352: Ship Wrecked, A Shark Attack & 76 Days Alone At Sea: The Shocking Steven Callahan Story
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Hey, what is up, everybody? And welcome back to another episode of Mile Higher Podcast, episode 351. I'm your host, Kendall.

I'm Josh. Josh. And of course, we are joined by the lovely Janelle and the magnificent Ian. Thank you. Magnificent Ian. You certainly are. And today we have a magnificent episode for you guys. I'm so pumped. We are doing another survival story because you guys were so into our last survival story about

The brave men who survived the Andes Mountains for, what was it, 76 days? 72 for them. 72. Today, we have someone who survived 79? 76. 76. All right. I got to get my days right. But we are talking about the absolutely miraculous survival of

of Stephen Callahan, who survived at sea for 76 days. Alone. Alone. On a raft. That's the big difference. On a fucking raft. In conditions many of us can only... Actually, many of us can't comprehend. No. At all. No.

It's truly, truly horrifying to be out in the middle. I mean, a lot of us have a fear of the open ocean. Yeah. Some of us won't even get in water past our knees before we start wigging out. Especially being alone and just looking out and it's only sea meets horizon everywhere you look. That to me is terrifying. And you're in a fucking raft. Yep. The rubber ducky.

Rubber ducky three. Rubber ducky three. Was there rubber ducky one and two? I couldn't find it. I did search that. I was trying to find any information on those ones, but I couldn't. I think he just probably called all of his different rafts on the different boats rubber ducky. Okay, so this was the third one probably. But Stephen's story is, yeah, nothing short of a miracle. It's fascinating. It's inspiring. I love these stories because they just...

Yeah. Again, put into perspective, maybe I need to do one of these about every other month or so, because it does make me realize like I have nothing to complain about in life and I'm just a big baby all the time. Yeah. Just like with the Andes plane crash. Yeah. I haven't heard a lot of complaints about being cold. Well, it is summer. At home, which is great. Yeah. I got the AC blasting and you're like, yeah, I'll be all right. But it's hot. It's summer. We'll see if that lasts through the winter.

We'll go through winter and see how you do. Yeah. But yeah, this story, you guys, is absolutely incredible. If you've never heard of it, your mind's going to be blown. Yeah, it's terrifying yet inspiring. Yeah. I mean, there are so many ways that he could have died. Oh, he should have died at least like 10 times. I mean, something, I don't know if you believe in that, something was looking out for him, in my opinion, but also just his will to survive. And we were all talking about...

You know, would we be able to do that? I really don't think I could. I just don't think I'd have the willpower, especially alone. I think that's the biggest difference, at least with the Andes. They had each other to rely on and keep each other motivated when they were starting to lose their shit. But he was just out there on his own in his thoughts. Yeah, the isolation is the whole other component to this. Yeah. Because some people do do fairly well with isolation. Others do not. Right. I feel like you are not.

Oh, no. I just don't think. You could not be an isolationist at all. No. Could you talk to yourself for days on end? No. I think I would probably have to start, but I just don't think I'd have the willpower to do anything he did to think through the situations he was in and problem solve. I think I would give up very quickly, but I don't know. I guess you don't know until you're actually in that situation. Yeah. We talked about this last time that a lot of us think we just give up

You know, in the face of like, you know, sure death. Right. But until you're in that position and your body is telling you, you know, that fight or flight kicks on. I think it's a different story. I think you really do try to survive as long as you can. Yeah.

But you also have to be quick-witted in an accident like this with what happened with him and what happened with the guys in the Andes. Oh, so you would have done it. You have to be so able to jump into action. I think I would be the type of person who kind of just shuts down and couldn't get past the initial incident, whatever it is that happens. I don't know. I have no faith in myself, apparently. Yeah. Oh, my God.

That doesn't bode well for me. No, it doesn't. At all. Well, if I was with you, maybe. But I rely on you for everything. Kendall just like crawls into a fetal position. Just, I'm done. No, that would have been me for sure. Like, well, you're on your own. I mean, like, let me just jump in the water. I think you would be far stronger than you give yourself credit for, to be honest. Thanks, babe. I think, especially if we had our child with us. No, that's different.

She changes everything. I don't think you're going to just... I would fight harder if it was her. Yeah, I don't think you're going to be like, oh, sorry. If I was alone out there... Sorry, baby. Mommy can't do it. Yeah. Good luck with daddy. Yeah. Plus, even if she was at home and I was alone, I'd probably want to fight harder for her. Yeah, she changed everything. I don't know. It's crazy. But before we get started, I wanted to ask everyone if you would rather... If you had to pick being stranded in the Andes situation...

or Stephen's situation out on the ocean, what would you choose? Without giving too much away, I think I would actually rather be in the Andes. And the only reason against that is the cold. But I'd rather be with people. There is more resources.

And I think being by your completely by yourself in what he described as a desert, the biggest desert in the world is the ocean. You're surrounded by water, but there's no water to drink. Just really put it into perspective of me like he was, I think, in worse conditions minus the cold.

But other than that... Well, he didn't have to eat human flesh, although he probably wished he could have. Yeah. I mean, we'll get into it. He was able to get food somehow and some little bit of water. But still, like, yeah, the human flesh, obviously, that's really terrible as well. But at least you're with people. I think if he was not alone, then I would pick his situation. Yeah. But because he was alone...

I think mentally that would just be so difficult to overcome and persevere of having complete isolation. You haven't heard another person's voice in 76 fucking days. And also, I'm not a survivalist, if you will. I'm not a...

resourceful human like i wouldn't the shit he had to overcome and all of the fucking obstacles that he yeah figured out and went through like i wouldn't i wouldn't have done that and so it would be nice to have other people there to bounce ideas off of yes when i'm losing my shit they can help me when they're losing their shit i could try and help them versus if you're alone like

It's just you and your thoughts. Yep. Yeah. I think that's the biggest difference is being alone versus being with someone else. What about you, Ian? I'd have to go the same. Although I prefer the scenery of the ocean. Oh my God. That sounds nice. But

I mean, not nice in his situation, quite terrible. Well, even he described some of it. It was nice. It was beautiful. Beautiful. And, you know, I'll talk more about this at the end specifically, but like being in these locations that no one else has ever been to, there is some kind of

I don't know, like a very it's unique. It's personal. Only you know it. Yeah. But I really do think the Andes like, yeah, I don't want to eat human flesh. That's bad. Yeah. But I do like friends. Yeah. I like having buddies around. So I really think that would make it. And again, I don't know how to do celestial navigation or any shit that Steve had to do. Yeah.

And, you know, it's almost like something he himself was uniquely suited to. Yes. He loved being out at sea so much. Could someone who just happened to end up there by, you know, whatever circumstances have survived the way that he did? I don't know. I guess when we take the element of other people being there out, like just purely the

Sea versus the mountain. I'd rather be in the ocean, probably. Yeah. I think. The cold would just fucking destroy me. I hate being cold as it is. Yeah. Yeah, I guess probably the ocean. All of the storms that he endured are fucking scary. Just wait until you guys hear this if you've never heard Steve's story. Would you say the same still? It's still Andy's? I would still say Andy's, only because, you know, we're out here. I grew up in Colorado, you know? I feel like... You know, I grew up in Colorado. I feel like I'm more accustomed to...

Like, I know how to build a fire. I know how to do, like, small things like that, whereas that's just completely unavailable to you. That's a good point. Yeah. Okay, yeah. What about you? I don't know. I'm still torn, but I think I gotta go ocean. Just I think I would be much happier with, even though it's fucking hot, I'd rather be hot than cold, and I'd rather be surrounded by ocean and have fish instead of human flesh. So I gotta go with Steve's situation. What about you, babe?

I would choose the mountains if I was alone. What? I want to be alone in the mountains. That sounds actually pretty nice. Would you really want to be alone, though? Yeah, I actually really hope one day I'll have a chunk of time in my life where I'm just alone.

Well, your best hope of that is if I'm dead. God. Maybe one day. You know, one day I just need to go on like a seven day retreat by myself. I think. I do really find. I think I would have done well in Steven's situation minus the heat and lack of fresh water. But he was distilling water. So big fan of distillation of water. I'm a big distilled water fan. I can get behind that.

And yeah, I could eat fish. I think fresh mahi-mahi, sushi. Although if you die in the mountains in the cold, your body's likely going to stay there forever. Versus if you die in the ocean, chances are your body's going to decompose, you know, and completely fall apart or something's going to eat you. So that's a factor? You want to be preserved on Earth? That'd be cool. Leave your mark? Yeah. Yeah. I'd like to like make myself a little tombstone and, you know.

kind of have a little spot that people come across it. They're like, oh, he was up here. No, but if you die in your raft, you're most likely going to decompose while you're drifting and eventually you'll hit land at some point. So you're going to wash up your... Or a wave comes over and you sink down and nobody ever knows what happened to you. The reality is I would probably end up

falling out of the raft at some point yeah or hitting a coral yeah that would suck fretting oh that was a thought i kept having last night when um we were watching this documentary on steve well it's an episode of i shouldn't be alive i shouldn't be alive shouts out to that yeah that show is fucking crazy you guys should check it out it's kind of old there's like six seasons of it if you ever just

want to feel thankful, watch that show. I need to watch more of it. We started one of the other episodes last night. It looked interesting. I kind of want to cover some of those stories. It's so interesting to me. But I was starting to think about how many people have gone down these roads to survival and have lasted 30, 40, 50 days, maybe longer than Stephen, but never actually survived, that we never heard their stories, that they were just lost to sea or lost to the wilderness or whatever it was. And

It's kind of crazy to think about the survival stories that we didn't hear or the almost survival stories. Well, that's like with the Andes, right? Like Numa, the last one of them to die. I think he died, if I remember correctly, it was like either one or two days before Nando and I can't remember the other guy's name. Roberto. Roberto and Nando before they went on their journey. He almost survived. He was so close. Yeah. That one was a really rough one. Yeah. Yeah.

Yep. Yep. You wonder how many people's stories you just never will hear about. It's kind of sad to think about. But at least we get to hear about Stephen's because this is an incredible story, guys. And we'll go ahead and jump in since we've been rambling a lot. I came here for Stephen's story, not to hear about your hypotheticals. Well, OK, let us let us live. I'm sure all of us out there have woken up one morning.

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absolute goat, was born on February 6th, 1952 and raised in the Northeast, mainly in Massachusetts. And his family spent summers along the coast of Maine, where he first became accustomed to taking sailboats out on the water. He spent many of his early years at sea and also in the woods. And he said that as a kid, he always felt more comfortable in nature than in society, which I think is something a lot of people could relate to.

And the vast Atlantic Ocean really represented for him the purest, most untamed parts of the world. Steve's father was an architect, so he grew up drawing constantly. And he said, you develop a sort of three-dimensional eyeball looking at two-dimensional plan. You can envision it.

My brain. Yeah, that's a skill that not everybody possesses. No, I don't think I could even learn it. But as early as Steve began sailing on his own around the time that he was just 13, he wrote a letter to the greatest ship builder, Gary Mull, asking him, how do I get into designing boats? And Gary was actually friendly enough to respond to young Steve, saying there were excellent boat building programs at the West Lawn Institute of Marine Technology and MIT. However, Steve didn't end up going down that path.

Instead, he worked with designers and shipbuilders who were members of the seasteading community, designing boats in the late 60s and early 70s that could not only be lived in, but also complete long journeys. And by the time Steve was in high school, he had taught himself celestial navigation and was allowed to borrow the sailboat of one of the shipbuilders that he had been learning the trade from. And at this point, he hadn't gone on any extremely long distance journeys, but

He had spent several days at a time traveling across the East Coast, and he said he loved the immediacy of sailing, that you could just go out and have an adventure.

When Steve went to college, he studied philosophy, though he did get an associate's degree in shipmaking as well. He said that his mother would say things like, don't you wish you had studied something more specific? But he said that ultimately, it had done him really well because it taught him a more general approach to life that didn't require any specification. And he said this general approach even worked its way into shipbuilding. Today, everything is very specialized for shipbuilding, from interior designers to

to sailmakers. But when he was learning, he said, when I was designing boats, you sat down and you designed a boat. While in college, Steve met his first wife and he began working for several naval architects for around a decade. And for a while, Steve assisted celebrated shipmakers in constructing multi-hulled boats made for potential speed in professional races. But Steve had been fascinated by the ability to not only have a boat that could go anywhere,

but something you could live in as well. And he always described this time of his life as, quote, without any money. And the boat not only represented housing, but it could become a means of transportation, something to sell, and of course, freedom. Because yeah, I mean, I get it. A boat that you can live in and go basically wherever you want, wherever there's water.

is a cool idea. And I think just the ocean in general represents kind of freedom, right? Like when you're out on the water, if you've ever been on a boat going fast on some water, you know, y'all want to have that Titanic moment. You're just up there on the bow. You're like, I'm free. You're flying. It's a great feeling. Absolutely great feeling. Steve said that even with a small sailboat, he said, that's your ticket to two thirds of the world.

He and his wife had been living on a 28-foot trimaran he had built, but he couldn't take it on extended voyages as it would require more crew than just himself and his wife. So Steve was like, I need to make a smaller boat, 28 feet's a bit much for my wife and I to handle. So he's like, let's make a boat the size of a small camper van so that we can live in it, but also something that we could, you know, go sailing across the Atlantic with.

At first, Steve wanted to build a 21-foot proa, a lightweight multi-hole design he could pilot himself. And if you've never seen one of these boats, actually, you've probably, if you've ever been to a marina, you've probably seen these boats before. Maybe you've been on one before.

They're very cool. They almost look like canoes, like a bunch of canoes connected together. They're based off of ancient Polynesian, indigenous Polynesian ship designs that they would use to hop across huge swaths of the Pacific with. They're extremely effective boats.

That's a great fun fact. Yep. Fun fact. I love that. Trivia. Very fun. Did you actually learn that in trivia? No. Oh. I wish, man. Ian's our trivia king here. Yep. We did really badly last night, though. Oh, no. It's okay. I don't need to return there. You'll go back. I will.

But anyways, Steve wanted to build a 21-foot proa, a lightweight multi-hole design that he could pilot himself. However, his friend and ship designer Dick Newick told him not to, as he wouldn't have enough storage as he would have on a more traditional single-hole design. Because that's the thing. You definitely lose some storage space, it looks like, probably some living space as well.

But again, very effective design. But he's like, a single hole would probably be better. So in 1978, Steve began designing Napoleon Solo, a 21-foot single hole design that could fit up to three people inside the cabin. Although he claimed at one point he was hanging out in port one day and he had 10 people inside the small cabin. Probably just, you know, having a good time, a few drinks.

You know, kicking back, just, you know, packing them in like sardines. The ship had been named after a character from the television show The Man from Uncle or U-N-C-L-E. Steve was able to design the boat exactly to his specifications. For instance, knowing that a cross-Atlantic voyage would inevitably involve storms, he designed a hatch that allowed him to steer the boat while most of his body was inside the cabin. How smart.

minimize, you know, the rain hitting you, getting soaked out there. You know, think of like a sailboat, you're like out there on top of the deck and you're exposed to elements from all sides. This was like he'd kind of like be under there, kind of crushed in his little cabin, steering the boat. He also designed it to quote, handle beautifully his words. Once letting the rudder steer the boat for itself for three days while the autopilot was out.

It was an excellent experimental boat and Steve was extremely proud of it. It was a boat that he had always wanted for himself. Still, he recognized that there had been some minor errors he had made in its design. For one, he had designed both the bow and the stern with these airtight compartments protecting the hull if he were involved in any front or back facing collisions. However, Steve didn't assume the hull itself would come into contact with anything. And at the same time, on the open seas, he left a large amount of the body completely unprotected.

A mistake he would, quote, beat myself up pretty badly for later on. And on top of that, by the time Steve had finished Napoleon's construction in 1981, his life had changed entirely. For one, he had sunk nearly all of his cash into the boat's construction, and for two, his wife had left him, and they had been living separately while he finished building it. Which, uh, would be a huge bummer.

You build this boat, you know, for the two of you to go sailing. And then by the time you finish it and put all this money into it, she's not around anymore. Yeah. I'd be sad. Oh, yeah, for sure. So now we're facing the reality that I'm going to be sailing alone. I guess you got more space. That's a great point. You know, can kind of make it the man cabin.

You and me in the man cabin? Just hanging out. That'd be nice. Yeah. Maybe he was kind of happy about that, but I'm sure he was also not looking forward to being alone when he was originally going to be with his love. But Steve decided that now was the time, if any, to finally set forth on his lifelong dream of sailing across the Atlantic Ocean in his trusted, but untested, Napoleon Solo. So Steve signed himself and the Napoleon Solo.

up for the mini Transat race that began in England and ended in the Caribbean. And although Steve had never intended the Napoleon to be a racing vessel...

You know, he thought maybe the Mini Transat would be a good test for his design since only boats around that size could register in the first place. So in the fall of 1981, Steve set off in the Napoleon Solo, sailing from Boston to Bermuda to pick up his close friend and fellow ship designer, Chris Latcham. And Chris introduced Steve to a number of other small ship designers and

and aided him in the early design process for Napoleon Solo. And from there, Steve and Chris sailed northeast across the Atlantic to Cornwall, England, a voyage that took a little under a month. And Steve said, Napoleon Solo really lived up to what I wanted to do. All was looking good. The small boat had even endured a number of tough gales, which are very strong winds, often associated with storms.

But Steve and Chris were able to navigate these intense storms without incident. They're pumped. And the ship even flipped to 90 degrees at one point. Pretty crazy. And the green water had gone over the hatch, but still, they were able to regain control pretty quickly.

However, even before the race had begun, many sailors had been through rough seas on their voyage to England. One American was actually killed on his voyage, and another had been thrown around so intensely on his boat that he had broken several ribs by the time that he arrived in England. Now, the race, which began in Penzance, England, I think we're saying that right. Penzance. Penzance. I've never heard of Penzance, England. That's fun to say.

But it followed the European coastline along Spain and Portugal before the Atlantic crossing into the Caribbean. And that was incredibly choppy. Steve had even suffered a cracked hull just outside of La Coruna, Spain. And not wanting to risk himself or his newly constructed boat, of course, he decided to go ahead and just drop out of the race, which was a smart idea.

So Steve made some temporary repairs before crossing the Bay of Biscay, and he got some glass before taking the scenic route, stopping in Portugal, and eventually making his longest stay on the land in the Canary Islands, which I've heard are absolutely gorgeous. And also Portugal. I mean, just what a cool experience. Portugal is pretty exciting, yeah. Yeah.

So Steve recalled how any time he pulled into a port and woke up, he would see all the local fishermen just staring back at him, and they were all amazed that his little boat had made it from America. And I'm sure he was feeling pretty proud about that. Steve spoke about the comfort of the port and wanting to sleep in a warm, semi-stable bed, I can imagine. But the longer he stayed in the Canaries, the more he wanted to be back out at sea. That, and he was broke.

He couldn't spend the rest of his life in port, and he knew he needed to make his way back to the Western Hemisphere eventually. So he decided to go on what was called the Milk Run, which are calm trade winds that moved the boat across the Atlantic back to the Caribbean, where he thought he'd get some work with a friend who lived over there. So on January 29th, 1982, Steve set sail once again, bound for Antigua.

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From this past weekend. On a raft. On a raft. I was on a raft. You guys are always commenting like, Ian's lore is insane. It is. No, it really is. We learn something new about him in our company chat like every day. Literally yesterday he was like, yeah, I was stranded last weekend. I can't. The timing of this is insane since you had just wrapped up working on Steve's story. The whole time I was out there, I was there with my friend Max and I just kept saying to him, man,

At this fucking empty lake on the plains in Colorado, I was like,

This is a view of heaven from a seat in hell, man. That will make sense in a second. That is an amazing Steve quote. Okay, so what happened? Well, we... So the day... So we were going to go to this lake. We don't have a boat, but we were borrowing Darren's gigantic raft. Yeah. And he said, this can be piloted by just one person. But Darren is a much larger man than I. Yeah, he is. And a much stronger man than I. And...

On top of that, we bought beer on the way. I dropped one and it started spraying in the gas station parking lot. So I had to shotgun it. So I had to. And then I was also I was telling you this, Josh, I was dealing with a strange skin infection.

that I don't need to go into any further than that. But it's handled. Okay. It's fine. Okay. I need to hear the details of this off camera. I'm sitting right next to you. It's fixed. Don't worry. It's not contagious. It's fine. It's fine. ZocDoc. I use ZocDoc.com. Got a same day appointment. Thank you guys. Anyhow, but I was worried about that. I was thinking about Steve's skin and I was like, man, he knows what it's like. And then we...

We got out and I made, I didn't make my friend Max. He likes to, he likes to do it. So he's like, but he didn't realize that like the entire time he was paddling us, we were with the wind. It was a pretty big fucking lake. So we got really far out there. I was drinking beer and laying and just like sunning. And he's just paddling you.

He was paddling. Dude, it was kind of romantic. And then and then we like we were just chatting and we realized everyone else is headed back. So we were trying to paddle into. But because this fucking raft was so big and we were both drunk and weak, we just couldn't. We paddled for three hours.

and we just couldn't make any, we couldn't do anything. So eventually, you're exhausted. We were exhausted. And the moment it was offered to us, like, hey, do you guys want to get picked up by the park rangers? Do you want us to send an SOS? Well,

Which was awesome to say. We were like, yeah, please, please do that. But it was also funny the moment we gave up, we started, we lost our, we became animals. We peed into cans. We drank all the rest of the beer that wasn't ours. Did you have any water packed? No. You were drinking a light beer, right?

It was when ours were. But then we got to the IPAs and the other beers. But a light beer is like water. Yeah. But the Montucky. It's like staying hydrated. There was liquid inside of us. That's good. That then came out. It went eventually into the can. And then we got pushed to the entire other side of the lake and sat on a log.

until we got rescued and then as we were getting pulled in it was a french park ranger which was curious but he said like he said wait was he on a motorized boat yeah they came and they picked us up on a motorized boat and made us like hold the raft it flipped over and hit us in the face at one point because it was so windy again not our fault and then uh and then right at the end he said so do you guys want to get out and paddle so it doesn't look like we had to pick you up because this is kind of embarrassing

And we said no. Yeah, you're like, no, I got a skin infection. Because Tom straight up asked me that yesterday. I can't risk falling in. Tom was like at the risk of not sounding like an asshole. Why don't you just swim? It was very high algae. And yeah, I had a strange skin infection that I will say nothing more about. Well, hey, that's fair. So that's really convenient that you were able to pee in the cans because if me

Me and Janelle were out there. That'd be quite the struggle for us. Yeah, that's a problem. We'd probably have to get in the nasty algae water and just pee in there. Are you fucking putting my coochie in that? It was nasty too, dude. You know, you got to do what you got to do. What else would you have done? I don't know, man. But yeah, I guess you can't really like pee off the side of the raft because it's not like in the middle of the ocean. There's like people. No, yeah, this was very busy. You don't want to get charged. And I didn't want anyone to see my skin infection either. So I was kind of worried.

So the whole time you must have been like, fuck, I can't complain about shit. Were you guys wearing swimsuits? No, I was wearing Carhartt. What? What are you guys doing? Jorts. You guys sound unprepared. They were planning to go in. Well, I also, to be fair, didn't tell my friend Max what we were doing at all that day. I was just like, hey, man, you want to show up? And he did. He's a good sport for that. But yeah, anyhow, we were not prepared. But that's what, you know.

Steve gave us hope in this moment. I bet he did. It's kind of crazy that you worked on that all last weekend and that happens last weekend. Mm-hmm.

Wild timing. The universe works in mysterious ways. You had to get some perspective before. You had to have somewhat of a Steve experience. Exactly. Now I could do it. Now you get it, right? You've been through the same. The exact same style. Surviving a calm lake in Colorado. A man-made lake. And you had cell service. We did have cell service. We were playing a congratulations at one point.

Just for fun. By Post Malone. Yeah, just because. That's a damn good song. It is a good song, man. So did you, wait, how did the Rangers come? We just told them, they were like, where are you guys? You called 911? No, no, no. We called someone on the shore and then they just told the Rangers. Oh, that were there? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That would have been great if we, like, hey, so. We need to call 911.

We need that 911 call. 911. 911, what's your emergency? I'm stuck on a boat. I'm stuck on a raft. You're like, swim, idiot. Like, I can't, I got no back.

That's so funny. The local reservoir. Well, I'm so glad you got some footage of that. So if you're watching this episode, I'm sure Tom will overlay some of that. Yeah, Tom can do- Or maybe even put in some of the clips with audio if they're- Did you have any food? No, man. Just the beer and vape. Just beer and vape. It was pretty awesome. And then we got a Chick-fil-A after. Hey, that's what you deserve. It was really- That's probably the best Chick-fil-A you've ever had in your life. Dude, it felt like I came home. Yeah.

That's what I felt like. Are you inspired to go do a transatlantic trip? Honestly, a tad. A tad? Yeah, just a tad. I don't know. You and Max tackled the transatlantic passage. Dude, never been in a sailboat ever. Well, Max seems funny. Shout out to Max. I love you guys' video clips. Shouts out, Max. Well, anyways, after that side...

Little sidestep there. Steve has a pretty crazy story too. If you believe it. Steve's, I think, just barely beats Ian's story there a little tad. Barely, yeah. So Steve, you know, he's on his first week on his voyage home.

And he said it was one of the most idyllic weeks of sailing he had ever experienced. There wasn't a storm in sight and he was being picked up by the strong trade winds that pushed him towards his final destination of Antigua. In his first week at sea, he was able to cover a third of his nearly 2,000 mile long sail. So he's cruising, man. Just beautiful weather. I mean, this is what it's all about.

and he said he passed the time by completing exercises on the ship's bow, reading books, and journaling about his voyage. Steve had been an avid sketch artist, and his notebook was filled with images of scenes he saw across the Atlantic. Steve even had a film camera attached to Napoleon's deck, which he used to capture some of the beautiful things that he saw. One of the books he carried with him was Survive the Savage Seas, written by Dougal Robertson. In

And it documented how he and his family survived 38 days drifting in the Pacific Ocean. And while Steve didn't expect an emergency situation, which Ian didn't expect an emergency situation. No, I did not. And Steve actually, unlike Ian, came prepared for the worst.

He had a standard issue ditch kit prepared with a few liters of water, flares, and survival essentials, including solar stills that could purify salt water. Those would become important later on. However, Steve didn't feel like it would be enough if he ran into any issues while on his transatlantic sail. So he brought an additional ditch kit, which he filled with more water, food, and a spear gun he had picked up while on shore in Spain. Now the spear gun is

If you ever see spearfishing, you know, I watch some of the channels on YouTube that do some spearfishing that have like the commercial spear guns that are like real big, travel real far, and they can spear basically anything swimming. Steve had a kind of a smaller, it looked like a smaller one, like kind of almost like a toy spear gun in a way. I don't think it was a toy. Not quite a toy. I see what you mean.

But not as beefy. He's not taking down a shark probably with this thing. No. Or does he? Or does he? But Steve also had a six-person inflatable raft that we've been talking about. He called Rubber Ducky 3. I love that.

And it was orange. It's like black and orange. It's got like an orange kind of canopy on it. But typically boats like his would come with a smaller raft, three people that could fit in it. But Steve was like, you know, he was on it one time with two other friends and he was like, man, it's tight in here.

If I ever get shipwrecked, this is too small. Dude, he was smart to upgrade the raft. Yeah. I'm sure in hindsight, he wishes he bought even a better one. I hope other...

sailors hear his story and get the fucking best raft they possibly can. One with the bathroom and the kitchen on it. Bathroom and kitchen on a raft? Yeah, man. They got him. Pretty cool. Teemu. Look it up. He can get anything there, right? But in Rubber Ducky 3, he didn't have enough space to lie down. So still, it's big, but it's like to sit in. You know, you could fit five people in it to sit in it.

But he doesn't have the length, you know, you know, fairly, fairly tall guy. So you kind of have to like bend the knees, kind of curl up a little bit when sleeping in it.

But he at least had additional room for supplies. So he had room for those ditch kits in there. So pretty good setup. But still, during Steve's first week of sailing, these concerns were far from his mind and he had caught a powerful wind and imagined he'd make it to Antigua in a month at the latest. However, the winds began to change on February 4th and Steve encountered his first storm of the voyage back to the Caribbean. And still at this point, he's like, oh, whatever, you know, just a storm.

It's pretty unfazed by it. But no, this storm was serious stuff. It wasn't anything compared to the gales he and Kristen encountered on the trip to England. And so Steve piloted the ship for most of the day and then set the autopilot on his rudder before he retired to his cabin for the night. Steve often brought up how people expect spending time at sea to be this quiet, peaceful, zen experience. However, it's anything but that. All night he could hear rain pattering above and waves crashing over Napoleon's deck.

Because once you're out, this is one thing, once you're out in the open ocean, which I've been a few times, and one time on rough seas in a small boat. Oh, God. And it was horrifying. Don't bring up our Australia story. It was insane. Because you get swells out there. It was like the scariest thing. During storms that are insane. And so a 20-foot boat's just going to get, it almost feels like you're being thrown up in the air and then dropped over and over again. Oh, my God.

And he's just like trying to go to sleep. He's like, boom, boom, boom, just like rolling around. Yep. And that's why hammocks are great because you just kind of like swing with it. Are they? I feel like that would make the motion sickness crazy. No, well, babies like swings. Put a baby in a hammock and they go right to sleep. Well, that's a baby.

But I think naturally we can fall asleep swinging because of our evolution from apes. I think you should put... No, I don't. No, I think it's... Wait, why would apes have anything to do with swinging? Like they're swinging in the branches while they sleep? Yeah, haven't you ever seen The Jungle Book? No, no, no. It's because when you're in your mother's womb...

There's a lot of movement. You're rocking. Yes. So you're, that's. Yeah. And where do you think that came from? No. Oh my God. When baby monkeys are in their mama's tummies and they're swinging in the trees. I don't think monkeys have anything to, I think, you know what, tonight you should test it out and put a hammock out in the yard and you can sleep out there by yourself. All right. I'll do it. Tom did that on our. We don't have any trees to put it on. Didn't Tom do that on one of our camping trips? Yeah, he did. I didn't, I don't think he slept very well.

I think he said he was fine. Tom doesn't actually Tom prefers to sleep in the most simple solution. He almost went into a fucking cave. He almost went into a cave. Yeah. Until he was like, well, there's a lot of mosquitoes. That crossed the line. But still, Steve was able to get some rest, finally settling in around 11 p.m. Then out of nowhere, he hears this loud bang.

And he said, quote, a deafening explosion blankets the subtler sounds of torn wood fiber and rush of sea. And I got to say, Steve is quite away with words. It's very impressive. And he's like documenting a lot of it while he's out there. The book Adrift that he wrote is excellent. It's a fantastic book. I know. I really, I had...

extra recordings this week but i really really want to i think i'm going to listen to that one for a while after because i just love steve he's so awesome but yeah somehow in the middle of the atlantic ocean the napoleon solo had managed to hit something and to this day steve actually isn't exactly sure what could have caused the damage he thinks that it could possibly be a whale since he had bumped into a few of them um on the way in and obviously if he did

It's a whale, so they're a lot stronger and it wouldn't have like hurt the whale. But he's like, it's kind of like we sort of bumped heads. And the stronger one of us won. But this time the harsh storm had sent him crashing into this object, probably a whale, and his ship was just filling with water. Can you imagine what that panic would be like? In the pitch dark. Yep. Really unfortunate timing for that whale to have rolled up.

And he said, already the water is waist deep and the nose of the boat is dipping down. And Solo comes to a halt as she begins a sickening dive. She's going down, down. And Steve grabbed a utility knife and then dove beneath the water to cut his inflatable raft free from the tie down lines. And then he brought it up to the sinking deck and began pulling on the inflation rope. And the fact that he can

I just, this is what I don't think I have in me. The ability to think quickly and act quickly and, you know, have to make decisions. I would just not be able to do that. I would be one of the people that just goes like, I can't function. So he said, I yank the first pole, then the second, nothing, nothing. But then finally on the third pole, the raft inflates, thankfully, before Steve floats it out to sea and climbs aboard, still tied to the rapidly sinking raft.

Napoleon solo. And as he looks back at his beloved sinking ship, he sees that somehow the movie camera began recording. He said, who is directing this film? He isn't much on lighting, but he has a flair for the dramatic that is quite impressive.

But then Steve realized something. His emergency supplies were still on Napoleon's solo, and obviously he needs his emergency supplies. So even though Steve was now safely aboard the rubber ducky, he didn't have his sleeping bag. He didn't have his ditch kit. He didn't have his clothes or any other means of survival. And Napoleon's solo was sinking fast. And fighting against every instinct, Steve pulled the raft back towards the boat and

While the entire front half had become submerged, an air pocket had emerged in the back, keeping the opening to the cabin above water. And so in the middle of this storm, dude, Steve jumped back on board of the Napoleon Solo and went inside the submerged cabin where his beloved boat was quickly sinking beneath the waves. And he held his breath and swam in the pitch darkness and was able to locate his sleeping bag, his mat, and his

and his emergency kits. And it's just, I can't even think about what that would be like. He can't see shit. So he's just feeling around trying to find his stuff. And obviously he knows his boat super well, so that probably helped. But just in that situation, I don't think I could function.

And plus, keep in mind, he's holding his breath the whole time. So his lungs at this point are like on fucking fire for an extended period of time. And he's like, okay, I finally found everything. Let me get out of here. And then he found out that the hatch back to the outside had been slammed shut. So he had to push on it. Scariest moment, I'm sure. I cannot even imagine. Your escape route just closed. Yeah. And you're like out of air. He had...

such little time left until he for sure would not have survived. And he's lucky. He did end up barely forcing the hatch to open from the pressure from the water above it. And finally, it did break free and he was able to get back to the raft, which it all could have ended right there if he wasn't able to do that. But with the only emergency light inside of his raft, Steve watched the Napoleon Solo continue its descent that night.

He thought that the air pocket in the back would maybe keep the boat up until morning, so he stayed tied on, hoping to grab some more supplies when the sun came out. With the storm making it feel like Steve was, quote, in a car accident every five seconds after all of this, he decides, all right, well, all I can do now is close up my raft and try to get some rest in his soaking wet sleeping bag.

Yeah, it's just so much to process, man. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. After all of that? Near-death experience. He's like, I've got to get rest. And even though he was like in this raft and it feels like he's in a car accident, he's like, let me get my wet sleeping bag and go to sleep. Just so unbelievably tough. And to know that I have to get those drift kits or I'm toast. You know, this is there's no point even thinking.

getting on the raft at this point because it's not going to last long and he goes down and gets it is just truly incredible I mean and I really recommend watching that episode of I shouldn't be alive it's on YouTube well maybe we'll link it because it has really actually well done reenactments in my opinion and it's just to get a visual of what this could have been like the best possible that we have is really puts it into perspective

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The next morning, February 5th, was Steve's first day adrift. The storm continued to howl and he pulled the line to the Napoleon Solo, only to realize it had been severed during the night. He could only use the supplies he had on his raft for survival.

The storm continued and Steve tried to get his bearings. The raft was only rated for around 40 days at sea and was typically reserved for quick rescues. And while the closest landfall was on the Cape Verde Islands, only 450 miles away, Steve was still caught in the same trade wind and couldn't maneuver the raft at all. On his current course, his closest landfall was still the Caribbean, some 1,800 miles away. For three days, the storm howled and in the beginning, Steve just laid around and felt sorry for himself.

On February 6th, which just happened to be his 30th birthday, he wrote this as his tombstone. It reads, Steve Callahan, February 6th, 1952, February 6th, 1982. Dreamed, drew pictures, built boats, died. God, how eerie would it be to be writing your own tombstone? Here's actually a clip of Steve talking about this feeling, what he called the recoil period.

I think it's really important to survivors that, you know, you could, like I say, and especially the recoil period is really dismal because you beat yourself up so badly. It's like every mistake you made in your life, every failing, every shortcoming, everything just like plagues you like this really bad B grade movie over and over again. Yeah. And, but,

it gives you an impetus that, you know, if I get through this, then maybe I can become a better person for lack of a better, you know,

Did you... That is also a great interview to check out. It's on YouTube. It's called Steve Callahan Adrift 76 Days Alone at Sea, The Story of Survival 4-9-2017. Yeah, it's an older interview. The sound quality is not good, but really, really interesting to hear it all straight from him. If you want to check that out, we'll have that link below as well. So one thing I didn't really think about until...

Steve mentioned it, but he started developing saltwater sores across his body. That's the thing about saltwater. If you've ever been to the beach and been in the ocean and you come out and then you dry off, you know, you bake underneath the sun. It's kind of an uncomfortable feeling.

You know, your skin gets all sort of. Does yours not do that? No, but my sister's does. I think it just depends on your skin type. Wait, you don't feel the salt? No, you definitely feel the salt on your skin. No, it just doesn't feel painful. No, not painful. It just feels kind of gross. I didn't say painful. No, it doesn't feel gross to me either. It really doesn't bother me at all. Like, I go home and feel like I don't even need to get out of the shower. Oh, hell no. It drives me crazy. I feel like. I'm like meant to be in the ocean. Same, but.

in the ocean. There's like so much salt and then even when you rinse off, I can like feel the salt coming off of my skin on my face and stuff. Damn, I've seriously never noticed that. Really? But Annalie really bothers her. You've never licked your fingers after coming out of the ocean? No. I'll lick my fingers. I'll go like

Like that. Ew. Thanks for showing us that. Dude, it's so salty. Like when I was eating chips on the beach and I'd start licking my fingers, the amount of salt that I got with my chips. I love salt. Maybe I just didn't notice. It's gross though. I feel like it's just all over you.

And so imagine being in a raft that's just getting blasted with saltwater all day. That is fucked. Wind, sun. Sun beaming down. Over and over and over again. I do love the feeling of showering after being in it. Like you do that feeling of you're like, wow, I'm so clean. All right. I'm going to make a saltwater bath and put you in it and see how long you can stay in it. And then we'll take you out and then see how long you can go without a shower. I do that all the time. Epsom salt. All my baths have Epsom salt.

And you've seen how long I can take a bath. It doesn't bother me. My skin doesn't get really affected by it. But I'm sure if I was out there, Steve could never shower with, yeah. I mean, it's so bad that he's getting actual sores. If you look up saltwater sores, you can see what we're talking about. But it made it nearly impossible for him to lie down without feeling a burning pain. Yeah, it's that uncomfortable. Still later that day, he finally felt the spirit to go through his survival supplies and determine what he had. He's like, I got to figure out

What's the reality here? Is it grim? So his original survival kit included six pints of water, two plywood paddles, two orange flares, three red flares, a radar reflector, though he felt this was totally worthless, two solar stills used for purifying salt water, a first aid kit, a patch kit, and some fishing gear. In his personal ditch kit, he had pencils in his notebook, which he said, you know, this is one of the important survival skills, got to get my thoughts down. The book, Sea Survival,

A space blanket, plastic bags, an additional solar still, more patching materials, another radar system that, you know, he could use to get search teams, his location if they were looking in the area, a flare gun, two more pints of water, cutting boards, 10 ounces of peanuts, not good for me, baked beans, corned beef, and raisin. And even if I were starving, I would not eat the peanuts. Really? Nope.

Well, I guess you could possibly die. I could die. Yep. If I let it go long enough, I could... If any of you had that much of it, yeah. Yeah. Be bad. Yeah. But Steve calculated that he had around 14 days of supplies if he were just to survive on the items that he packed. While that's a lot for a typical survival situation, and more than most who, you know, what people have lost at sea, Steve is still out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. There's a chance that by the end of the 14 days, he would reach the busy shipping lanes, but still...

He's got to hope that one of these massive vessels, these shipping boats are huge, would even be able to spot his tiny raft floating around and then rescue him. Because sometimes they're moving so quickly and they can't even turn around if they want to because the boat's already moving so quick.

The chances at that point seemed pretty slim. Steve wrote, Desperation shakes me. I want to cry, but I scold myself. Hold it back. Choke it down. You cannot afford the luxury of water wept away. Can't cry. What a thought. Gotta retain all the water. Steve then spent the rest of his birthday daydreaming as it was still too rough outside to try and fish or distill clean water. Wonder what he was daydreaming about.

I wonder, it makes me think about the Andes guys, like when they would just start talking about the sweetest food they could possibly make or the, you know, just, I would just think about food, honestly. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, screw family. He actually said in his interview that he would dream about fruit. Yeah, he, later on, because he was worried that, you know, he was going to get scurvy. He had like no...

No vitamins. No nutrients. So that's like what would always pop into his head. And guinea pigs, too. He thought about guinea pigs. No, I'm saying guinea pigs get scurvy. My guinea pig got scurvy. It's common for guineas. Anyway.

That's always what comes to mind. But yeah, he was dreaming about fruit. And he was talking about in that interview that we showed from YouTube how he's like it wasn't it was never like a McDonald's Happy Meal or like a chicken nuggets or a steak, I guess, would make a little more sense. There was never things like that. It was fruit. He was craving fruit.

fruit because he his body knew his body knew that that's what he needed the vitamins and nutrients the most tons of water and fruit yeah fresh and crisp and refreshing yeah so he would literally just dream about like watermelon and strawberries and god give me that fruit roll-up yeah fruit by the foot there you go that's how you really get the vitamins yeah give me that artificial shit

No, I can imagine you'd be wanting a watermelon real bad. Yeah. Like, oh, the fruit and the water. We had a great watermelon the other day. It was full of water. Yeah, it was great. We still have more at home. It was so good. I'm just rubbing in. We've had the best watermelon, like, of our lives. When the watermelon is, like, a deep, deep red. Oh, it's so good. Chilled out of your fridge, and it just, like,

Well, we're especially appreciating because we got a watermelon last week that tasted like chemicals. We just throw it out. I don't know what's wrong with it. It was like fizzy. It's like someone put sanitizer on it. Yeah, it was disgusting. So the next day, Steve tried to use one of his solar stills to purify the salt water. However, after every attempt, the water stung his mouth and forced him to dry heave.

His solar stills, no, they were from the Second World War, and out of everyone he knew who had ever tried to use one, nobody could figure out how to use these fucking things. Luckily, he realized that his small raft had become an island and had attracted a small school of Dorados, also known as Mahi Mahi.

Which is really interesting. He also talks in his interview about how he's seen these ecosystems form even around things like trash and light bulbs out in the ocean. So they all kind of just congregated around him almost for, he said, for social reasons. But that was another...

lucky break that he had that that actually happened for him. So Steve tried to fish for Doritos using the packed fishing line, but the fish kept breaking his line until he ran out of wire or anything else that he could use. And he did later reference how a little boy at one point pointed out that he could have used the wire inside the emergency light, and that was a thought that never occurred to him. Smart little dude, destined to be a Steve.

Well, he would I think he brought that up in the interview because the the interviewer asked him, like, do you ever wish like you had other people out there with you? Kind of like what we were talking about before. And he was he was saying, like, ultimately, it was good because he only had to provide for himself. But there were things like that where.

thoughts just didn't even occur to him about the survival scenario. And perhaps if someone else was there with him, they could have been like, oh, yeah, man, we can just use the fucking light. Yeah, just another person to brainstorm with and work through problems that definitely would be helpful. So he tried to spear the fish, but that didn't work so well because his aim either missed the fish or it was just able to tear away from the spear. So he survived on only what he packed for several more days and a cup of water daily.

And often he wouldn't even swallow the water. He would just let it sit in his mouth until his tongue absorbed the liquid. By the 13th day, he could feel his muscle and fat being broken down for energy. Imagine feeling that.

Oh, I mean, that's something we talked a lot with the Andy's survival story. I had just never even thought about what that would actually feel like, that your body just starts to eat itself. And he had spent the last few days starving, staring at the fish, mainly Doritos and triggerfish that had come to his raft as a food source. And eventually, Steve actually said they became his only companions, and he sort of thought of them almost like dogs. At one point in that interview, too, he said they became sort of like...

I don't know if he said gods or something. They were. He definitely. No, he definitely. He spoke about like how spiritual it had become. Even to this day, he keeps a Dorado skeleton in his office. Yeah. Just because it was like they were they were everything to him. They were companions. They were food. Yeah. They were also enemies. Yeah. They really did encompass the full world. So he did feel this kind of spirituality with them. Yeah. Yep.

Yeah, it's pretty amazing to... I can see how you would get like that out there. You are... They're your only source of companion. However, even though they were...

you know, like his dogs, he still had only had three pounds of food for the past week and a half. And just looking at the fish beneath them caused his stomach to twist with hunger. So as he had previously done, he tried to spear one of the fish and he expected to fail. However, this time he actually caught a small triggerfish and he was pretty surprised. He wrote,

Its eyes flash, its fins frantically wave about, its throat cracks, and it's finally dead. My eyes fill with tears. I weep for my fish, for me, for the state of my desperation. Then I feed on its bitter meat.

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He's an incredible writer, too. So he caught more fish, hanging them on one of his line pieces to cure the meat before eating it, and the other fish bounced at the bottom of his raft, as if they were angry at him for catching the others.

The next day he wrote, today things flow smoothly, but tomorrow's waves may break, crush my spirit and wash away my dreams. And here's Steve talking about the importance of the Dorado and how they came to view his raft. So when did you start fishing? Did you immediately have access to fish or did it take some time before? It took a while. I mean, really, you know, the core story of the drift is that I'm just kind of this idiot coder.

clumsy human observer of this incredible environment that evolves and of which I am blessed to be a part of. And it's about my relationship with this environment and being a part of it, not a dominant part of it for sure, but a small interactive part. And it's about the magic and the mystery of this environment, which is really mostly symbolized through the Dorado, a

also called mahi-mahi in places and whatnot they're fairly large fish that are found in temperate waters around the world they're incredibly beautiful um i found incredibly smart actually um i know that a lot of scientists in recent years have been discovering that fish are smart and i like well haven't they talked to any fishermen in the last 2 000 years um

Anyway, these fish started showing up within, I think, the third day or so. And eventually the school would form around the raft, follow it. I felt like they used it as the point of, you know, you're in this

you're in this, this, you know, the world's largest will, you know, desert really that, but as far as they're going to, you're all moving with the current, but as far as if you're, if you're in that current, you know, everything's moving. It's like being on everything, being on a moving sidewalk, you're, you're kind of gall going at the same speed. So it's like, everything's sort of sitting still, but there's,

But there are no signposts or anything out there. And I found that the Dorado were social creatures. And I think... So they would come and gather around the raft and there would become more and more and more of them. There were probably over 50 fish by the time I landed. So one night, just as night was beginning to fall and Steve was getting ready to sleep, he feels a tremendous blow to his back. And you guys will not believe what happened, what this was. He realized that...

His raft was just attacked by a shark. Doesn't he think this man can't go through anything worse? So he ran to the entrance of the raft with a spear in his hand, and he was, of course, jabbing at the shark every time it lunged at his raft. And eventually, super tired of all the spear hits, the shark did back off. But he really, at that moment, was like, maybe this is it. Maybe I'm done. It's so crazy to think that, like, also, he just...

He fought a shark. I know. Just add that to the list. So gnarly. So gnarly. And all he had to do was stab it. I mean, like a lot. But he won. Right. He won. He won. Yeah. And I mean, the shark, I'm sure, was just confused. If I had to guess what type of shark that hit him, I would guess a great white because great whites are attracted to things floating on the surface.

And so it would make sense that a great white may have been swimming around it to see what's going on here. This is potentially food and started trying to, I'm honestly surprised that the shark didn't completely just shred this thing, just completely shred it to try to figure out what's, what's in it. But I think because Steve leapt into action so quickly and was like this, defending his house, his floating home. Yep.

In his life, of course, that that likely saved him, not only him, but his raft as well at the very, you know, very least. And but that is got to be the scariest thing in the middle of the night. Imagine I wonder if there is a lot of moonlight this this night or not, or if it was just pitch dark and you're getting walloped around by a big old beast underneath you.

That is some scary shit. That is. I wonder if he's got nightmares of that moment. Well, yeah. And if it's a great white as well, like that's Jaws, man.

That's the scariest one. That's a big-ass fucking fish. That is. It's a big fish, man. Or maybe it could have been some other type of shark as well. Although bull sharks usually would have started biting. They just bite. Bull sharks are like Pac-Man. They just bite everything because they're just amped. I've watched a lot of shark weeks, if you haven't noticed. I believe that usually great whites, when they find something they want to attack, they go really far deep.

And then they like turn around and fly up as quick as they can. Oh, right. Like a sneak attack versus like kind of circling or like swimming around. That's if they're that's if that's after they check it out, though. That's like when they go in for like a kill. Yeah. They'll go deep. But so like I think it was just kind of swimming around it. Oh, do they? To like knock the seals out of the water and stuff. Yeah. Yeah, kind of.

But like there's, I was watching, there's some recent videos of people who are, you know, people are just kayaking and they've had great whites show up and great whites will just kind of swim around and kind of, they will actually attack boats. A lot of the time boats that are floating, they will attack, they, they won't do the, like, you know, they do that when they're going to like go for the kill, they'll go deep and then come upwards and like leap out of the water. But first they check out, they make sure that what they're

what's in front of them is actually food or prey. And so they'll actually bite. Like I was just watching a video of somebody's boat, a fishing boat that was just being munched on by a great white. And just because it was just, you know, checking out what it was and likely because there was, they were fishing. So it was probably attracted to it. So my guess is, you know, if he's got fish, he's got fish parts and I'm assuming that he's putting fish parts into the water.

outside when he's skinning, you know, gutting the fish, things like that. So he's almost in a way kind of chumming the waters a little bit when he's preparing food. Maybe not the case for this particular incident, but my guess is that also there's all these fish hanging out with him that something came by hunting and was like, oh, what's this? And then decided to make a move. And sharks like to hunt at night and late in the day. So.

likely was a shark absolutely terrifying yeah to say the least i don't know how you stay calm and all in that moment you're not just oh my god no it's over freaking out let alone like fall out of the raft how do you not fall out of the raft into the water

As he's trying to like spear this thing. Yeah. It's crazy. I know that that part of this is just unbelievable. But just then, right after the shark attack incident, Steve looks out into the black water and he realized something else. He had finally slipped into the shipping lane and a massive cargo ship was in sight like

I mean, of course, he's thinking, holy shit, this is a miracle. I just survived a shark attack, and now there's a ship right ahead of me. So he lit one of his flares and shouted up to the vessel. Obviously, it's far away and can't hear him. And this massive ship didn't see him in the darkness, but he remembered a quote from Dougal Robertson that says, rescue will always come as a welcome interruption of the survival voyage. So he was really hoping that

That, yeah, they were going to stop for him. And I mean, I've seen in the reenactments, he like drank all his water and was celebrating. I don't know if that's actually true. He doesn't mention that in the book, at least. But it seems like a little theatric. He like pours it on his face. Which when I saw that, I was like, no. Yeah. But yeah, they just went right past him. Imagine how that would feel. And that wasn't the only time, dude.

This was one of nine ships that Steve would come in contact with during his voyage. And if he was going to survive, he knew at this point he was going to have to do it on his own. People were not going to see him. He's too small. It's too dark. For the next few days, Steve cut apart one of his solar stills to figure out how it worked, which is smart. You know, he's like, I got the backup, so I might as well. I need this to work or I die. So let me cut it open, kind of figure out how this thing works. And, you know, he can't.

He's got fish, but if he doesn't have water, he's not going to live very long. He would later say that the ocean is the world's largest desert with water everywhere, but not a drop to drink. Just like so bizarre to think about. Yeah, that's absolutely true. It is the world's largest desert. You can't drink the damn salt water.

However, he soon learned that the secret was keeping the balloon on this solar still inflated at just the right pressure to allow water to build up inside. And then I assume the water kind of runs down and like condensates. So if you're not familiar with the solar still, you put the seawater in and then basically you put it in the sun and the sun evaporates the water out of the salt, leaving the salt behind. And then that distilled water kind of flows down the sides of this sort of balloon and

type type thing into like a bag where it collects into fresh water. And once he had that figured out, Steve could produce a pint of water daily. And with this, Steve finally felt like, you know what? Maybe I got a chance. Maybe I could be out here for a while and be OK.

He even placed a plastic container on the raft to collect rainwater because I think we all would probably do that, try to find something to collect rainwater. Yeah. But Steve still had some challenges. The launching mechanism in his spear gun had broken and he had to use it like a small pike to collect fish. He was just kind of like stabbing it down into the water. And sometimes the dried fish would go rancid and he still ran into numerous storms that toppled the raft, though he remained inside. So he'd get tossed around. Yeah. Yeah.

Steve said that he had separated his personality into three distinct parts, one being the captain, another one being the crewman, and the third one being his emotional side. Can't even wrap my mind around how you would do that and just, I guess, have to have to do that at some point. Spend enough time alone. Yeah. Wow. You got nothing else. You start.

Start separating your personality. Almost like social parts of yourself to, it's wild. It's wild to think about. So kind of how this would play out is his emotional side would recognize, you know, the dire situation that he's in and the fact that he's probably not going to survive. But then the captain would snap him out of it and the crewman would do what the captain said.

Yeah. So interesting. And according to Steve, only 15% of people can split their personalities in a way necessary for an extreme long-term survival scenario. And for the most part, even if people can survive initially, they eventually freeze up. That's me. Okay. He also said that this part of his survival story was learning to live like an aquatic caveman, relying only on his shelter and what he could scavenge for survival. Yeah.

He also noticed a strange yin and yang while out at sea. On days when the winds barely moved him, he could catch fish and purify water. On stormy days, he went faster, but he couldn't fish. He also couldn't help but notice a strange connection to the beautiful landscape that was all around him. And after watching the bioluminescence reflect the water around him,

With the Doritos trailing the green light as he circled his raft, he said he had a view of heaven from a seat in hell. That's the best fucking line. That's such a great quote. It's so crazy. And yeah, if you've never, I'm sure you've at least seen bioluminescence online or something or a video of it. If you haven't, definitely look it up. It's so cool. And he describes kind of putting his hands in the water and creating small galaxies by like swirling the bioluminescence around and

Sounds absolutely beautiful. I'm sure Tom will put in some great overlay footage of it. But I mean, nothing really does it justice as well as it would being out there the way that he was alone. No light to...

The stars out there have just been insane. Oh my God. Yeah. Really a view of heaven from a seat in hell. Yeah. That's the best line. And that's what I kept saying to Max as we were looking at the concrete fucking side in the lake. Yeah. That's exactly where you were. Hell. Well, yes. Heaven. But a view of heaven. A view of heaven.

That's right. The algae water. The algae water is 15 miles outside of Greeley or something. Yeah. Well, when you got those beers, anything can be heaven. I mean, I found my beat. That's what I did with those beers. That's right. That's right.

But still, the next few months went by without incident. Steve's family alerted the American, Caribbean, and English officials that he was missing after day 40 since he hadn't returned within his one-month time frame. But still, Steve had no clue that anybody was looking for him. He's just trying to survive. On day 42, a Dorado had pulled the spear tip from his gun and swam away. What a moment that must have been.

What a way to fish. This is nuts. Gone. So then he's like, well, I've got this utility knife, so let's, you know, I'll fasten that to the end and use that. And this worked for a few catches, but then the knife got caught in one fish and that fish tore it away. What's even worse is that this knife Dorado then swam underneath the raft and punctured a hole through its base layer. God, that would suck. This part is like,

I think possibly the worst part of the whole thing. I don't know how he kept going after this. Like, what are the chances that happens? Spear gun. Spears the Dorado. Puts the knife on. Knife taken by the Dorado. Then the Dorado swims into the raft. So first he's pissed because he's like, oh, fuck. Now I have no way to fish. I have no spear gun. But then, yeah, it cuts open the bottom. And then he's describing the sound of it, too. Like the.

The air all leaving and the bubbles in the water. Oh, my God. Just realizing, oh, my God. Hit after hit. I don't know how he kept going. I think I would just seriously lay down and just be like, well. He did for a bit. Yeah, he did talk about how he did at one point. But he had the will to get up. I don't think I would, dude. How about a few sips of water? Yeah, that. Yeah. I bet that got him drunkish feeling.

Yeah. God. Mm hmm. Just getting a little moisture in there. Well, Steve, he's like, if I don't fix this, I'm just this is the end. Yeah, I'm not I'm not going to come back from this. This is the most critical part of my survival. So he quickly tried to plug the hole, but nothing stopped the air from coming out. And while the raft wasn't fully submerged and the inside remained dry, Steve didn't have any solid ground to spear to still water even move.

So it's like there's this bottom kind of ring underneath the raft and then there's the ring that he actually sits on. Picture like two donuts on each other. Yeah. Sort of. Yeah. If you're if you're listening and you can't see a picture. So imagine kind of having a stable platform and then all of a sudden you're on a waterbed in the ocean. He couldn't he couldn't do anything anymore. And if you've ever had a waterbed. Which you have. Which I had a waterbed.

As a teenager. You can't do much. You can do a lot. But fishing and non-recreational activities, the essential activities are not that fun. Yeah. Because you're just moving around. Well, at least in a waterbed, you're in a home. You can fall off and land on the carpet. In his situation, he's screwed. It's just bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. Yeah.

But that would be that would have been wild. Yeah. It's just uneven. You like can't even like really like, you know, use your knees to walk around anymore because you're just like. No, you can't do shit. Can't fish. And I'm like, how did he not just fall out of this thing at this point? I don't know, dude. Steve's just such a G. It's amazing. He's got the best balance. Yeah. His balance is unmatched. Meanwhile, though, his leg muscles are slowly deteriorating. Right. Yeah. So it's not even like. He's like worming around. Yeah. Yeah.

It's like, what is he, like, belly crawling? Yeah, because he can't stand up. No. Can't use your legs, really. Lowe's knows July 4th savings are worth celebrating. Get up to 40% off select major appliances and get an additional 10% off two or more select major appliances. Hurry. These July 4th deals won't last long. Lowe's. We help. You save. Valid to 7-9. Selection varies by location. While supplies last. See Lowe's.com for more details.

Visit your nearby Lowe's on Cottle Road in San Jose. You haven't eaten a proper meal in fucking months. I know. So for the next 10 days, Steve is trying to patch this hole. He absolutely has to get it patched. And he tried wire. He tried supplies from his patch kit, even a cork, but nothing would hold. And air would immediately gush out the moment he tried to inflate the patch.

bottom base layer. Steve was completely dejected by the 53rd day. He was unable to fish. He's unable to collect water. He wrote, the night I lost Solo, and again, last evening, there seemed no escape from death. And I can definitely see how he would feel like that. Finally, he remembered another tool that he hadn't used throughout his survival, a fork.

You might be wondering, how would you possibly use a fork for this situation? Well, he realized that if he could make the hole slightly larger using a fork, then he would be able to use wire to tighten the fabric around the patch. And finally, this patch actually worked. It's absolutely incredible. And he was able to inflate the raft once again.

And while Steve once again felt like he had conquered death, he knew the rest of the voyage would be a struggle. He wrote, even if the patch fails, I can make a replacement rapidly. My position is still about three weeks away from the islands. My body has reached a new low with no chance to recover and no hope of coping with unhappiness.

another major disaster. From here on, it will be a full-time struggle to hang on to but not break the thread that connects me to my world. And there was another issue. Steve's solar stills had become useless. Basically, the fabric had been all torn apart, disintegrated. I mean, they're only designed to work for a couple of months or something like that, right? I believe he

He was saying each of them only were rated for about 10 days or so. And his lasted pretty long. His lasted pretty long, all things considered. But, you know, still, it's like he gets to day 60 or wherever he's at now and it's like, fuck, they're done. Dude, it sucks that he cut up. I mean, I see why he had to cut it up in the first place to understand how they work to some degree, but.

Damn, I wish he didn't do that. I'm sure he was really regretting that. And at first, he tried to collect rainwater that had rolled off of the raft's canopy, but he soon learned that the orange dye that was used on the raft tainted the water and it was absolutely disgusting. So instead, he used inflatable parts of his still to collect rainwater. Now, while this was effective, he still was collecting far less water than he had been in the past. Plus, his spear had been destroyed again.

during that fight with the Dorado, which had torn his raft. And while he had fashioned a butter knife to the end, getting the speared fish to stay on the knife's edge was obviously far more difficult. So the trade winds that he had relied on for his slow movement were becoming unreliable. And he had sort of blown in a circle for 24 hours, and he could no longer understand where he was located. So at this point, he just

I mean, is really like starting to give up. This is just he doesn't know if he can he can do it. He actually started feeling like a flying Dutchman trapped in an endless purgatory. And he was unsure at this point if he had already died. And this was the afterlife. I could so see how you would be there. I feel like I would be there on like day one, to be honest. Like, it's just. Yeah.

And finally, on the 65th day, Steve saw the webbed feet of a bird resting on his canopy. Not only could this be a new food source, but it also indicated that he was getting close to land. So Steve, like the badass he is, just shoots his hand out of the raft and fucking catches this bird.

Can't even imagine. And then he ate it as a welcome break from all of the fish. And in the following days, he did it again. He'd repeat this process, catching and eating another bird. At this point, Steve is running out of survival supplies. He no longer had a backstock of food and water, and he knew that he would not survive more than 20 days more at sea.

He began to have barely lucid conversations with himself, yelling, More water, Captain, we must have more, and shouting back, No, no, well maybe no, you can't have any, not a drop. Steve was losing his mind, and he felt like he was coming to an end.

Luckily, there were signs of coming landfall, and on day 70, he began to notice new fish were following the raft, larger ones that lived closer to civilization. Then he saw trash that had to be orbiting some kind of land or had been thrown from a nearby fishing boat. Then as he got ready to sleep on the 75th night, he saw the unmistakable pulse of a lighthouse in the distance. The next day, April 21st, Steve saw green for the first time in over two months. He was rapidly approaching an island, one with buildings, trees, and life.

But there was another problem. He knew that if he didn't slow down, he's going to crash right into that reef on that island. Without any strength left to swim, he would drown before he made it onto the land, which would be a horrible way to go after surviving on this raft for all these days to then crash into a reef and drown. That'd be terrible. But luckily, just as he tried to slow his approach, two fishermen came up to him

While he did not speak their language of Creole and could not explain his situation, he pointed to the fish that had been circling his raft, and the men caught a few before they brought Steve on board. The men brought him on shore to the island of Maria Gallant, and Steve said, quote, the perfume of flowers and grass blows off the island and wafts in my nostrils. I feel as if I'm seeing colors, hearing sounds, and smelling land for the very first time.

Dude, can you like think about what that would be like? There's part of me that wants to experience that so bad that I'm like, maybe. It's like a psychedelic experience. Yeah. Yeah. But like it has to be so much better than that. Yeah. Because you're sober and also experiencing that. God, it's so insane. But after 76 days out there on the open ocean all by himself, Steve had finally been rescued. Stephen Callahan was.

What a guy. I know. Some great picture of him with the fishermen that rescued him. I'm so glad. Yeah. What he said, actually, when they first rolled up on him, they said something along the lines of like, what are you doing out here, man? Right. They like they they couldn't understand each other. Like he also didn't reckon he didn't know what like Creole was. So he was like, this kind of sounds French. This is like, what is this?

But the only reason they ultimately let him on the raft was just because he was like, look at all these fish. And then they fished and then he got on. And then eventually they learned like, oh, shit, you were out there for 76 days. That's crazy. Yeah. I mean, because he kind of didn't look like it had been that long. It's honestly really impressive when you I mean, he certainly looks like it's been some time, but like, I don't know, 76 days. Yeah, that picture is amazing. Look at that. Wow. Thank God he had, you know.

cover from the sun. Dude, seriously. Because if he had not had any coverage, how toasted you'd be. He honestly looked better than Tom Hanks did in Cast Away. Yeah. Maybe that was overdramatic. But yeah, miraculously, Steve had only lost one third of his body weight, which was

Very impressive considering he was out there the last 76 days only eating fish and it sounds like two birds, maybe a couple of birds.

So he was back on his feet after all of this just took a couple weeks to rest and then he was back in action. So impressive. And what's even more impressive is that Steve had only landed 10 miles away from his estimated destination, which just shows you what a talented navigator he had been just using a homemade sextant and emergency maps. And he's like using a little pencil. It's just

I don't know how he did it. I don't know how he did any of this. It's unreal. So Steve ended up getting remarried, had a nice happy ending. He got married to Kathy Massimini, and the two continue to build boats together to live on them and, of course, sail them. And he wrote a book, Adrift, 76 Days Lost at Sea. I definitely want to check that one out. And that was written from his notebook with dozens of illustrations.

from his journey. And the book, obviously, was instantly successful and immediately shot to the top of the New York Times bestsellers list. And he completed at least four more cross-ocean journeys and became one of the most foremost ship designers in the United States. Just...

So, so impressive. And he also designed a dynamic rescue raft that would have reduced his 1,800-mile journey to just 450. So maybe pick up his raft if you have a boat. And he also, this is really cool, fun fact here, he also worked on the Ang Lee film The Life of Pi, which Josh and I have never seen, surprisingly. No, it won a bunch of awards, too. Yeah, I remember when that movie came out. It was a big deal. What was that? That came out in, like, I think it was 2010.

We were in high school, I was going to say. It's a very famous book. And it features scenes that are inspired by Steve's experiences, like the importance of the Dorado and the bioluminescence at sea. But unfortunately, we do have a little bit of sad news. In 2012, he was diagnosed with leukemia and his sailing has slowed down since his diagnosis, but he still sails whenever he gets the chance. And we

Certainly wish him the best. And speaking to Cruising World, Steve said, anything worth doing is not going to be easy. While we want to have fun in our lives, fulfillment is what we are all really after. I still don't regret my 76 days alone in the raft. To this day, I feel enlightened by what I went through because it changed me for the better. Those are powerful words. I can see how it would, um,

yeah, completely change your outlook on life and the way you continue to live. And I know the survivors of the Andes, the ones that are still alive, had very similar sentiments at the end of everything. And it's, yeah, to this day, all that time later, they still kind of live life differently and see the world differently. Well, and they all make the similar comments of, I had no idea how resilient I really was. And then

They surprise themselves, which fills me with a lot of hope. Yeah. That despite whatever challenges we face as a species, that we're all capable of this kind of resilience. Whatever complex situations or tragedies. So you're saying if the apocalypse hits, World War III, maybe we'll get through it. Yeah, I'm just saying I think we'll be okay. Maybe we will. We have the ability to...

And maybe all of us here who keep dogging on ourselves saying we wouldn't be able to other than Josh who thinks he can do anything. And you probably could. But the three of us, maybe we have more in us than we even know. I believe in all of you. Do you? I think you all could do it. Who do you believe in the most? Yeah, out of the three of us, who do you think would survive? Rank us.

I was a Boy Scout. Let me make that just before, just to put that into consideration. What does that even mean? It means a lot. You had to get respawned on a lake. In a survival situation? I did have to get. Ian definitely has. Well, actually, you know what? I'm going to knock him down a few notches after the rafting. That's what I just got rescued for. Actually, Ian goes, because I feel like Kendall or Janelle would have either swam to shore or figured out how to paddle back.

And I'm sorry, Ian, you're at the bottom.

That is so unfair. Actually, I completely disagree with that because Janelle and I have learned absolutely zero survival skills. But you guys might have swam. Might have swam. See, I would have swam if it wasn't for my unfortunate skin infection. Yeah, he would have. In your car heart? He's making a terrible decision. I was wearing denim shorts, so that would have made a... That's wild behavior. That's wild. What if the infection got worse and he died? He made a smart decision. It was not the kind of infection that could have killed you. I will say nothing else about it, but...

This is a temporary thing. I'd put my money on Ian out of the three of us.

Yeah, but in like a true survival, I think Ian probably has a leg up on that. How many years of scouts did you do? You two don't have a lot of outdoor experience at all. That's what I'm saying. I was a Girl Scout for like a moment and I learned nothing. I didn't pay attention to jack shit. I can't start a fire. The only thing I do know about survival is that aspen trees have like sunscreen on them that you can rub on your face. That's cool. I didn't know that. You didn't know that? I love that fact. It's a natural sunscreen.

That's awesome. That's all I got, though. Hey, I'm a good problem solver. You are. You know what, Janelle? Yes. The two of us. Yeah, you have great problem solving skills. You do. So maybe you would put that to use and start figuring putting two and two together. That's right. Maybe the three of us could survive together if we put our...

brains together i think my biggest skill is that i'm just like it's whatever brother that's that is you would bring the chill you would be so annoyed with kennel and i because we are not whatever brother type of people we all like freak out at all times we're like fucking shit brother we're gonna die you'd be like chill he's like no we ian if we were all four of us were in a survival situation like most of our energy would be spent like just

doing therapy for these two. Yeah. And like calming their anxiety down and be like,

It's going to be okay. And they're like, no, it's not going to be okay. Tell me why it's going to be okay. And then we, and then doesn't matter what we tell them. No logical, rational answer would suffice. If I had Xanax with me, I'd be fine. I need my Xanax. Prescribed by a doctor. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. It's prescribed. I need my medication. We're bringing the prescriptions on the fucking raft. The plant. Actually, our ditch kit. Yeah, we could put that in our ditch kit. Yeah. We would need that. Yeah.

What, a 76-day supply? We'd have to ration them. Three months? Yeah. Three months worth? We'd have to ration them. Sixth of the day. A weed vape. Okay. That could help. Beer. Beer. I've got to have the Benjamin Franklin for sure. I'm not a big beer drinker, but you know what? Any fluids.

We need lots of fluid. Annie, you be drinking. If it's hot out, beer. Honestly. My air may not taste good. I don't know how hot it is. If we add Tom to this group, then I would feel really good. The full mile higher group, we could totally survive. Then we could just live indefinitely. Yeah, Tom would save us. I feel like Tom would be like, you idiots. He could do this. He would think like Steve. Yeah, Tom, I have 100% confidence in him. I wish he could say something right now. I'll probably put something on screen. Yeah, he probably will. I feel like...

These dummies would die in a few days. I still feel like if I was Steve, though, and after some of the things he went through, I think I'd just be like, let me just hop in the water and just float until I don't float anymore. But your brain's going to tell you no because your brain's going to be like, drowning sucks. Drowning is not fun. Isn't it impossible to drown? Drowning is a horrible way to die. Yeah. Damn. So you would be forced to survive. Well, on that note,

Ladies and gentlemen, it's time for us to bounce. How about out there? You tell us. Yeah. How many days could you survive adrift? And what would your main things that you need be? What would be in your ditch kit? What percentage of faith do you have in yourself? And would you rather be out on a raft or...

out in a half a fuselage in the andes mountains eating bodies which one sounds better to you and maybe we'll do some more survival stories soon i love these they're so it's like so good for my mental health to hear of positive stories yeah well we are getting back into true crime next week which i cover a lot of of death yeah it's it's tough sometimes which is hard so it's

Nice to have a little break. Balance it out with surviving. Surviving what seems like sure death. So I can, you know, for at least a couple weeks tell myself I need to not complain and then I forget about it and go back to complaining. But if you enjoyed this episode, make sure you follow, subscribe wherever you listen or watch. I guess if you're watching here on YouTube. But we appreciate all of you. We'll see you guys next week. Until then, keep on taking your mind a mile higher.