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early the next morning, he was exhausted, hungry, and thirsty. Allowing his arms to float at his sides, he leaned back into the center life jacket, white T-shirt covering his face. Depression set in. He was 60-120 miles from shore, depending upon where Oriskany was at the time he fell overboard. His only hope was that a ship would cruise by before he died of thirst, went crazy, or a shark found him. He wrapped his fist around the jade pendant that hung from his neck and said aloud a Buddhist prayer his mother had taught him, “Hail to the jewel in the lotus. Help me to overcome all obstacles and hindrances.” How long he slept, he could only guess. The sun shone high in the sky when he woke to the sound of voices.
    Three Asian men in a sampan floated nearby on the flat, glass-like, calm sea. Byrnes pulled the shirt from his face. His movement startled the men in the boat and they started yammering at each other in an unfamiliar language. Raising a hand, Byrnes waved. “Help. Help.” His yelling excited the men even more. Two of the men paddled the small boat in his direction. The third man put his hand out to grab the life preserver closest to the boat. He pulled Byrnes to the side of the sampan.
    Once Byrnes had both hands on the edge of the wooden boat, the three men struggled to pull him into it. He was of almost no help, too weak. Rolling over the gunwale and onto his back on the wooden deck inside the boat, the powerful scent of fish wafted into his nostrils. Byrnes tried to express his gratitude. He gasped for breath. Once his heart stopped pounding, he continually nodded his head and said, “Thank you, thank you,” through parched lips and sunburned face. The men sat him in the shade of the curtain that covered the hatch to the mid-deck wooden shelter. Fishing poles of various lengths and two bamboo poles attached to small fishnets lay on the deck between the shelter and the side of the boat. Along the far side of the boat a large fishing net filled the deck from the bow to the stern.
    The men spoke quietly among themselves. Eventually, one offered the American a metal cup of water. Sitting unsteadily at the stern of the boat, Byrnes gulped the warm fresh water. He handed the cup back, pantomiming for them to fill it again.
    The oldest of the three men – two looked young enough to be his sons – shook his head. He pointed to the forward section of the ship. Past the small covered shelter amidships, Byrnes saw the stump of a mast and some hemp line lying on the deck. The sail and most of the mast were gone. His rescuers needed rescuing, too. They rationed their water.
    For an hour, Byrnes and the older man tried to communicate through sign language and pictures scraped into the wood of the old boat with a metal belt buckle from a life preserver. He finally understood that the men had survived the same storm he had endured. For three days, it had driven them farther out to sea than they had intended to go. The wind had snapped the mast, and blown the sail and mast over the side.
    Pointing to the small outboard motor hanging on the stern of the boat, Byrnes made puttering noises like a motorbike. The old man shook his head. He led Byrnes to the engine. Flipping the choke over, he ordered one of the younger men to pull the starter rope. On the third pull, the engine puttered briefly, and then died. It did the same on the fourth pull. The second young man pulled four more times. The engine refused to run.
    Byrnes tapped on the gas tank. The old man pointed to the ocean. Seawater had gotten into the fuel during the storm. Byrnes searched for a gas can. There were two 20-liter cans of gas inside the shelter. One was half full, the other almost completely empty. He pointed to those. The old man again pointed at the ocean. Both somehow had been contaminated during the storm, possibly as they tried to fill the gas tank on the outboard.
    Reaching behind him, Byrnes fingered the covering to the hatch. It rippled slightly