PERSPECTIVE

This past Friday was a crazy day at work. My boss was out. He was going on vacation for the weekend with his family on their boat.
Not an odd occurrence. He had a big boat with a whole apartment on it. It was nice. 50 feet nice!
So the plan was as follows:
He has a five year old son in first grade. They keep their boat docked in Amityville and they were going to Greenpoint for the weekend. Now I am NYer and therefore do not know geography. I have tested this theory. My understanding is that LI has two forks. And At one end is Montauk (hence the bumper stickers “Montauk, the End”) So, Greenpoint is the other shore of Montauk. Stay with me here. So for one to travel VIA boat in the water from Amityville to Greenpoint, one would have to go around Montauk in the ocean for a bit and swing back around.

Are we still with me?

So my boss was going to sleep on the boat Thursday night and take the boat to Greenpoint in the am. So that after school the wife and kid would drive to Greenpoint from Rockville Centre and meet my boss on the boat.


Well, at about 9:30 am all hell breaks loose.

This is what I know loosely.
The Boat is equipped with some kind of emergency beacon, which when activated notifies the coast guard and they can track the boat.
Apparently this beacon was activated on the boat for a minute. When the coast guard tried to call my boss’s cell phone he didn’t answer. So they called the wife at home. I work in the office, which is adjacent to the home.
So she runs to my office and asks if I heard from him? I had not but I didn’t expect to.
So I am trying to keep her calm and she is freaking out. She tried to call the cell no answer.
So we call the coast guard, they tell her to stay calm, it was prob a glitch and that it wasn’t on for long enough for them to locate the boat but they are going to try and radio him.
Meanwhile I say that since he was in the ocean that’s probably why he didn’t answer the phone, no reception.

Not a mere five minutes later we get a call from “Jim” who asks for Mrs. Lans Boss. She is now hysterical. Jim tells us, he found my boss on the beach covered in sand unable to speak and barely breathing. But he seems ok. This was on Fire Island. Jim says he will call 911.

Meanwhile we are tying to get the coast guard to find the boat. Jim had told us he came to shore on what looked like an inflatable raft. No idea where the big boat is.

They airlift my boss via helicopter to the hospital. The wife hightails it to her father who will drive her to the hospital because frankly she is in no state to drive.

All day Friday I have no idea what happened.

I get snips of information and this is what I have cobbled together.

There was some problem with the engine. Now it’s a big boat with two HUGE engines so there is a room under the boat.
He goes into the engine room and the water is really high up.
He throws up, apparently for quite some time and quite a lot. But I don’t do well with hat stuff so I let him skip over this part.
Then he gets nervous or something because he starts running around the boat for a bit.
Finally he grabs the “ditch” bag and jumps onto the tender they have and cuts it lose and gets into the water. So he’s cold and has just thrown up a lot.

Whereupon by the grace of G-d he lands on the beach and Jim and his wife find him.

He didnt see his boat go down, but as far as he knows the Police have not yet found it, but I dont know that they will...