Once I was sitting on a beach late at night when a man walked by me and said, “It’s  dark down there ” and as he walked away from me I realized he had been looking to his left as he spoke…and from his left I thought I heard an answer

only

nobody was to his left …

except for the Ocean.

All these years later I’m glad for one thing…that I never got a good look at his face.

Strange things happen at Sea…This true story is one of them.

Crewman’s disappearance during rescue in Alaska unexplained

Story Updated: Mar 29, 2008 at 10:02 AM PDT

By JEANNETTE J. LEE, Associated Press Writer

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - As the fishing vessel Alaska Ranger sank to the bottom of the Bering Sea, crewman Byron Carrillo and 1st Assistant Engineer James Madruga struggled to stay afloat in the rough and frigid waves.

With Carrillo drifting into hypothermic shock after nearly five hours, the arrival of a Coast Guard rescue helicopter was a blessing, Madruga said Friday. He told the rescue swimmer to “take Byron first” and watched the panicked crewman being loaded into a dangling basket.

But when he reached the helicopter himself, Carrillo was nowhere to be seen…

 ( full story HERE )