Gwinnett man helps rescue two at sea

That’s what led him to rescue two people at sea off the coast of Costa Rica.

That’s the short version of the story.

Here’s the longer one:

Sinclair, 35, is the captain of the National Geographic Sea Lion. It’s a 150-foot-long expedition ship that carries up to 60 passengers.

The ship had just left its stop shortly before midnight on Feb. 9 to reach its new destination by the morning, Sinclair said.

The ship’s second mate spotted something in the water that “just looked funny to him,” Sinclair said. The man grabbed his binoculars and discovered that there was a man treading water in the middle of the ocean.

By this time, the boat was more than two miles offshore, and it had passed the man as well as another one, also treading water. The crew circled the boat, called Sinclair for help and started rescue efforts.

The ship has a 16-foot rescue boat, one that Sinclair said sits there “ready to go for that very reason that someone might fall overboard.”

The crew members hadn’t used it yet, save for that one time when they accidentally lost a bag of garbage and needed to pull that out of the water. About 30 minutes later, they pulled the two men – a father and son – from the water, Sinclair said.

The men said there were two other men out there, but they weren’t sure where. All four were in the Sierpe Bay fishing the weekend before but ran into trouble when their boat started getting beaten up by some large rocks.

Sinclair said the group, now in the water, tied two ice chests together and then tied themselves to the ice chests.

“They thought they would be rescued pretty quickly, that when they didn’t come back Sunday, there would be a search,” Sinclair said.

There was a search, but by then, all four had drifted 15 miles from the mouth of Sierpe bay, Sinclair said.

By the time Sinclair and his crew found them, they were on their third night.

“One of the guys just died, and the other one, they said [he] started swimming for shore,” he said.

Alone, the father and son said their own goodbyes.

“It’s really an amazing story,” Sinclair said. “It was so amazing to see them alive and so unlikely to see them alive.”

They were dehydrated and had sunburns, but by morning, the pair ate a large breakfast and took showers, Sinclair said.

By that time, Sinclair also called the Costa Rican Coast Guard and asked to take the men to Gulfito so they could go to the hospital.

“I said, ‘Look, everyone’s tired, we can’t keep doing this, and I need to take these two to the hospital,’” Sinclair said.

Sinclair returned home last Sunday. He will stay for six weeks – doing a combination of working on his house and investment properties in Athens, studying economics, resting and spending time with his girlfriend and family.

Then, he’s back out again. He describes the Sea Lion as something very different from a cruise ship loaded with entertainment and casinos. The boat makes stops at national parks, and passengers do a lot of hiking and other expeditions.

Sinclair said he stumbled into the job. He took time off from school during the summer of 1997 and was working in an Alaskan cannery before taking a job as a deck hand – all to build up to his dream job of being a chef.

But, “I found that I had an aptitude” for working on a ship, he said, and he started pestering boat captains and other crew members to let him take on additional responsibilities.

“There’s not a lot of people in this area that do this. It’s more people in coastal places,” said Sinclair, who has lived elsewhere but wants to stick close to Georgia to be around his house and family.