Lillian Ruth Simpson, 49, said she wrapped her bathing suit top around her head to keep warm after sunset and held onto a water container that served as a flotation device.

"I just started shivering so bad with the wind chill factor on my shoulders and head," said Simpson, who arrived on Maui from Juneau, Alaska, less than a month ago. "And then I'd swim. I'd make myself swim to keep my body warm."

On Friday morning, a sunburned and tired Simpson was being treated for dehydration at the Maui Memorial Medical Center emergency room. While nursing a sore back, arm and neck, she was grateful to the crew of the Strike Zone who came to her rescue.

Capt. Joseph "Junior" Carvalho on the Strike Zone said he spotted what he first thought was a large balloon in the ocean between 7 and 7:30 a.m. Friday. Because floating objects in the ocean usually attract mahimahi and other game fish, Carvalho went to investigate.

"It looked kind of big and when we got within 30 yards, we saw it was a person. At first we thought it was a body, but when we got closer, she turned around and she put her hand up in the air," he said.

He said the woman was in the water about a mile and a half off Ukumehame when he spotted her.

"We cleared our fishing lines and I got as close as I could. The conditions were pretty choppy, so one of the crew, Dana Klingman, jumped in and got her, swam her back to the boat."

"Yeah, he (Carvalho) was the one that made me get in," Klingman said, relieved that the woman was alive and apparently well.

"He spotted her in that windy conditions somehow. He spotted that lady's head and when we got within 15 yards, I jumped in.

"She was pretty spent. It was pretty easy to tow her back, just did a cross chest carry," Klingman said. "We have a big swim step and the other guys set out the step.

"She was a pretty tough lady for being alone in the water all those hours. We got her inside, sat her down. She was really thirsty and hungry."

Klingman said the woman apparently was caught in an area off Ukumehame known for its tricky and strong winds. Normal trade winds on Maui are funneled by Ukumehame Valley and Olowalu Valley to pick up speed when they blow out over the ocean.

At Kahului Airport, the winds were gusting to 29 mph about noon on Thursday. The trades had moderated to 5 to 12 mph overnight, but began picking up after sunrise on Friday.

Carvalho said the woman was holding on to a water container that she was able to use as a flotation device.

Simpson, who had worked as a drug and alcohol counselor for adolescents in Alaska, said she was on Maui more than 29 years ago and returned this time "to heal." Since being here, she had spent time in Paia and Kihei and was planning a fundraiser for a documentary project involving youths and drugs.

She had been camping at Camp Olowalu when she saw "yachts" moored offshore after breakfast and decided to take an invitation to the fundraiser to one of the boats, thinking wealthy people who would contribute to her project might be aboard. Simpson said she took a glass-bottomed Fiberglas canoe from the camp and paddled out to one boat, which turned out to be on a snorkel tour, and delivered the invitation.

She already was tired from the effort when the canoe overturned. Simpson said she called to a nearby charter boat for help but it left and she found herself alone.

She tried to right the canoe.

"Every Boy Scout knows, but I didn't learn that trick," she said. "I spent the next six hours trying to learn that trick on my own. Every time I turned it, the boat would partially submerge. I tried to make a windsail. I tried everything."

At sunset, Simpson said she decided to leave the water-filled canoe to try to swim for shore. "I just kept trying to swim toward Olowalu, but really the water did not want to take me there," she said. "So then I started shooting for the closest landmark."

She could see the wind turbines at the Kaheawa wind farm on the hillside above Maalaea. Overnight, she could see lights from cars on shore and tiny fish that provided illumination as they swam around her.

She swallowed so much salt water that she threw up and would doze off at times.

As the temperature dropped, she said she took off her bathing suit top to try to keep warm and prevent hypothermia by covering her head. She said Alaska residents know that "90 percent of your heat comes out of your head."

"The times I thought, 'I'm going to die, I'm going to die,' I would say, 'No, I have three kids and you're not taking me anywhere,'" Simpson said.

She said she has a 23-year-old son, Danny Byers, living in Portland, Ore., as well as her husband, Bob, her 14-year-old son, Bobby, and her 16-year-old daughter, Alisa, in Juneau.

Simpson said she had drifted off to sleep before the fishing boat showed up in the morning.

"I didn't hear them coming. I was so surprised and then, all of a sudden, I came out and there they were," she said.

After seeing planes pass overhead during the night, she at first worried that the boat would leave.

"I was really afraid, even though they were right next to me," she said. "I was so afraid."

Carvalho said the woman "didn't even know her name." "She was kind of loopy after all that time in the water," he said.

There were several couples aboard the 43-foot Strike Zone on its charter fishing trip and several of the women sat with the rescued woman until she was taken on by a Coast Guard crew.

Carvalho said he called the Coast Guard at Maalaea Harbor after the woman was pulled aboard. A Coast Guard information officer said a crew from the Maalaea station reached the Strike Zone about 7:40 a.m. to transport the woman to Lahaina Harbor where she was examined by American Medical Response ambulance personnel and taken to Maui Memorial Medical Center.

Klingman, who's been a boat crewman for more than 20 years, said he hadn't expected to be getting wet Friday morning, but he was glad to be able to help someone in trouble.

"It's not just a job. It's an adventure," he said.

Coming from Alaska, Simpson said she's not a strong ocean swimmer. But she said her father and sister were fishers and she has been around boats all her life.

"I won't say I'm not going back in the ocean," she said. "But I'm not going back alone anytime soon."