Skipper survives 9 hours after being washed overboard

A St. Augustine sailboat captain who fell off a sailboat and spent nine hours clinging to a cooler and paddling to shore talked about his experience.

Brian Oliver, 45, was on his boat, the Cedar Rose, when it got caught in a storm Monday, three miles offshore.

After he was cast into the water, the Coast Guard and several other agencies spent hours searching for Oliver.

Oliver was hired to fix the electronics on the 42-foot boat and wanted to make sure they worked.

"This was mainly a test run and a little pleasure cruise, and it kind of turned into a little bit of a nightmare," Oliver said.

Oliver and the boat owners left at sunrise out of Ponce Inlet were headed to St. Augustine.

"Everything was doing real well. Pretty day. Nice wind. (We) set a course for three miles out at Ponce Inlet," Oliver said.

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Oliver said he put the boat on autopilot, hoisted the sails, and shut off the motor.

At about 3 p.m. Monday, 30 miles shy of St. Augustine, the boat hit a squall.

"You could hear it coming, just a whooo," Oliver said. "The next thing you know, it hit us and the boat listed. I mean, like, it was fixing to go over."

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Instead, Oliver went overboard, along with a cooler.

The waves were so big he couldn't get back to the boat, which had quickly been pushed farther out to sea.

He thought quickly, tied the strings of his bathing suit onto the handle of the cooler and used it as a floatation device.

"Had enough string where it would stay off to the side like this, kind of out of my way, so I dog-paddled, and then when I needed to rest, I just turned around and hold onto the handle and drift in the water," Oliver said.

Oliver said he saw the Coast Guard helicopter three times and tried to wave, but it was too choppy.

The current was so strong, he ended up swimming nearly five miles.

Just after midnight, after about nine hours of dog paddling with a cooler, he finally made it to shore.

"First wave that picked me up sucked me up to the beach, second one carried me and the cooler on in," Oliver said. "Seeing my feet touch ground, I was like, 'Whew, I made it.'"