Boaters Helped Each Other Survive a Very Rocky Night

For 8 hours on Sunday, two Orange County men clung to life on a rocky cliff 10 feet over the ocean off Anacapa Island.

Their arms and legs were scraped and bruised from barnacles and mussels they had climbed over after a boating accident. But, they said, they refused to think of death. Instead, they helped each other through the ordeal by sharing childhood stories and talking about the future.

By the time that Channel Islands National Park rangers rescued them shortly before 1 a.m. Monday, the men--who had barely known each other--had become good friends.

“We worked together as a team because we realized that in order to make it, we had to fight for each other’s survival,” said Thomas Buckley, 30, of Fountain Valley. “The key to surviving that kind of situation was not to panic and to have hope that you’ll get through it.”

He and John Zapinski, 30, of Long Beach, were among a group of six who had left Orange County on Friday for a weekend camping trip at Anacapa Island off the Ventura County shore. The island--actually three islands so close they appear to be one--has a rocky shoreline with high, sheer cliffs that give it a scenic but forbidding appearance.

The trip turned into a near tragedy when Buckley and Zapinski decided to take a trip in a 12-foot canvas kayak Sunday evening.

As they returned, detouring through a narrow strait between the island and a bed of rocks, a wave capsized the kayak. The men swam to the cliff, climbed up the steep rock wall and clung to a sheet of rock until help arrived.

Not Prepared for the Cold

“We were kayaking in an area called Chimney Rock. It’s like an arch, and we were admiring the wildlife. On the way back, we tried to make it through a narrow strait . . . that was about 150 feet wide. We didn’t realize it was relatively shallow in there,” Buckley said.

“We proceeded through that area, and a 3- or 4-foot wave came along. We were headed into the wave, and it totally capsized the kayak. We tried to save the boat by tying it to a rock on the side of the island, but mainly we were trying to get out of the water.”

Both men were wearing life vests, but neither was prepared for the nighttime air and water temperatures, both of which dipped to the mid-50s. Buckley, a sales representative for a food company, was wearing jeans, a flannel shirt and no shoes. Zapinski, a mechanical engineer, was dressed in shorts, a Rugby shirt and tennis shoes.

“They were in amazingly good shape when we got to them,” said Steve James, who spotted the pair after searching for more than 4 hours. “They very well could have made it until sunlight, but they were beginning to show signs of hypothermia. They were a little slow to react, and their skin temperature was down a little. There was a lot of body shivering.”

Friends of the men became worried that they had not returned and reported them missing at about 6 p.m. James, a maintenance mechanic, and two other Park Service employees set out in a boat about 8:30 p.m. James alerted the Coast Guard, which joined the search.

Authorities used spotlights and searched for several hours without finding any sign

of the men. James said they were minutes away from leaving when they spotted the the kayak wreckage inside Arch Rock--a picturesque span made famous in postcards and nature photographs.

“When we found them, we launched a small inflatable boat, and we proceeded into the area where they were. That was the big hang-up. We found a small opening and got underneath it. They were on a cliff about 10 feet over the water, hanging on by their toenails,” James said.

The men were transported to the Coast Guard boat and taken to St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Oxnard, where they were treated for cuts and mild hypothermia and released.

Several times during the night the men believed that they had been spotted, they said. But the searchlights moved and rescuers headed in another direction. After several hours, they had become resigned to remaining there, crouched against a piece of sheet rock until daylight, they said.

Fear of Falling Asleep

“I was very tired because I had only gotten about 4 hours of sleep the night before. We were there on the rock precariously, and I thought I might fall asleep. And if that happened, I would end up back in the ocean,” Zapinski said.

“We didn’t talk about death at all. We felt like we were going to make it all along. We wouldn’t let ourselves think that we weren’t going to make it.”

Zapinski said he feels that it was a fluke accident and that it won’t keep him away from any future camping trips.

Buckley, whose wife is 6 months pregnant with their first child, said he will be more cautious next time by taking a shorter trip and maybe getting more practice kayaking.

“One thing crossed my mind on the rock--that I wanted to become a father,” Buckley said.

“When I got home, I got a lecture from my wife and mother-in-law. They wanted to take care of me first, but they later commented that when you do something like that . . . you affect all your friends and family. That’s true.”