The thing that struck Mitchell Trujillo was the eerie silence.

“The last thing I remember of the boat was looking back and watching the stern slowly sinking in ... it made no noise, it was so quiet, that was the weird thing, because we are so used to hearing the diesel.

“All we heard was the waves and the wind,” he said.

“We were like ‘The Coast Guard is never going to come get us, no one knows we are in the water, we’re screwed,’” Trujillo said.

Nineteen hours earlier, Trujillo and Branko “Bo” Oglesbee had left Port Moller, a small Alaskan fishing town about 600 miles southwest of Anchorage. They were out to seek fishing fortunes in the 34-foot gillnetting boat “Andromeda.” Oglesbee’s grandfather designed the vessel.

The two friends, “more like brothers,” Trujillo said, were en route to fishing grounds via False Pass, a narrow passage that connects the Bering Sea and Pacific Ocean.

At 19 years old, the former Anacortes High School students were on their first fishing trip with Oglesbee as captain. Oglesbee started fishing when he was about 9 years old.

After getting their vessel ready, the teens set out with the first group of gillnetting boats.

“We had everything working. We had painted the hull, the engine was running good, refrigerator was running good, we were set,” Trujillo said.

The weather had different plans.


Rough water ahead

The June 5 weather reports warned of 30 mph winds and 20-foot swells through June 6.

“Bo seemed a little skeptical, but the fact that we were with other boats gave him some confidence,” Trujillo said. “He seemed pretty solid about the choice.”

They left port at 10 p.m. June 4, setting a course for False Pass, 125 miles to the southwest.

“Once we got out of port the waves weren’t too bad, but once we hit that open Bering Sea, we started seeing some giant waves,” Trujillo said.

“We were getting pounded by waves on the starboard side all day. They were coming at us from the north,” he said.

The two alternated four-hour shifts at the wheel, and they tried to make sure the boat hit every swell head-on.

In a few hours, both were seasick, but Trujillo felt better after a nap. He was listening to music in his bunk while Oglesbee was on wheel watch.

The wave hit around noon.

“I was in the bunk; I felt the boat go completely sideways,” Trujillo said.

The wave swamped the bottom of the boat. Trujillo was unsure of where the water was coming from.

“We called in a mayday. Bo told me to grab the survival suits, and I started the bilge pump,” he said.

The two calmed down a bit, and called off the mayday when they realized the pump was working.

“We got all the water out; we were totally fine. Radios were running, engine was running, but we were totally freaking out,” Trujillo said.

“I even made Bo a peanut butter and jelly sandwich; I think he only ate half,” Trujillo said.

Four hours after the first wave, the two were at the helm — a little panicked, but calming down. They were trying to catch up to other boats that were about 11 miles ahead.

Then a second wave struck.

“It happened so fast. We saw it, tried to turn the boat to the right, there was nothing we could do. It just had us. It went over the boat and broke out our starboard window. Water was gushing in through the windows and the door,” Trujillo said.

The wave was taller than the cab and engulfed the entire boat. It filled the engine room, stopping the engine and killing the batteries. All electronics on the boat, including any that could be used to put out a distress signal, were disabled.

Oglesbee was pushed into the bow of the boat by the wave, while Trujillo clung onto a handle.

“He was completely under water in the front of the boat,” Trujillo said. “Hundreds of gallons of sea water.”


Out of control

Without engines, the boat was uncontrollable. Water poured into the cab through broken windows as wave after wave slammed into the boat.

“I just grabbed Bo and the survival suits. I told him to put his survival suit on no matter what,” Trujillo said. “So he was working on getting that on, I was getting mine on and trying to find some flares.”

Trujillo was able to shoot a flare before abandoning ship.

Neither Trujillo nor Oglesbee had ever donned a survival suit. In fact, Oglesbee had just received the suits a few days before they left port.

The two stood on the boat’s stern, then jumped into the frigid waters a minute before the doomed boat slid beneath the waves.

They worried they would be next.

“Bo was saying some crazy stuff. He didn’t think we were going to make it ... I told him to never give up, never stop no matter what. I just tried to motivate him,” Trujillo said.

The two could barely see land every time they reached the top of a swell. Then Oglesbee saw something else.

“He was like ‘a life ring. Go for the life ring.’”

The two latched onto the ring, Trujillo with his left arm, Oglesbee with his right.

“I was like ‘all right man, let’s start kicking’… I was pretty cold, but I knew if I kept my body moving I wouldn’t go hypothermic,” Trujillo said. “I told him ‘keep moving, man, or you’re gonna die.’”

At first the two had trouble maneuvering the ring. Trujillo lost hold of it when a breaker hit. They soon devised a plan so that they rode into every wave in unison. “Just hold your breath and hold on,” he said.

“I was actually kind of warming up when we were moving, but Bo kept complaining about how cold he was.”

It turns out that Oglesbee had a tear in his suit, allowing 38-degree Bering Sea water to enter.

As they slowly approached shore, the two swam harder, but started to cramp up.

After two hours of swimming over two miles, they made it to land.

“When we got to shore, that was probably the happiest part of the whole day. When we were swimming, it seemed so hopeless,” Trujillo said.

Once on shore, Trujillo and Oglesbee set to work.

Trujillo found parts of the boat that had washed up on shore, including a bag of Goldfish crackers and flax seed. They ate the flax seed and kept the Goldfish for the next day in case they were not rescued.

A flare that Trujillo had with him was waterlogged and missing a cap, so a fire was not an option.

They built a crude shelter into a small cliff using scrap pallets and moss found in the area. They got drinking water from a nearby lake.

At twilight, the pair huddled together to stay warm in the shelter. With nowhere to go and nothing to do but try to stay warm, Trujillo realized they could die.

“There was like two or three times when we were laying down on shore trying to get warm, cuddling and stuff — that was the worst part for me. I didn’t like laying there just shivering myself to death. It felt like I was laying down to die,” he said.

When they heard a helicopter, Trujillo went running. But it passed over without slowing.

“I was like, ‘oh my God, they better come back, or else these guys suck.’”

Trujillo carved an SOS into the beach, made the life ring easy to notice and did jumping jacks on the beach to stay warm as he waited for the helicopter to return.

When it did, Trujillo made sure he was swinging the life ring.


The rescue

The helicopter doubled back and stopped over the two. The crew spotted the pair with infrared cameras.

“They hovered over us for like five minutes, dropped a basket. Bo got in the basket, I got in the basket, and we were hoisted up,” he said. “It was our first helicopter ride; it was so awesome.”

When they were in the helicopter, a crewmember made sure they were all right, and the pilot snapped a picture of the two.

“The guy that hoisted us up was so happy to see us,” an emotional Trujillo said. “That is the guy that inspired me to want to join the Coast Guard. I don’t remember his name, but he is my hero.”

The helicopter took them to Cold Bay Medical Clinic in Alaska where they were treated for mild hypothermia.

After being released from the clinic, the two parted ways for the first time in weeks.

Oglesbee is now spending the summer working on his dad’s fishing boat.

Trujillo flew home the day after leaving the clinic. He would have stayed in Alaska to fish, but he lost his belongings with the boat.

“I didn’t have any money, ID, clothes, so I decided to come home.”

He will spend his summer in Anacortes, where he is living with his parents.

The next thing to do?

“I just gotta find a job,” he said.

* Keith Chaplin can be reached at or 360-416-2148.