'I thought I was a dead man'
By William Cole
Advertiser Military Writer
Floating overnight after his boat sank 21 miles off O'ahu on Saturday, Navy Petty Officer Martin Mantz thought about his daughters, ages 13 and 11, and how he needed to take care of them.
Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser
His friend, Petty Officer Gary Chavez, dozed off in his life jacket, dreamed he was drinking hot cocoa, and woke to find he was still bobbing in 4-foot swells.
Gary Chavez is given back the life vest he was wearing while floating at sea with Martin Mantz, left. Coast Guard Lt. John Williams, right, was aboard the helicopter that rescued Chavez, and the vest was signed by the Coast Guard crew involved in finding the two men.
A jellyfish stung Chavez on the face, and both men suffered frustration because passing boats did not see them far out to sea — even though they fired five flares, including one that nearly hit the bow of one vessel.
Chavez, 28, who became separated from his friend in the night, was picked up by a Coast Guard HH-65 Dolphin helicopter at 7:40 a.m. Sunday, nine miles off the Wai'anae Coast. Mantz, 39, was later rescued by the vessel Nina G near the "S" buoy, 4.1 miles off Poka'i Bay.
Both men were lucky. The Coast Guard and Navy searched through the night and into the morning. Petty Officer Michael Heazlit, a dropmaster on a Coast Guard C-130, spotted orange and Chavez waving his arms. But flying at 150 knots and 500 feet, the C-130 crew could not find the Navy sailor on four return passes.
It took the lower-flying helicopter — and Petty Officer Danny Rees saying, "I've got something in the water. Mark! Mark! Mark!" — to end Chavez's 20 hours in the ocean.
"We were fairly optimistic. We knew that we were dealing with healthy men in the Navy that had had survival training and possibly had survival gear on, and that would improve our chances greatly," said Coast Guard Lt. John Williams. "But it's like finding a needle in a haystack."
In June, in separate incidents, the Coast Guard searched unsuccessfully for three days for fisherman Richard Shiroma after his boat washed ashore at Turtle Bay, and scoured the ocean between the North Shore and Kaua'i but was unable to find Roy Takatsuki after he was reported missing at sea.
Mantz and Chavez met with Coast Guard rescuers and the press yesterday at Pearl Harbor to recount the rapid sinking of their 21-foot Bayliner Trophy and the alternating hope, fear and desperation that accompanied their overnight trial at sea.
"It felt like something you see in a movie or you hear happening to other people that you never think in a million years is going to happen to you," said Chavez, a hull technician 2nd class.
The two Navy men had set out Saturday morning from the Hickam Air Force marina in the 1990 Bayliner Mantz had bought the week before. Twenty-one miles off O'ahu, an engine stalled and the boat rapidly sank stern first, said Mantz, a hull technician 1st class.
"I thought to myself, go back to boot camp and think, what are you gonna do?" Mantz said. "What did the Navy teach you to do if you were going to be stuck in the ocean?"
The two men barely had time to send a distress call at about 11:30 a.m. and grab life jackets and a flare gun with five flares. Mantz had a cap and sunglasses and was wearing a sweater.
"For the first six hours I think we still were pretty optimistic about everything — we were hoping that a fishing boat would find us," Chavez said. "But as soon as we went into the water, all the fishing boats left the area."
They fired off one flare immediately, and did so throughout the day anytime a boat came within range to possibly see them. None did. Mantz said they used the last flare just before dark.
"I basically shot it and it went right across the bow of the boat — almost hit him — and they didn't even stop. They just kept right on going," Mantz said.
The two men, trying to swim toward O'ahu, which Chavez said looked like a distant black silhouette, got separated around sunset, but not before a jellyfish latched onto Chavez's face.
"I thought something was trying to take a bite out of me," Chavez said. "I started kind of freaking out a little bit. 'Marty ... something got me.' "
Chavez dozed off and dreamed he was drinking hot cocoa — a short-lived sweet dream.
"I woke up and realized I was in the ocean again. That's when my sailor's mouth really came into effect," he said.
Chavez later was hauled into a rescue helicopter, and Mantz remembers the Nina G's crew pulling him up and into the boat "like a big marlin. ... I couldn't move anymore. I was done."
Mantz said, "I think I'm going to stick to golf for a little while."
Chavez added that, all joking aside, "this is something that I'd never wish on my worst enemy, because I was scared. I thought I was a dead man. At the same (time), I was saying, just never give up. I'm just going to enjoy life a little bit more, I think."
Reach William Cole at wcole@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-5459.
