THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, January 3, 1996 TAG: 9601030457
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY LANE DEGREGORY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 61 lines
Fishing alone off Cape Point in his 16-foot boat, Barry Midgett could still see the shore when a thick fog began rolling toward him about 10:30 a.m. Monday.
By the time he pulled his lines out of the ocean, he couldn't see a thing.
``I was only about a half-mile off the beach, but I lost my directions completely. That fog got me so quick, I didn't have time to get back,'' Midgett said from his Avon home Tuesday night. ``I kept hoping it would lift so I could see to go home. But it never did.''
Midgett, 41, tried motoring around for about an hour. Then his outboard motor ran out of gas. For the next 23 hours, he drifted alone in his little boat on the Atlantic.
``I shot a flare off. But the fog was so thick, I couldn't see or hear a thing. And I'm sure no one else even noticed it,'' said Midgett, a cottage maintenance worker who has been fishing recreationally all his life. ``I didn't have a radio. And there wasn't anyone else around.''
When it began getting dark, Midgett's wife began getting worried. She found her husband's truck and trailer still parked on the sand at Cape Point. But since there was no sign of him or his boat - and he had only planned to be out a couple of hours - she called the Coast Guard and reported him missing.
A helicopter began scouring the seas shortly after midnight. But the fog was so thick, they couldn't spot anything. At daybreak, a Coast Guard C-130 plane and a boat joined the search.
Finally, about 10 a.m. Tuesday, a crew member on the commercial fishing trawler, Lady Terry, spotted Midgett standing in his boat, waving a red sweatshirt above his head. The vessel had drifted about 16 miles south of Ocracoke Inlet.
Midgett had spent the night huddled on a wet pile of life preservers in the bottom of his boat.
``I was real excited to see that trawler,'' he said Tuesday night. ``I had insulated waders and a raincoat on. But it was still cold out there. And it kept raining on me all night. So I had to bail the boat out several times.
``I was a little concerned,'' said Midgett. ``But I had a lot of faith, too.''
The captain on the Lady Terry radioed the Coast Guard with Midgett's location. By 11 a.m., a 41-foot Coast Guard boat stationed at Ocracoke Island began towing the fisherman and his craft back toshore. Midgett finally got together with his family just before dark.
Neither he nor the boat had been harmed.
He thanked the commercial watermen - and the Coast Guard - for their help.
His mother-in-law, Shirley Burroughs, also was grateful that the long ordeal was over.
``There had to be angels all around him out there on the ocean last night, watching over him,'' she said Tuesday afternoon after getting word that Midgett had been rescued. ``There were a lot of prayers going out for his protection. And, thankfully, they were all answered.''
KEYWORDS: ACCIDENT BOAT RESCUE by CNB