FAU sophomore Carl Simonsen loves to fish. He often takes his blow-up kayak to the Boca inlet and spends hours on the water, often staying out past nightfall.

Three weeks ago, this hobby almost made him fish bait. Carl lost his oar while trying to reel in a fish and was only able to talk to 911 operators for a few minutes before his cell phone died.

That night, he got caught in two large storms and spent eight hours bailing water out of his kayak with a 12-ounce Coke bottle.

The storms ended shortly before morning. He waited around and was finally rescued by a Haitian freightliner that brought him back to Riviera Beach, 40 miles north of where he started.

But when he got there, he wasn’t greeted with hugs. He was handcuffed by a woman from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and fined $55.
“[The lady] started yelling at me, saying [searching for me] had been a $7 million operation, and then she put me in handcuffs saying that for her to transport me to the Coast Guard station that I had to be in them,” says the ocean engineering major. “But she made the handcuffs really tight, and I had indents for two days afterward.”

When Carl got to the Coast Guard station in Lake Worth, a few officers told him that “the lady was a bitch and he should fight the ticket.”

I wanted to check into this ridiculous situation so I called the Coast Guard. And what did they do? They treated it like a high-profile case. Like I was asking about a terrorist, not a college student.

Un-freaking-believable.

Not only does Petty Officer Nick Ameen deny that Carl was ever handcuffed, but he claims that the woman from the FWC didn’t bring him to the station, a Coast Guard officer did.

For what it’s worth, I believe what Carl told me. But why would a government agency feel the need to lie for the FWC, especially in the case of a college student? I’m sure the worst thing he’s ever done is … get lost at sea.

What troubles me is that not only does his ordeal sound like something out of the movie The Perfect Storm, but the Coast Guard won’t even fess up to something that someone else did.

Unfortunately, Carl was unable to tell me the woman’s name. He claims he can’t read her signature on the ticket. The Coast Guard seems to think she doesn’t exist.

But if nothing else, the FWC needs to look into whomever this woman is because her mother should have taught her manners.

What exactly happened to Carl that night?

3 p.m. Carl got his kayak out in the Boca inlet and started fishing.

9:30 p.m. He had 100 feet of line out, looking for snapper. A fish snagged the line. After trying to reel in the fish, he looked down and realized his oar had drifted away.

10:30 p.m. Carl called 911 and was only able to tell them that he thought he was drifting south before his cell phone died. He and the 911 operator only talked for “a couple of minutes.”

10:55 p.m. The first storm rolled in and “it started getting windy fast.” The storm started with 3-foot waves but got progressively worse.

2 a.m. The first storm finally let up. Shortly after it ended, the waves started getting bigger again and it got “really wet and dark and cold.”

Shortly after 2 a.m. The second storm arrived, and Carl says that it was twice as bad as the first. The waves started to break in the middle of the ocean, which Carl knew is a bad condition for a blow-up kayak to be in.

Around 2:30 a.m. A large wave flipped Carl’s kayak. He lost a cooler and some lights and had to swim back to his kayak in the dark. His tarp and Coke bottle remained with the kayak.

3 a.m. to 4 a.m. Carl spent the entire hour emptying water from the kayak with the 12-ounce Coke bottle to keep it from sinking.

The storm let up before sunrise, and Carl rested until daylight.

Early morning: A tugboat appeared in the distance and began approaching Carl. He tried to wave them down, but they didn’t stop to help him.

One hour after the tugboat left: A freightliner from Haiti named the Monarch Queen appeared on the horizon. They saw Carl waving his arms, pulled up next to him and got him on the boat. The crew brought him back to a port in Riviera Beach, where the woman from the FWC was waiting.

To read my original story about Carl’s night on the ocean, visit tr.im/sNqu.