http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/09/10/rescue.at.sea/index.html

(CNN) -- Walter Marino shouted to his 12-year-old son, Christopher, as he drifted farther away in the Atlantic Ocean.
A Coast Guard crew found Christopher three miles away from where his father was rescued.
"To infinity," the father yelled.

"And beyond," Christopher replied.

After a rip current swept the boy and his father out to sea Saturday, darkness fell, and the sound of rescue helicopters and boats grew faint until they were nonexistent.

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continues.....

Saw them on a morning show today. They were smart (once they got into trouble), they mainly floated, instead of trying to fight the tide...

I don't know if I've bored everyone with this tale or not.

I was in Kindergarden in Scottsdale Arizona and couldn't swim. My father tossed me off the highboard and older brother grabbed me and started pulling me around.I went into terror mode until the lifeguard threw my family out of the facility. I have a deep phobia for public swimming pools, the smell of clorinated water and diving boards to this day.

Years later in California my grandfather connected me with a man who fled one step ahead of the nazis. He had competed against no less than the great Johnny Wiesmuller in the Olympics.He also was a cantor and used that gift to talk to me above the waves.


The waves: He taught me to swim IN THE OCEAN off Malibu. I never thought about 'shark infested waters' or riptides or the many ways the ocean could kill me. It smelled of salt and there were no diving boards. After each swimm we wouild go inside for lunch and sometimes catch 'big John' in a Tarzan Movie and analyse his unique swimming style.

Years later I enlisted in the Coast Guard to buck a family 5 generation Naval traditon. The brochure, along with many things failed to mention I had to train in a swimming pool and jump from the highdive. I was the last recruit, on the last day to jump. I did, though I staggered to the head and vomited for 10 minutes while crying.

Irony is, I was one of the few graduates who eventually wound up on a Motorlifeboat Station. In a small service you tend to keep track of everybody.

I've never been even a good swimmer. But I am a competent one, and, like in judo have learned to 'flow' with the tremendous forces of nature. It would be a lie to claim I was never scared. Scared yes, but never terrified. I got this reputation of being unaffected by severe ocean conditions. Again, not true, but it's all a matter of degree.

This father and son survived by a great deal of luck. They survived by a even greater quantity of the mindset and will to survive.That's a neat item in your PSK.