
Speaker 1: at a young age. So then we would go on
Speaker 1: the weekends and we were weekend warriors out east. So
Speaker 1: on Friday night we would get in my father's Vista
Speaker 1: Cruz station wagon just like the seventies show. We had
Speaker 1: one of those with the backpack seat, and um the
Speaker 1: way we would drive to Montalk from Oakdale. Now this
Speaker 1: is for John Aldrich. John, of course is the person who,
Speaker 1: when we tell the story eventually is the one who
Speaker 1: went into the water in the story that is the
Speaker 1: book is Montalk. Most people perceive, you know, when you're
Speaker 1: out there, you eat as much fresh fish in the
Speaker 1: summertime and beyond as you can, because you always have
Speaker 1: this image of Montoka still a mecca of fish markets,
Speaker 1: like the best fish is coming out that dock and
Speaker 1: out of these boats. Patrick Wetzel, he's an old friend
Speaker 1: of mine, pass an old pal of mine, and I
Speaker 1: grew up with Pat Nassa shows a Massi pek. But
Speaker 1: now he's got a pool company. Lets hear my pool.
Speaker 1: His company does not Pat, but but I mean that's
Speaker 1: an old old old friend, top shelf, childhood, top shelf.
Speaker 1: And all these guys head out there because and then
Speaker 1: they're from what you understand if you're not in the business,
Speaker 1: like this is it Montoka the place to go? That's
Speaker 1: still true? Yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot of the younger
Speaker 1: guys that trying to get into the industry from back west,
Speaker 1: you know, end up out there still, you know, but
Speaker 1: mostly in the charter fleet, not in the commercial fleet,
Speaker 1: because there's no new commercial fisherman really anymore. So we
Speaker 1: just it's not close effective. It's where is the fish
Speaker 1: coming from. It's coming from America, yeah, all over the world,
Speaker 1: coming from the docks, and not as much as you
Speaker 1: would think the freshest fish you're gonna get is on
Speaker 1: the East End, but a lot of the American fishermen
Speaker 1: will push the way because of sustainable practices. So the
Speaker 1: swordfish fleet left America and started fishing out a Trinidad.
Speaker 1: So the swordfish American swordfish fleet moved and they can
Speaker 1: get a few for a dollar a gallon in Trinidad.
Speaker 1: So in the early nineties, myself, we would take the
Speaker 1: boats with the mother ship down to Puerto Rico and
Speaker 1: fish off of South America. Those fish went back to
Speaker 1: Puerto Rico, which then went into a container and was
Speaker 1: shipped the Faulton Fish Market, which then the same people
Speaker 1: in Bay Shore sold their catch in New York. Today,
Speaker 1: with sustainability, the American longliner could not make a living
Speaker 1: with how much bait cost, how much fuel cost, how
Speaker 1: much observer program costs, the cameras, everything that goes along
Speaker 1: with it. They went out of business in America. They
Speaker 1: moved their operations elsewhere and they shipped the fish back
Speaker 1: American airline. So our local fish market is buying fish
Speaker 1: that were caught in South America, but they might be
Speaker 1: caught from the American fleet. What are they still getting
Speaker 1: in montok off the coast of Long Island. Squid this
Speaker 1: year was amazing, like the best year locally they had.
Speaker 1: Tile fish Fleet still catches their quota. You know, each
Speaker 1: and every species is there an abundance, but the practices
Speaker 1: to make a living economically doesn't add up anymore for
Speaker 1: a lot of fisheries. So I was told years ago
Speaker 1: that through whatever influence, through whatever manipulation, the laws, the
Speaker 1: state laws and county laws were shifted and tilted towards
Speaker 1: favoring recreational fishermen and not commercial fishermen. They were saying
Speaker 1: that they put a lot of restrictions on commercial fishermen,
Speaker 1: and they wanted people in party boats, and they wanted
Speaker 1: them to be buying beer and lunch and going out there,
Speaker 1: and they wanted to get housing. And they thought it
Speaker 1: was better for the economy for the recreational fishing industry
Speaker 1: to be given the upper hand when it came to
Speaker 1: stripe bass, for sure, and that is that still in
Speaker 1: place for stripe baths. Basically it is that's a sport fish.
Speaker 1: On the day that this event happens, you were out
Speaker 1: fishing for what lobster and now so lobster and crab
Speaker 1: now the better lobsters. You gotta dive with divers on
Speaker 1: a shelf off the coast of the island. The pots.
Speaker 1: Thing is, this isn't working as well anymore, is that true? No? No,
Speaker 1: you have pots? Oh yeah, we fished eight hundred with
Speaker 1: eight hundred pots in the water. Yeah, with fishing fifty
Speaker 1: miles from land. Right, So there's no diving. We're fishing
Speaker 1: on the continental shell. Right. And how deep is it there?
Speaker 1: Three hundred and upwoods of five hundred feet and the
Speaker 1: pots go all the way to the bottom. You put
Speaker 1: a pot three hundred feet down and you have how
Speaker 1: many pots? Eight hundred on a string with thirty on
Speaker 1: a string? Right? And how many is one lobster per pot? No?
Speaker 1: We sometimes you catch a whole bunch. How do you
Speaker 1: do now, explain to people how a lobster but works.
Speaker 1: You put bait in the front part of it, which
Speaker 1: is the parlor, which is the kitchen, and so the
Speaker 1: lobsters will walk in. They'll eat at the bait and
Speaker 1: then say another lobster, are crable walking and it'll push
Speaker 1: that lobster to the back in the pot. Now, when
Speaker 1: they get to the back of the pot, they fall in,
Speaker 1: and that's the parlor pot where they hang out, and
Speaker 1: in that section we have escape vents that size out
Speaker 1: the lobster. So certain size lobster could just walk in
Speaker 1: and walk out of the trap on a regular you know,
Speaker 1: they come in, they'll eat, they'll walk to the back
Speaker 1: of the trap, they'd be like, oh, we don't want
Speaker 1: to be here, and they'll walk right out the vent.
Speaker 1: But when they legal size, they won't be able to
Speaker 1: walk out the vent, and that's how we catch them.
Speaker 1: Are people diving for lobster and around around the around
Speaker 1: the shoot, you know, the jetties and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: but recreationally not. That's the same as the surfer riding
Speaker 1: waves is the diver or diving for lobster. It's a
Speaker 1: recreational sport. There's no way that you're feeding New York
Speaker 1: State or the coast with someone swimming down and picking
Speaker 1: up There's not that many and we would be doing it.
Speaker 1: We're fishing on a migratory animal, so our lobster is
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why we're that far off shores.
Speaker 1: Like you were saying about the die off, well, the
Speaker 1: lots of shells were getting thinner back in the late nineties,
Speaker 1: John and I will ensure a lobster and all around
Speaker 1: fishes Island and back then lobster and was very good
Speaker 1: in the Long Island Sound, and then there was a
Speaker 1: die off that we lost biomass of the lopses. So
Speaker 1: at that point we bought a boat with a permit
Speaker 1: to fish as far out as America has a license
Speaker 1: under my big so we have a permit, and now
Speaker 1: that permit allows us to fish for other things. So
Speaker 1: we're not just fishing on lopses. We're also fishing on crab.
Speaker 1: But back when we first started this that there was
Speaker 1: a value that was very cheap on this particular item,
Speaker 1: so most people weren't fishing on them because you needed
Speaker 1: a lot of them. In New York State didn't have
Speaker 1: processing plants to process these crabs. But today the crab
Speaker 1: is now a valuable commodity because crab priced throughout the
Speaker 1: war world has escalated. I'm sure that the deadliest catch
Speaker 1: had something to do with some of that, but they
Speaker 1: needed a substitute for other crabs. So this crab is
Speaker 1: what we're fishing on, so we're we don't really even
Speaker 1: target lopses anymore as much as we're targeting crabs. And lopses.
Speaker 1: Now the boat in question, the boat on the night
Speaker 1: of the event, was how long it is? How long?
Speaker 1: It's a forty four ft boat. And when you're done,
Speaker 1: so to speak, when you're gonna take whatever the catches
Speaker 1: to market? The market is Montoka. You go somewhere else.
Speaker 1: I always yourself. And there's a one one guy or
Speaker 1: one family. You said was one people coming? We split
Speaker 1: it up. We are crabs come into the city and
Speaker 1: all ops is stay local at the fish farm. And
Speaker 1: I'm against right the sets where they go. What's the
Speaker 1: longest you deploy shall we say you're deployed for how long?
Speaker 1: Two days? That's the most. You don't go out there
Speaker 1: for a month. No, no, no, no, not on atboat.
Speaker 1: We try to fill it up in two days and
Speaker 1: go home. So you're on the boat and it's the
Speaker 1: middle of the night. Correct when it when the incident? Yes,
Speaker 1: when in the morning? Probably described because I've been told
Speaker 1: and then in the book I've seen. I didn't read
Speaker 1: the book for it was a while ago. Tell me
Speaker 1: what happens? They're where and where are you? So Anthony
Speaker 1: and Mike were asleep, you know. We we fished eight
Speaker 1: hours from land, so we left about eight o'clock at night,
Speaker 1: and you know, we have to getting everything settled down.
Speaker 1: The two of them went to sleep. I was on watch,
Speaker 1: and you know, it was keeping an eye on the
Speaker 1: radar and you know, making sure there's nothing around us.
Speaker 1: Was the condition of the water. It was about four
Speaker 1: foot see, you know, a little little choppy, not much
Speaker 1: as we came off of a little bit of a
Speaker 1: storm of the day before, and I was supposed to
Speaker 1: get nice that day, so that's why we left. And
Speaker 1: then around to thirty in the morning, I was getting
Speaker 1: the boat ready to fish for that day with this
Speaker 1: new refrigeration system that we have on board, and I
Speaker 1: had to move some coolers around and get into some hatches.
Speaker 1: And as I was doing that, two coolers were on
Speaker 1: top of each other on top of the hatch, and
Speaker 1: I took this like three ft long box hook and
Speaker 1: I hooked into the cool into the coolert to move him,
Speaker 1: which gave me another three ft towards the back of
Speaker 1: the boat I would be And the back of our
Speaker 1: boat doesn't have a back to it to transom. It's
Speaker 1: just opened. The deck is open to the flat deck,
Speaker 1: no transom straight out, straight out and that's when that's designed.
Speaker 1: Why so the traps slide off the deck right into
Speaker 1: the water because we put and as I was pulling
Speaker 1: on that to handle snap, there's no has not nothing.
Speaker 1: And I went flying out of the back of the
Speaker 1: boat at you know, two thirty in the morning, forty
Speaker 1: five miles from land. The boats on autopilot, dare asleep,
Speaker 1: the noise of the boat, but you know, I can't
Speaker 1: hear anything. And you know right then and there that
Speaker 1: you know, no one in the world knows he's missing.
Speaker 1: John old Ridge and Anthony Sasinski. If you enjoy conversations
Speaker 1: about the East end of Long Island, check out my
Speaker 1: episode with David rattray on and editor of the newspaper
Speaker 1: The Easthampton Star, whose family has owned the paper for
Speaker 1: three generations. I have friends and sag Harbor I don't see.
Speaker 1: I live in m against It. You know, I don't
Speaker 1: see him until October. And I'm willing to drive to
Speaker 1: sag Harbor. The sag Harbor people won't drive to m aganst.
Speaker 1: There's a whole thing. I used to come out for
Speaker 1: the weekend and pack it all into two days, and
Speaker 1: now I can't even conceive of doing that it seems
Speaker 1: impossible to operate at that speed. There's a quality of
Speaker 1: perfection that didn't exist when I was a kid, and
Speaker 1: even a young person here, the quality of having the
Speaker 1: perfect weekend, the perfect margarite, of the perfect lobster bake,
Speaker 1: or something like that. So if there's a shift too,
Speaker 1: I think there's one of tone and expectation among people. Here.
Speaker 1: To hear more of my conversation with David Ratre, go
Speaker 1: to Here's the Thing dot org. After the Break, John
Speaker 1: Oldrid shares how finding the will to survive the most
Speaker 1: challenging of circumstances is a choice. I'm Alec Baldwin and
Speaker 1: you were listening to hear the Thing the night John
Speaker 1: old Ridge nearly lost his life. He was heading out
Speaker 1: on a routine lobster hall on his vessel the Anna Mary,
Speaker 1: like countless nights before. It was, however, an unlikely equipment
Speaker 1: failure that sent old Ridge flying through the air, off
Speaker 1: the back end of the boat and into the ocean.
Speaker 1: So I go into warr and I started freaking, are
Speaker 1: you relatively fit? Yeah? And you know, as soon as
Speaker 1: I hit the water, I realized that it's pretty warm.
Speaker 1: I don't know why I thought that, but it was warm,
Speaker 1: but I'm sure the adrenaline was just flying through me.
Speaker 1: And I was in July July degree water, which you
Speaker 1: know you wouldn't go when you pulled seventy one degrees.
Speaker 1: And I was panicking, panicking, and I had my shots
Speaker 1: on T shirt, a little three inch pocket knife, and
Speaker 1: my fishing boots, and um, I was just about to drown,
Speaker 1: you know, because I exerted so much energy freaking out
Speaker 1: that I realized my boots was the only thing I
Speaker 1: could grab onto to catch another breath. So I kicked
Speaker 1: them off and grabbed them and I got another breath.
Speaker 1: And then something in me just clicked, and I took
Speaker 1: the boot and I emptied the water out of it
Speaker 1: and created an air pocket with the boot, and I
Speaker 1: did that with both boots, and I put him under
Speaker 1: my arm. And I wasn't fighting to stay afloat. I
Speaker 1: was like I was floating with no effort. So that
Speaker 1: was like, gave me a second or two or two
Speaker 1: figure out, you know how screwed I really am. You know,
Speaker 1: the boats moving further and further away, the boat's gone
Speaker 1: in seconds, basically because your chin is on the wa nighttime. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's nighttime, and then you know you're on the water
Speaker 1: and then lit up so far, Yeah, you can only
Speaker 1: see it, but the back deck is lit up looking
Speaker 1: down and the big spotlight, if it was on, would
Speaker 1: be looking forward. So he's looking at a light that's
Speaker 1: getting dimmer and him really he's in the water. It's
Speaker 1: one something in the morning. When do you realize John's gone?
Speaker 1: So I am woken up by Mike, and Mike was
Speaker 1: supposed to get woken up to go on watch. John
Speaker 1: is supposed to wake Mike up. Okay, So Mike wakes
Speaker 1: me up and says John's not on the boat. And
Speaker 1: that's at six am, and that's about what time we
Speaker 1: was supposed to start working. So I wake up to
Speaker 1: he's not there. That's how that starts off of me.
Speaker 1: And it's you know, you you can't believe it at first,
Speaker 1: and you know there was no I was in the
Speaker 1: bunk room. Next thing, he knows him up on the deck.
Speaker 1: You don't have your shoes on because you don't take
Speaker 1: time to put shoes on. And I go up on
Speaker 1: deck and then I look at Mike because I have
Speaker 1: my navigation equipment. I look and I realized, wow, I'm
Speaker 1: sixty two miles from land. The boats on autopilot going south,
Speaker 1: so we went by you ended up where So were
Speaker 1: sixty miles from land when I woke up, and we
Speaker 1: have well, we have no idea when John Well, the
Speaker 1: gear was fifty two miles that we will go into.
Speaker 1: But we are assuming at this point if John was
Speaker 1: supposed to wake up Mike, that John would have fell
Speaker 1: overboard some maybe twenty miles from land. Well, he could
Speaker 1: have fell overboard right when we went to sleep, so
Speaker 1: he should have fell overboard somewhere closer to land. So
Speaker 1: I thought, you know, I have to turn. I turned
Speaker 1: the boat around and I called the Coastguard and I
Speaker 1: explained to them that he's not on board the boat
Speaker 1: and where I am, and I begged them to send
Speaker 1: an aircraft due south of Montalk from life. They did.
Speaker 1: They sent every piece of equipment that the United States
Speaker 1: is allowed to send. Did you ever have any other
Speaker 1: interactions with the Coastguard before I have? Yeah, what was it?
Speaker 1: What happened? Different things, anything from accidents to boat sinking.
Speaker 1: So I've been involved in the attempt rescue of friends
Speaker 1: that were never found. You went out to find him, Well,
Speaker 1: I was out. I was the last person to hear
Speaker 1: one of my friends screaming for help on the VHF
Speaker 1: radio and U boat off a block island. The boat sank.
Speaker 1: He was screaming his coordinates to where he was never found. No,
Speaker 1: he didn't survive. In the morning, we gave him a
Speaker 1: life raft. It was the mating voyage of the boat,
Speaker 1: tricky currents out there. We think that fishing equipment gear
Speaker 1: had got tangled in his prop early on in the day.
Speaker 1: It was it was March third, and the water temperature
Speaker 1: was thirty six degrees. We found the boat on the
Speaker 1: bottom with an oil slick coming up because when they
Speaker 1: sent the coast guard helicopter out to look for him,
Speaker 1: it was nighttime and this massive spotlight that is as
Speaker 1: bright as bright could be lights up the ocean, and
Speaker 1: the helicopter was spinning around in this one spot and
Speaker 1: we pull up and as the deck box that was
Speaker 1: on the boat with and one of his boots was
Speaker 1: one of the boot was floating. It was I remember
Speaker 1: seeing a toothbrush floating and a deck brush and then
Speaker 1: it was just debris and they so take me through.
Speaker 1: You are found by the coast guard. How many hours
Speaker 1: after you went into the water, estimate twelve to fourteen hours,
Speaker 1: and then they take me through the stages of death.
Speaker 1: When you're floating in the water for fourteen hours. Well,
Speaker 1: it's you know, like, it was so overwhelming that I
Speaker 1: had to break it down into small, little goals. I
Speaker 1: couldn't be so overwhelmed with how crazy the situation really is.
Speaker 1: So I would say to myself, all right, I just
Speaker 1: gotta stay alive to daylight. I just gotta stay alive
Speaker 1: to daylight. And once daylight came, I'm like, all right,
Speaker 1: I made it the daylight. I just gotta stay alive
Speaker 1: to find a buoy, because I'm thinking, how is anybody
Speaker 1: going to survive in the middle of the ocean. You
Speaker 1: gotta grab onto something and it would be make me
Speaker 1: more visible, and so I would try to look for
Speaker 1: a booty to grab onto. But in the same sense,
Speaker 1: it's like in your head, you just you know, your
Speaker 1: mind is trying to tell you, you you know, this is
Speaker 1: so overwhelming, you can't do it, just give up. But
Speaker 1: I would imagine this. I would I would imagine there's
Speaker 1: a moment or many moments for the person in that
Speaker 1: situation where you realize that you can either decide to
Speaker 1: give up and say I can't can't do this. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna decide and I had to drown. I had die.
Speaker 1: I mean, did you sit there and say to yourself
Speaker 1: at every time you like you have doubt, you sit
Speaker 1: there and go, I can't believe this is how I'm
Speaker 1: going to die? Yeah, And I said to myself, this
Speaker 1: isn't right. Made it. I was like, there's no way
Speaker 1: out like this, and that positive strength kept me going,
Speaker 1: I mean, keeping me focused on the positive and not
Speaker 1: the negative. You made a decision to try, Yeah, fisherman
Speaker 1: and authors John Aldridge and Anthony Sasinski. If you're enjoying
Speaker 1: this conversation, be sure to subscribe to Here's the Thing
Speaker 1: on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. After the break, John Aldridge shares
Speaker 1: his experience stranded in open water watching the search party
Speaker 1: miss him again and again. I'm Alec Baldwin and you
Speaker 1: were listening to hear the Thing. Once Anthony Sasinski realized
Speaker 1: his partner John Aldridge was missing in the open ocean,
Speaker 1: his next move was to alert the coast Guard and
Speaker 1: try to get word to Aldridge's family so we're on
Speaker 1: phone service stuff far out okay, no, so we we
Speaker 1: don't have communications with land. But my VHF radio was
Speaker 1: able to talk to the Coastguard. So I was able
Speaker 1: to communicate with the coast Guard. And so I didn't
Speaker 1: actually phone anybody's parents or anybody, because I didn't have
Speaker 1: a means to do that. I was communicating with the
Speaker 1: pilot of one of the aircraft, I was communicating with
Speaker 1: the Coastguard station, and I was I had twenty plus
Speaker 1: fishing boats that I was communicating with on a VHF radio,
Speaker 1: trying to organize the search to look for him. So
Speaker 1: my whole day, from the minute I woke up, was
Speaker 1: trying to figure out how John fell overboard, where he
Speaker 1: could be, and how I can get help there as
Speaker 1: fast as I could. Was really my intention. You had
Speaker 1: some experience with this, well, I I have, but it
Speaker 1: but not in this uh, not that close to home.
Speaker 1: You know, like everything that I was telling the coast
Speaker 1: Guard was an educated guess that I only had that
Speaker 1: to me as fact. I didn't try to recreate something
Speaker 1: that I didn't know was fact. So like when I
Speaker 1: found the cooler handle that was broken, I knew that
Speaker 1: that cooler handle was attached to that cooler there, so
Speaker 1: I knew that I have hard evidence that prior to
Speaker 1: leaving the dock that handle was attached to the cooler.
Speaker 1: So as I started looking at our boat hook on
Speaker 1: the ground that go in the water, I didn't know
Speaker 1: about the hook. I thought he grabbed the cooler handle
Speaker 1: and pulled on the cooler, and then he went snapped,
Speaker 1: and he went overboard backwards and left the cooler behind
Speaker 1: and the handle behind because they were moved halfway off
Speaker 1: of that hatch cover. But there was below deck, we
Speaker 1: have these tanks that are like massive fish tanks that
Speaker 1: keep the product alive, and that's what he was working on.
Speaker 1: So one of the tanks, the lid was open and
Speaker 1: it was full of water. So my initial thing was
Speaker 1: to stick my head in the tank to see if
Speaker 1: he had drowned in there, because I mean, it's big
Speaker 1: enough to put two thousand pounds of crabs and lobster
Speaker 1: in it. He could easily be inside that thing dead.
Speaker 1: So that was determined right off the bat that that
Speaker 1: was not the case. So I plotted two hours from
Speaker 1: where at six miles an hour seven miles an hour
Speaker 1: a where the boat would have been from a straight
Speaker 1: line from Montauk and it came to the forty fathom edge,
Speaker 1: which is twot of water, and I basically started my
Speaker 1: search there, and I told the coast Guard, I don't
Speaker 1: believe he fell overboard closer to land. I believe that
Speaker 1: he fell way further off shore than we initially thought.
Speaker 1: So then at that point the coast Guard had asked me.
Speaker 1: They said, look, civilians cannot be in a military search,
Speaker 1: so we're going to do our military search. Would you
Speaker 1: coordinate the civilian search? So I said, of course I would.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I'm trying everything I possibly can.
Speaker 1: At this point, I'm sweating at my toes and I'm
Speaker 1: really trying to stay focused on the fact that he's
Speaker 1: not there and how are we going to find him?
Speaker 1: And we have I have the other fisherman who's trying
Speaker 1: to chime in, calling the Coastguard wanting to help. I say,
Speaker 1: everybody switched the channel one so I have a different
Speaker 1: frequency and I can talk to them. And each person
Speaker 1: kept giving me where they were, and I started a
Speaker 1: grid with the boats, depending on the direction they were
Speaker 1: coming from, where they would join our search and what
Speaker 1: direction if I wanted them to go in the east
Speaker 1: and west, and I made a grid with twenty fishing
Speaker 1: boats in the area. But the problem is it's in
Speaker 1: water that's moving, so the ocean doesn't sit still. The
Speaker 1: ocean has got current and it's moving. So that's where
Speaker 1: we were trying to get the coast guard to help us,
Speaker 1: because they were putting drift buoy's in the ocean to
Speaker 1: see what direction that drift was. But they were all
Speaker 1: trying to focus their attention on most it to lands
Speaker 1: because that's what they thought that he where he will
Speaker 1: last time. When's the last time you've seen him? Eight
Speaker 1: miles from land, so they started there, you know, when
Speaker 1: the radiot from, and then where he is. So when
Speaker 1: I when daylight came and I first heard the helicopter
Speaker 1: way way off because there's no noise in the ocean.
Speaker 1: Water doesn't make a noise unless it hits something and
Speaker 1: there's nothing for it to hit, so it's super silent,
Speaker 1: and I heard those helicopters way way far in the distance,
Speaker 1: and then I knew he was awake. How grateful are
Speaker 1: you that this was the person on the boat with you,
Speaker 1: because it could have been like what Tommy Ball sack.
Speaker 1: Who you work with around, isn't mom talk from Maryland.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we take the boat without each other. I'll take
Speaker 1: it with a crew, or he'll take it with a crew,
Speaker 1: and nobody knows anything. So if that happened, he was there,
Speaker 1: of course, if there wasn't, for any of those other
Speaker 1: people that we fished with, you know, no one's got
Speaker 1: all back except lost. He's a good person to have.
Speaker 1: The helicopters are coming and you you hear them. I
Speaker 1: see everything after that, I see the helicopter, see him twice.
Speaker 1: I passed them twice and didn't see him my first pass.
Speaker 1: Back up myself and Mike. You know, I got to
Speaker 1: remember this too. Is we're in a forty five ft
Speaker 1: lopster boat. Okay, that's low sheer to the water. We
Speaker 1: don't have a tower, we don't have elevation. We're at
Speaker 1: sea level, all right. The ocean looks like a shag carpet.
Speaker 1: And if you are even looking for a volleyball and
Speaker 1: you know where it is, you only see it every
Speaker 1: five or six seconds and it disappears. That's if you
Speaker 1: know it's there. So you could easily be fifty yards
Speaker 1: or thirty yards away from something, but you're looking in
Speaker 1: the other direction, or you're looking at you and it's
Speaker 1: down you don't see it. It's like a shag carpet between.
Speaker 1: He had a blue shirt on and he's got dark hair.
Speaker 1: You know what we had seen, me and Mike was
Speaker 1: and it was actually it was it must have been
Speaker 1: the second time we've seen him. Was the buoys that
Speaker 1: he was had found. We saw two booties together and
Speaker 1: we both put the binoculars on it for a while,
Speaker 1: and then we came to the conclusion that we didn't
Speaker 1: see anything there, and we kept going so south. Soon
Speaker 1: after this this contact or this sense of the helicopters
Speaker 1: in him passing you twice and see what time was that, Well,
Speaker 1: the helicopters were all day long, gone back and forth.
Speaker 1: And how long did you how long did you hear
Speaker 1: helicopters before they got you? Because it must have been
Speaker 1: torment to there. Yeah, I mean you were. I was
Speaker 1: turning it into a positive to a negative. I was
Speaker 1: turning it into go at least they're still looking for me.
Speaker 1: They're gonna find me. They didn't. They went he went
Speaker 1: past me, didn't see me. All right. I could just
Speaker 1: be like, oh my god, I'm gonna die. I can't
Speaker 1: believe it didn't see me. But I was like, all right,
Speaker 1: at least he's still looking for me. So I had
Speaker 1: to be in my head and my mind and turn
Speaker 1: every instant in instance and every action into a positive
Speaker 1: thought because the negative was just so overwhelming and so
Speaker 1: powerful to take you down. And I was like, I
Speaker 1: can't even think about it. When you first started to
Speaker 1: hear that apparatus, figuring about him eventually coming nearer you,
Speaker 1: when missing you and when they finally got you out
Speaker 1: of the water, how long were you in the water
Speaker 1: listening to the sound of helicopters? How long were you were? You?
Speaker 1: Were you expected and anxious they were gonna come and
Speaker 1: get you? And that lasting How long before they finally
Speaker 1: got you and pulled you out? Well, old day? So
Speaker 1: who finds you? What's the moment of contact? So I'm on,
Speaker 1: I'm on a buoye. I got the two big made
Speaker 1: your way toward a boy. I made it to another
Speaker 1: buoye and I had these two big orange balls tied together,
Speaker 1: and I'm sitting in between them and a coast Guard
Speaker 1: jet flies by relatively low in the direct you know,
Speaker 1: in the area where I'm at and I didn't even
Speaker 1: prop playing yet. Oh yeah, Coast called jet and he
Speaker 1: went flying past, and I was like, wow, all right,
Speaker 1: he must be on a pattern, so he's gonna come
Speaker 1: back around. So I kept looking in the direction that
Speaker 1: he flew, and sure enough, he came back and it
Speaker 1: was closer towards me, and I thought he might have
Speaker 1: seen me because I saw the pilot in the plane.
Speaker 1: And then about an hour later, I hear the Coast
Speaker 1: Gut helicopter come in right down on top of me,
Speaker 1: and I'm freaking because he can't land the plane. He's
Speaker 1: gonna summon them. So then they spun off over here,
Speaker 1: you know, got to dive. That's just the swim already,
Speaker 1: and dropped the swimmer down to me and I was,
Speaker 1: you know, covered up in the water, holding onto my boots,
Speaker 1: and he tapped me on the shoulder and sir, sorry
Speaker 1: you okay. I whip around and look at him and
Speaker 1: I said, I got two more days left in me.
Speaker 1: Let's get the hell out of here. And he's like
Speaker 1: blowing away that I could, you know, even make a
Speaker 1: joke about anything. But someone told me that you were
Speaker 1: told that if you've been in the water. Even an
Speaker 1: hour longer, you might have died. Yeah, they gave him
Speaker 1: me nineteen hours at that temperature. At that temperature was
Speaker 1: my weight, yeah, I mean when I came out of
Speaker 1: the water was nine degrees my core temperature. A lot
Speaker 1: of shark signings off the coast of the beaches this summer.
Speaker 1: What was the shark situation out there when you were
Speaker 1: As soon as I hit the water, immediately got infiltrated
Speaker 1: by birds, dive bomb and me trying to poke my
Speaker 1: head and eyes or whatever they were doing. And then
Speaker 1: about an hour into it, sharks showed up like Robert
Speaker 1: Shaw and jos Yeah. Yeah, you're in the water. If
Speaker 1: it was if it was warmer, I had my little
Speaker 1: three inch pocket knife out ready to go. You're ready.
Speaker 1: I got two more days. That's a community out there
Speaker 1: that can really come together in a way that's like
Speaker 1: like any great community. We have an amazing town out there. Honestly,
Speaker 1: school system prepares your child for success. Honestly, if your
Speaker 1: child listens, it's amazing. The teachers, the jack parna there
Speaker 1: is unreal. I feel really blessed to have found Mont
Speaker 1: Talk and the East End is home, honest Lee, you know,
Speaker 1: for us. The inlet is our getaway, so like we
Speaker 1: go out the inlet, like later after we leave you,
Speaker 1: we're gonna head out the inlet, so Mont talked to us.
Speaker 1: Hasn't changed in some ways compared to it would be
Speaker 1: for land people. What did you feel like when you
Speaker 1: were Like when you when you finally found that you had,
Speaker 1: you know, obviously participated in saving your friend's life, You're
Speaker 1: carleague's life. The euphoria is as special as when your
Speaker 1: child is born. Honestly, that's what it feels like. It
Speaker 1: feels like, And it's an exhale too. It's like, well,
Speaker 1: I'm not sweating for my feet anymore, and he really
Speaker 1: is okay, and this is we don't have to do
Speaker 1: this anymore. It's like, thank you God, what whatever, however,
Speaker 1: this has gone down. We're very fortunate you quit for
Speaker 1: a while, correct, So I quit fishing after my friend
Speaker 1: had died. That's when I quit fishing. Where um that
Speaker 1: that story was saying to you about off a block island? Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I came home that day. I got my daughter
Speaker 1: was one year old at the time. We put my
Speaker 1: wife and the daughter in the car and I drove
Speaker 1: to my grandmother's in Pennsylvania, and I had to make
Speaker 1: a decision on what I was gonna do. And I
Speaker 1: started to work helping Mike and I'm against it. Open
Speaker 1: the seafood market and I'm against it. And then I
Speaker 1: worked in the meat cut as union for eight or
Speaker 1: nine months, and then I went back fishing again. It
Speaker 1: was traumatic and I needed to absorb what I was
Speaker 1: really getting myself into as a profession. And I have
Speaker 1: a baby. You have too, two daughters. They're not thirty
Speaker 1: five and thirty one. And I have a I have
Speaker 1: four grandchildren. Both of them have two children that both
Speaker 1: married the boat professionals nearby now Portland, Maine and in Minnesota.
Speaker 1: My younger daughter was in Minnesota, so they but we
Speaker 1: do our best to try to see each other. And
Speaker 1: you know, I love them early and I'm super proud
Speaker 1: of them. I think that they're amazing. They are amazing.
Speaker 1: Makes you decided to go back to fishing. I couldn't
Speaker 1: leave it. It It was in my blood, you know, it
Speaker 1: was it was right down to Wick you said about
Speaker 1: walking around the bay and with you, you know, I
Speaker 1: chose fishing because I was I was like, I don't
Speaker 1: want to work, this doesn't work. I still don't work.
Speaker 1: You know, I I'm doing something I totally enjoy and
Speaker 1: I am wanting to give you money to do it,
Speaker 1: saying it fortunate, straight up fortunate. Are you still doing it? Yeah?
Speaker 1: We're going tonight. Yeah, yeah, getting right on the boat.
Speaker 1: I could be Mike. You can't be Mike. I'll be
Speaker 1: the third guy. You don't need to know nothing to
Speaker 1: be Mike. Them off you did to wake up and
Speaker 1: go wait a second, you Jesus jacket, don't worry. Whose
Speaker 1: idea was it to write a book? Did somebody suggest
Speaker 1: that to you? Well? It was completely self generated. It
Speaker 1: was part of the whole thing. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: Jason Blum picked up some movie story for it, and
Speaker 1: then it just made sense to have a book. We
Speaker 1: hired a ghostwriter and we worked with her for thirteen months,
Speaker 1: back and forth and got it in our words basically
Speaker 1: and moving forward. Thank you so much, Anthony, Thank you
Speaker 1: so much. John. I'm glad you lived to be able
Speaker 1: to tell me the story. Thank you, and uh I
Speaker 1: look forward to the movie. I can it could be great.
Speaker 1: It would be really cool. Thank you. Thanks for having us.
Speaker 1: My thanks to John old Ridge and Anthony Secsinski. I'll
Speaker 1: leave you with a song written about John old Rich.
Speaker 1: This is the Tale of Johnny Load by the Nancy
Speaker 1: Atlas Project. I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the thing is brought
Speaker 1: to you by iHeart Radio. You woke up in the morning,
Speaker 1: do duck and gear and get ice, but none in
Speaker 1: the evening. He'd work sixteen. Now it is not counting
Speaker 1: of or spent. It lies And Johnny came ready, able,
Speaker 1: then steady, he said, Man, the first ships on me.
Speaker 1: Go catch a few winks down in the brain. Can
Speaker 1: I'll wake you when the feathoms run deep her About
Speaker 1: three in the morning, alone, Johnny's holland the boat sit
Speaker 1: on course to the head. Johnny pulled with his back
Speaker 1: and the handle just snabbed. And that's where this story
Speaker 1: be gins, he said. He old say, Johnnny Load, you
Speaker 1: can overboard. In the night fifteen north of the canyon,
Speaker 1: the moons is campau with thoys blots. Then a night
Speaker 1: they said, hey, save Johnny Load. He's a pure mill
Speaker 1: lost out at see and he's counting on you and
Speaker 1: the mom Talk crew to bring him back to his antimary.
Speaker 1: There is sense in a slick, and the sharks come
Speaker 1: on quick, so you better play dead to survive. Lock
Speaker 1: your eyes on the field by