Canadian crew recounts spotting, helping missing Wash. fisherman

Captain John Planes, his nephew Ryan Planes and his Ucluelet, British Columbia, fishing crew couldn’t believe their eyes when they spotted a life raft with a man inside it off the coast of Vancouver Island, Thursday morning.

“I went and got the binoculars and I looked at it and I could see the guy waving his paddle around in the air and then shortly after that he lit off his last flare at us,” Ryan Planes said to KIRO 7.

“Yeah, we couldn’t believe it that there was even somebody on there,” John Planes added while talking to KIRO 7. “That’s what I was thinking, (we have got to) go get him.”

The man who was found was one of the two missing fishermen from the boat “Evening” which departed Grays Harbor Oct. 12 with the intention of returning Oct. 15.

They were reported missing Sunday by one of their children after they failed to return.

More on this story: Missing fisherman found alive after Coast Guard ended search

The fisherman was found approximately 70 miles Northwest of Cape Flattery, the U.S. Coast Guard confirmed on X, formerly known as Twitter, Thursday afternoon. The Coast Guard suspended its search for the Evening less than two days before Planes’ crew found him.

The exact location of the rescue was about 40 nautical miles off Ucluelet, the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre in Victoria, British Columbia, said, according to Global News Canada.

Fisherman thanks his rescuers

“He hugged me right away as soon as he got on board. He was crying, he was just so glad somebody had actually picked him up,” John Planes said to Global News Canada. “It was quite emotional. … It was pretty cool.”

Once he was on board, they gave him a change of clothes and some food, John Planes told KIRO 7.

John Planes said the crew quickly whipped up the rescued man some breakfast.

“We made him egg and bacon sandwiches. … He ate two of those,” he said to Global News Canada through a smile.

He told John Planes he had been living on salmon that he caught and had very little water left.

The Coast Guard searched for the Evening for hours and covered thousands of square miles, but were unsuccessful. So, the search was called off.

“This life raft saved this man’s life,” U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer Steve Strohmaier said to Global News Canada. “Without that the water is icy cold, it would not take too long until (he) would have (gone) unconscious.”

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John Planes told Global News Canada the the rescued fisherman said “he curled up in a ball at night and tried to stay warm because he had no blankets or anything I don’t even know how he did it.”

“To survive that long, it just was a miracle,” John Planes added.

More on the Evening

The fisherman told the Canadian crew the Evening had just “flipped over,” according to KIRO 7. Though, there still are no additional details about how that may have happened.

“There were two adult males on board the vessel. I do not their names. I do not know the whereabouts of the other individual at this time,” Strohmaier said, according to KIRO Newsradio. Global News Canada did include a photo taken of the fisherman after he was rescued in their coverage of this story.

The Evening belonged to Henry Fisheries Inc., located in Aberdeen, for more than 20 years before it was sold to a private party in July. The buyer of the boat was the captain on board, according to Henry Fisheries, with an unknown crewman on board as well.

“The boat was built in 1941, but it was in excellent shape,” Wanda, an employee with Henry Fisheries, told MyNorthwest earlier this week. Wanda also stated the boat has only had four or five owners in its lifetime.

Contributing: KIRO 7; Frank Sumrall, MyNorthwest; Kate Stone, KIRO Newsradio