MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories - Open Water

Episode Date: July 7, 2022

Today’s podcast features three separate, unique stories that share a theme: stories that took place out on the ocean. The audio from these stories has been pulled from my YouTube channel, which is just called MrBallen, and has been remastered for today's podcast.Story names, previews & links to original YouTube videos:Story 1 -- “Turtles" -- A very famous survival story (Original YouTube link -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U36jtuJVBjQ)Story 2 -- "El Fausto" -- Strange things are discovered on board a ship lost at sea. (Original YouTube link -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yNVelnkfZo)Story 3 -- "El Faro" -- What happens when a ship decides to test mother nature (Original YouTube link -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dS302hMEzxQ)For 100s more stories like these, check out my YouTube channel just called "MrBallen" -- https://www.youtube.com/c/MrBallenIf you want to reach out to me, contact me on Instagram, Twitter or any other major social media platform, my username on all of them is @MrBallenSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today's podcast features three separate, unique stories that share a theme. Stories that took place out on the ocean. The audio from all three of these stories has been pulled from my YouTube channel and has been remastered for today's episode. The links to the original YouTube videos are in the description. The first story you'll hear is called Turtles, and it's a very famous survival story. The second story you'll hear is called El Fausto, and it's about the very strange things that were discovered on board a ship floating off at sea.

And the third and final story you'll hear is called El Faro, and it's about what happens when a ship decides to test Mother Nature. But before we get into today's stories, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and mysterious Delivered in Story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do, and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday. So if that's of interest to you, please raise the five-star review button's office chair all the way up, and then break off the handle. Also, please subscribe to the Mr. Boland Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss any of our weekly uploads.

Hello, I'm Emily and I'm one of the hosts of Terribly Famous, the show that takes you inside the lives of our biggest celebrities. And they don't get much bigger than the man who made badminton sexy. OK, maybe that's a stretch, but if I say pop star and shuttlecocks, you know who I'm talking about. No? Short shorts? Free cocktails? Careless whispers? OK, last one. It's not Andrew Ridgely.

Yep, that's right. It's Stone Cold icon George Michael. From teen pop sensation to one of the biggest solo artists on the planet, join us for our new series, George Michael's Fight for Freedom. From the outside, it looks like he has it all. But behind the trademark dark sunglasses is a man in turmoil. George is trapped in a lie of his own making, with a secret he feels would ruin him if the truth ever came out.

Follow Terribly Famous wherever you listen to your podcasts, or listen early and ad-free on Wanderie Plus on Apple Podcasts or the Wanderie app. I'm Peter Frank-O'Pern. And I'm Afua Hirsch. And we're here to tell you about our new season of Legacy, covering the iconic, troubled musical genius that was Nina Simone. Full disclosure, this is a big one for me. Nina Simone, one of my favorite artists of all time somebody who's had a huge impact on me who I think objectively stands apart for the level of her

talent the audacity of her message if I was a first year at university the first time I sat down and really listened to her and engaged with her message, it totally floored me. And the truth and pain and messiness of her struggle, that's all captured in unforgettable music that has stood the test of time. Think that's fair, Peter? I mean, the way in which her music comes across is so powerful, no matter what song it is. So join us on Legacy for Nina Simone.

matter what song it is. So join us on Legacy for Nina Simone. Okay, let's get into our first story called Turtles. In 2012, 35-year-old Jose Alvarenga was an extremely experienced fisherman, having spent years and years commercially fishing. In November of that year, Jose volunteered to do a 30-hour deep-sea fishing shift for his company off the coast of his hometown in Mexico. He hoped he'd be able to catch some sharks, marlins, and sailfish, three of the more lucrative fish you can catch. Unfortunately, the guy Jose usually went deep-sea fishing with was not able to go at the last minute, but Jose still really wanted to go out and do this shift, and so he took the

only other fisherman in their company that was willing to go or that could go, and it was a 23-year-old, extremely inexperienced, brand new fisherman named Ezequiel Cordoba. And while Jose knew he was not going to be a huge asset out on the seas, he figured, you know, it's a short trip and we're not that far off from shore, so you know what, he's fine, I'll take take him on november 17th the pair set out on their 24-foot fiberglass skiff with a small motor on board were various fishing tools a radio and a large icebox to hold all the fish they were going to catch once they reached the area they were going to be fishing their trip immediately started paying off and within just a couple of hours they had already almost completely overloaded the icebox their luck was so good that when they saw a storm coming in they decided to wait and continue to catch as many fish

as they possibly could before heading in at the very last minute but the storm that was rolling in was like the storm of the century and by the time they didn't turn around to head into shore it was too late they got caught up in this wicked storm where the rain was so intense, they literally could not see to shore. They tried to use their compass and other instruments to navigate to shore, but between the winds and the waves and the fact that their boat was so heavy from the nearly thousand pounds of fish they had caught,

they were just really unable to get anywhere near shore. When the storm just continued to rage and they were just kind of floundering in the water, they decided they needed to dump their catch. So they dumped all 1,000 plus pounds of fish back into the water. But even then, with a more agile boat, the storm was so severe, they just could not navigate effectively. And so Jose turned off the engine and told Ezekiel that their best chance here was to just wait it out. And once it was done, they would head back into shore. But that storm continued to rage for five days.

The torrential rain never stopped. The waves were huge. The winds were awful. And before long, they were getting pulled out to sea and had no idea where they were. Now, they had only planned to be out for 30 hours. So they did not have much in the way of supplies. And so after a few days, they had run out of food and they had run out of water, but luckily because it was raining so much, they were able to drink the rainwater. But the real immediate problem they were facing is over the course of

those five days, the storm was just battering their boat. And by the time the storm cleared, their boat was ruined. Their motor had been torn off and was just gone. Their electronics were busted and all of their fishing gear was either damaged or gone. There was enough charge in the radio for Jose to call back to his boss on the mainland and send a mayday message, but the radio died before they got a return message, so they weren't able to confirm if anybody on land was going to come looking for them. Left with minimal supplies, no radio, no motor, Jose and Ezekiel just had to hope somebody on the mainland heard their message and they slowly began to adjust to life at sea. Jose was

able to leap into the water and catch turtles, fish, seabirds, and jellyfish with his bare hands and so that's what they ate. And then the two of them would try to catch rainwater whenever they could, but the majority of the time they had to drink their own urine and turtle blood. Despite their initial optimism that their boss had probably heard their mayday message and would be sending people out to get them, as days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months, they realized that probably no one was coming to find them. Now their only hope was a plane spotted them flying overhead, or perhaps they could drift into a shipping lane and a boat could spot them. But without any way of navigating their boat, they really were just leaving it up to luck. Despite their dire situation, Jose stayed really positive, and he focused on catching food and catching water, and he tracked the time really diligently by tracking the phases

of the moon. Ezekiel, however, just did not have a significant role on the boat because he just wasn't skilled enough, and so he found himself sitting in the boat most of the time doing a whole lot of nothing, and he fell into a deep depression. He was not accustomed to being out on the water the way Jose was. Jose had been raised on the water. He practically only ate seafood, and a lot of it he ate raw. So in a way, Jose was kind of at home. Ezekiel was not. And then by the fourth month, Ezekiel just could no longer stomach the food they were eating. He would just get sick every single time. And so he just kind of gave up and he stopped eating. And even though Jose urged him

to eat and would get him food, he didn't eat it. And eventually he starved to death. Even though Ezekiel was not a huge asset in terms of helping them survive, he did provide Jose an enormous amount of comfort. It was like you had your partner in crime of helping them survive, he did provide Jose an enormous amount of comfort. It was like you had your partner in crime here. And then once he died, Jose was alone for the first time in nearly half a year and he fell into a very dark depression. And for six days he did not touch Ezekiel's body. He just sat there and stared at him and even contemplated taking his own life. But on the seventh day, he doesn't know what it was, but he had this sudden urge to want to survive. And so he gave Ezekiel a kind of makeshift funeral. He said a few words and then disposed of his body in the ocean. And then after that,

Jose became laser focused on just surviving. And survive he would for another nine months, all by himself, out in the middle of the ocean, just floating around, drinking turtle's blood and drinking his own pee. But after those nine months, he would finally see the thing he had been dreaming about, land. He had managed to drift all the way to the Marshall Islands. So he leapt out of his boat, he swam to shore, and there was a hut right on the beach. He knocked on the hut and a couple came to the door and they were totally shocked to see this guy. He didn't look too good and they couldn't even believe his story. They couldn't believe that he had survived for so long in the water but they quickly brought him inside. They gave him some food and drink and they contacted authorities and he was saved. His parents and young daughter when they found out he was alive

they were overjoyed. They along with everybody else believed he had perished. They had sent out a search party for them and they'd found pieces of their boat that had broken off in the storm, and so they assumed, you know, they must have sank. Then, in a strange turn of events, shortly after he got home, people began accusing him of lying about what happened. People said he looked too good to have been out on the open ocean for 14 months. He should have been emaciated, and at the very least, he should have had scurvy. But doctors would say he ate so many turtles and seabirds that he was pretty well fed. And turtles and seabirds contain a high level of vitamin C that would have protected him from scurvy. Other skeptics said it would have been impossible for his skiff to float the 6,000 miles to the Marshall Islands where he ultimately found land. But then a study done at the University of Hawaii confirmed there was a current that would have pulled him from the coast of Mexico

straight into the Marshall Islands. And then lastly, Ezequiel Cordoba's family accused Jose of killing Ezequiel and eating his body for sustenance. That's the only way he was able to survive. But Ezequiel roundly rejected that and took multiple lie detector tests that proved he did not do that. Today, Jose lives in a small town in El Salvador, completely surrounded by land, and he says he doesn't go anywhere near the water. The next story is called El Fausto. On July 20th, 1968, a small fishing boat called El Fausto took off from their port on La Palma Island, which is part of the Canary Islands, which is a Spanish archipelago, and they took off for El Hierro, which was another island about 50 miles to the south. On board El Fausto were three very experienced fishermen and sailors. They were the brothers Ramon and Eliberto Hernandez,

as well as their cousin Miguel Acosta. Their trip to El Hierro was uneventful. It took about seven hours. They arrived at the port in the early evening hours, and they unloaded their cargo onto the island, which was actually explosives used in agriculture. So they unloaded their cargo onto the island which was actually explosives used in agriculture so they unloaded all that and then the three of them went to get some food and relax for a few minutes before they came back to the dock and began preparing to leave so that evening as the three men are standing on their boat repacking the ship and getting ready to leave in the next few minutes they see this man running down the dock who's frantically waving at them trying to get their attention and so they stop what they're doing and they beckon him over and say you know what would

he need and the man introduced himself as julio garcia he was clearly very upset he was talking really quickly and they had to slow him down a couple times to try to understand what he was saying but he communicated that his wife had called him earlier that day and she said their two-year-old daughter was very sick and he needed to come home right away and he ran down to catch the ferry back to his home island of La Palma so the same island these three men are from and he missed the ferry and the next ferry going back to his home island was not for another two days and so Julio was running up and down the dock trying to flag anybody who owned a ship that might be willing to take him to La Palma even if it was out of the way he was prepared to pay for it and so of course the El Fausto crew said we're actually him to La Palma, even if it was out of the way. He was prepared to pay for it. And so, of course, the El Fausto crew said, we're actually going to La Palma.

We live there too, and we'd be happy to take you. You don't need to pay for this. And so Julio begins to help them load the rest of their equipment onto the boat, which included some food. They had 22 pounds of fruit, and they had some fresh water. And then once everything was loaded up, they undid their lines, and they set sail for La Palma. They took off at about 2.30 in the morning on July 21st. The water was very calm during their return trip. The only thing they had to contend with was a light mist that formed over the water in the early morning hours right after the sun came up. But it really wasn't enough to affect their ability to navigate. But even if the mist was more severe than people realized, Ramon, Eliberto, and Miguel were very experienced sailors that in fact had been sailing on this particular stretch of water

ever since they were teenagers, and they had navigated these waters in far worse conditions and had always managed to get through it. But at 10 a.m. that morning when the Fausto crew was supposed to arrive at La Palma, they didn't. And the owner of the boat itself was waiting at the dock for them, and when they didn't show up, he wasn't overly concerned because he knew these three men. He regularly went out on this particular boat with them. In fact, he normally would have gone on the trip to El Hierro with them, but he had commitments on La Palma, so he didn't go. And so he's not particularly worried about them. He figures they ran into some mechanical issue and, you know, they're getting it figured out, but they're just late. But after a little

while, the families of the El Fausto crew started to ask the owner, you know, where are they? Why aren't they here? And so the owner, who again is not overly concerned, but wants to make sure the families are not worrying, says, you know what, I'll send a search boat that will take the exact route El Fausto was on, but in reverse. And I'm sure they can just drive straight out there and they'll run into them and they will help them fix, you know, whatever issue they have, which is more than likely mechanical. That's an old boat. And we've certainly run into other mechanical issues in the past. So this search boat goes out and for hours and hours and hours, they're looking along the exact

same charted course that El Fausto was supposed to be on. And they're nowhere to be found. And so they radio back in to the owner of the boat and they say, look, we can't find him. What do you want us to do? And he called them back in and he realized that, you know what, if we can't find them anywhere near the route, that probably something more sinister has happened to them. And it was at this point that he got in touch with authorities and they launched a much more formal search and rescue effort. Planes and boats spilled out over the sea to look for El Fausto and her crew. And everybody who was looking was operating with an enormous sense of urgency because anybody who was looking had been told these guys don't have much in the

way of supplies. They have 22 pounds of fruit and they have a very limited freshwater supply. And so if we don't find them within a couple of days, there's a very good chance that we're going to find four corpses. But despite searchers' motivation to find these guys, a couple of days passed and there was no sign of them. And unfortunately, people did start to think, I think it's more likely we're going to find four dead bodies than four sailors waiting to be rescued. But on July 25th, four days after El Fausto left El Hierro on their way to La Palma and then of course got lost, four days after that a British ship called Duquesa radioed in an incredible message. They said they had found this fishing boat that was drifting along and there was four people standing on the deck and they were waving flashlights around to try to get

their attention. And as this British ship moved up closer to the fishing boat, they were able to read on the hull the call sign of the boat. And it was, of course, El Fausto. Hello, I am Alice Levine, and I am one of the hosts of Wondery's podcast, British Scandal. On our latest series, The Race to Ruin, we tell the story of a British man who took part in the first ever round-the-world sailing race. Good on him, I hear you say. But there is a problem, as there always is in this show. The man in question hadn't actually sailed before. Oh, and his boat wasn't seaworthy. Oh, and also, tiny little detail, almost didn't mention it. He bet his family home on making it to the finish line.

What ensued was one of the most complex cheating plots in British sporting history. To find out the full story, follow British Scandal wherever you listen to podcasts, or listen early and ad-free on Wondery Plus on Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app. If you're listening to this podcast, then chances are good you are a fan of The Strange, Dark, and Mysterious. And if that's the case, then I've got some good news. We just launched a brand new Strange, Dark, and Mysterious podcast called Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries. And as the name suggests, it's a show about medical mysteries, a genre that many fans have been asking us to dive into for years,

mysteries, a genre that many fans have been asking us to dive into for years, and we finally decided to take the plunge, and the show is awesome. In this free weekly show, we explore bizarre unheard of diseases, strange medical mishaps, unexplainable deaths, and everything in between. Each story is totally true and totally terrifying. Go follow Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries wherever you get your podcasts, and if you're a Prime member, you can listen early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Where El Fausto had been found was 120 miles west of La Palma, so they had drifted way, way off course. But once they pulled up alongside of them, they could see that not only were the four crew members alive, they actually seemed like they were in pretty good spirits.

They certainly were dehydrated and were very thankful to get some water. And they were starving and they were obviously pretty freaked out because they had just been adrift in the middle of the ocean and probably were realizing that this could end really badly for us. But beyond all that, they seemed okay. And very quickly, that message was passed to friends and family of the El Fausto crew back on La Palma, who's waiting anxiously to hear any news about their loved ones. And when they were told they had been found and they were alive, they were overjoyed because they thought they were dead. But after the initial transmission had been sent out by Duquesa, saying, hey, we found the crew and they're alive and they're good. Well, a couple hours went by and the Duquesa sent another transmission that was very strange. They said the crew of El Fausto was refusing to be towed back home. They were saying that our boat's just fine. You know,

we're good. We just need a couple of supplies and we'll be on our way. And so the captain of Duquesa says to the men, then why are you out here? How did you get 120 miles west of La Palma? Something had to have gone wrong with your boat. So what happened? But the men didn't really answer his question. They just said, oh, no, there's nothing wrong with our boat. There's no mechanical issues. Everything's fine.

You know, we appreciate your offer, but we just need a couple of supplies and we'll be on our way. Even Julio, who had made this special effort to get home to his sick daughter and to see his wife, even he is saying, no, we don't need a towel. We're good. And so the captain of the Duquesa is looking at these guys thinking, what am I missing here? You just drifted 120 miles away. You probably should have died. You're very lucky that we happened to find you in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. You know, had we not found you, you probably would have died of dehydration in the next couple of days. And so we found you. We're offering to bring you to shore to guarantee that you will get to see your sick daughter and to see your wife and for you all to see your families and

your friends. And you're telling us to leave and you're telling us that there's nothing wrong with your boat when clearly something happened. But the captain of the duquesa could not convince them to get towed in. They were totally not going to do it. And apparently they were very polite about it. They said, look, we really appreciate the offer, but really our boat is just fine. We just need some food, water, cigarettes, and some fuel and we'll be good. And so, the crew of the Duquesa obliged their request, and they gave them 18 hours worth of fuel, along with a whole bunch of cigarettes and water and food, and they watched as the four men sailed east towards La Palma, and they were waving the whole time, everything seemed fine, and then they vanished over the horizon. And the captain of Duquesa would call in

over the radio that based on where they were and how close they were to La Palma, they should expect to see them arriving at port at about 7 p.m. that night. Back on La Palma, friends, family, and hundreds of other people from the island went down to the dock and were drinking wine and having a big party, celebrating the imminent return of their friends and their loved ones. But unfortunately, 7 p.m. came and went and they didn't show up. And so, of course, the family of the crew became very worried that, oh my gosh,

this nightmare is starting all over again. And the owner of El Fausto came over to them and reassured them that he's been in touch with the authorities who were speaking to the captain of the Duquesa, who were speaking to our friends and family and loved ones on El Fausto, and everything's fine. They have all the supplies they need.

They have all the fuel they need. I'm sure they're just running a little bit late. Everything is totally fine. And so friends and family and some diehard supporters stayed down at the dock for several more hours until it became clear that something's gone wrong, and unfortunately, this nightmare is not over. The next morning, after El Fausto and her crew were once again labeled missing,

Spain kicked off their largest ever search for missing people. They had bombers flying overhead, they had military and civilian ships all over the area where the Duquesa had made contact with El Fausto. They had so many people combing the water so many planes overhead and for two weeks they looked everywhere and they couldn't find anything and finally they had to call it off and they said look we don't know what happened to them and they declared them lost at sea which basically meant we think they're dead but we'll probably never know for sure two months later on october 9th an italian merchant ship called theadomio, who was on their way to Venezuela, spotted a small fishing boat way off in the distance that was just bobbing around aimlessly.

And the first thing they noticed was this ship is far too small to be making a cross-oceanic voyage. They shouldn't be out here. And as they got closer, they could tell that there was no one standing on deck or in the cabin. There no one driving this boat and so finally they got so close they could read the hull and it says el fausto so the anna de mayo pulls up right alongside el fausto they tethered themselves together so it doesn't float away and two of the italian sailors get on board el fausto and they're yelling out to see if anybody's there but you know no one's responding and they're looking around and the ship is in great condition there's there's no sign of obvious damage or any violence that might have taken place on here they go into the cabin where the steering wheel is and they're looking for some sort of logbook that would have documented you know what happened on the ship but there's no logbook and so the italians were left

scratching their head thinking how could a perfectly seaworthy boat wind up abandoned in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean? Where's their crew? But they still needed to go down below into the little space that was the engine room. And so the two sailors that had boarded to look around, they make their way over to the section of the deck where there's this hatch that they open up and they look down and they smell this horrible smell and they turn on their light and they're met with this horrible and inexplicable scene. Laying on the ground inside of the engine room on his back was a dead man who was partially mummified. He had no clothes on and he was clutching a transistor radio. And so the two

Italians that found him, they stepped back and they had to compose themselves. And then one of them actually went down to look around for clues and see if perhaps there's other bodies down there. And so when he went down, it was just the one body and he could only find one other clue. And it was this small notebook that was positioned right behind the dead body that they didn't see when they first looked down. So the Italian sailors leave the engine room and they take the notebook back to their ship and they open it up. And the first thing they see is the middle section of the notebook has been torn out. In fact, 28 pages were missing, and all they were left with was a couple of pages at the beginning and a single page at the end.

The first couple of pages just were a couple of notes and some simple math calculations. Nothing significant. The last page appeared to be a farewell of sorts, but the language that was used was a little bit confusing, and it was difficult to read. And so the Italians were not entirely sure what any of it actually meant. And so they figured it would be best to just give the notebook to authorities and they could figure out what it meant. And so the captain of the Anadomayo radios in to Spanish authorities that they found El Fausto and that they intend to tow it back to Venezuela, where they were already going,

at which point they'll turn over everything they found and authorities can take it from there. So the Italians put a tow line on the bow of El Fausto and began towing. Two days later, Spanish authorities received a crushing telegram. Apparently the night before, as El Fausto was being towed, it suddenly lurched forward and went bow down into the water and sunk so rapidly that it ripped the tow line off of the back of the Anadomio and was underwater well before they could do anything to try to stop it. The crew of the Anadomio swore they had followed procedure and they knew what they were doing and this was just kind of a freak thing, but regardless of how or why it happened, the ship was now gone, and so too

was the dead body, so they couldn't even positively identify whoever that was. All they had was that notebook they recovered from inside the engine room. The notebook was sent to La Palma, where it was put in front of the families of the four men who were on El Fausto, and very quickly, Julio's wife was able to identify his handwriting. He apparently had a unique way of writing and she was used to reading it. And so she said, that's definitely his writing. And in fact, I recognize that notebook. He kept that notebook to track payments because he was a mechanic and people requested the services.

And that's what he used to track payments. This, of course, meant the dead man inside of the engine room was almost certainly Julio. Julio's wife examined the notebook and she was able to decipher that last page, at least most of it, and she said it was this very detailed description of exactly what she needed to do once he died. Because clearly, based on the way he was writing, he knew he was about to die. And at first it says, you know, here's how you access my insurance policy and here are the different properties I own and how you go about selling them. And then in his final moments,

he scrawled one last message at the very bottom of the last page that said, don't ever tell our son all that has happened to me. You know that God wanted this fate for me. Love you. So if Julio was so sure he was about to die that he would take the time to write out a detailed list of instructions

for his wife to follow when he died, well then why didn't he take the time to also offer a small explanation as to what happened to he and the other crew members of El Fausto? He had to have known that whoever was going to find his dead body in this notebook was going to have an awful lot of questions. Unless he did know that and did write a description, except it was in those 28 pages in the middle of the notebook that had been removed. And if that's the case, then who removed them and why? And where's the rest of the El Fausto crew? And why did they tell the Duquesa that nothing was wrong with their ship? And why didn't they take the tow into shore, which would have guaranteed their safety?

There's just so many questions that have never been answered in 50 years. The most widely accepted theory is the crew of El Fausto experienced a series of small but compounding setbacks that combined with panic led to really bad decision-making and ultimately their death. Others say there are just too many anomalies and oddities about this case to just be a product of bad decision making and ultimately their death. Others say there are just too many anomalies and

oddities about this case to just be a product of bad decision making, that there has to be something else going on. And so there are lots of alternative theories about what happened, ranging from abduction to illegal trafficking gone wrong to perhaps they saw something they shouldn't have. But sadly, no one will know for sure what happened to these guys until there is a major break in the case. And at this point, people are just hoping those missing 28 pages turn up and that those will be able to explain what happened to El Fausto and her crew. The next and final story is called El Faro. On September 29th, 2015, a tropical storm named Joaquin was swirling off in the Atlantic,

and forecasters were having a hard time determining how big it was going to be, how fast it was going to be, and where it was going to end up. On shore, 53-year-old captain Michael Davidson was struggling too. He was supposed to pilot his enormous cargo ship, the El Faro, from where he was in Florida all the way out to Puerto Rico, a 2,600-mile journey that would put he and the rest of his 32-person crew directly in the path of this storm. The year before, Davidson had been passed over for a promotion for a younger, more tech-savvy captain. And so now Davidson felt like he had something to prove. As he looked out over the calm water and the clear sky, he made a fateful decision. Every agency out there was telling him to not set sail until the storm had passed. But with 37 years of experience, Davidson

felt differently. He felt like he could outrun this storm. Feeling suddenly motivated and confident, Davidson boarded the Alfaro, hopped on the intercom, and informed his crew that they would not be waiting out the storm. Instead, they would be sailing right by it. As Alfaro cast off her lines and headed southward, the governors of New Jersey, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Maryland all declared states of emergency. As the sound of Alfaro's diesel engine faded over the horizon, cyclone warnings and hurricane warnings went up around the Bahamas. Schools on the islands began closing, flights were grounded, and cruise ships were diverted. Residents of one island were ordered to evacuate,

and on another, police forcibly removed every occupant on this island as floodwater rose. But the first few hours of Alfaro's journey were totally uneventful. But as they got closer and closer to the storm, the wind picked up and the waves grew dramatically. By nightfall, the ship was rocking so aggressively side to side that it made sleep almost impossible. By the following morning, the rain was so intense the visibility was basically zero and the waves were now so massive that none of the crew dared go out on the deck in fear of being swept overboard. The ship's navigator told Captain Davidson that he thought this storm was a lot worse than they were expecting and that they should

really consider turning around before it was too late. Davidson and the navigator were not the only ones up on the bridge, which is where the ship is actually steered from. There was also a black box that was anchored up on the wall behind them that recorded all of the conversations that happened up there. And the black box would record increasingly anxious conversations between the crew and Davidson as they voiced their concerns about the storm. But Davidson was totally unfazed. He was adamant that the storm was not going to get any worse than what they were seeing right then and there. And even if it did get worse, they were never going to be actually in the storm's eye, and so they weren't in any real danger. But to reassure his crew, he ordered his navigator to make a slight right so everybody on board saw they were taking a wider berth around the storm.

One of the crew members, a 34-year-old woman named Danielle Randolph, was not reassured by this slight right. She was a hard worker from a military family and always followed orders, but she just could not understand why Davidson was not taking this storm seriously. And so that evening, after the sun had set, Danielle very carefully stumbled her way up the stairs to the navigational bridge because the ship is still rocking violently side to side, and when she got up there, she thought she would just check the weather for herself. The black box anchored to the wall recorded her discovery. The El Faro was not going to sidestep the storm. It was sailing directly into it. You can hear the fear and surprise as Danielle turns to Davidson and says, we're sailing right through the eye. There was a silence on the

recording as Davidson must have looked down at the computer screen that Danielle had pulled up to show him the storm and their course that was going right into it. And Davidson, after he realized his mistake, has this very eerily calm tone where he says to the navigator, okay, I need you to make another slight right. And he assured everybody on the bridge that that would be enough, that that would fix this mistake. But Danielle was not buying it. And so as professionally and respectfully as she could, she says to her captain, this is a really bad idea. We really need to turn around right now. It's getting to the point where it's going to be too late and we won't be able to turn around. But Davidson wasn't having it. And so he told Danielle and the navigator and the other people in the bridge that they were not in danger, that everything's just

fine. This is just like the storms he had been through when he used to work in Alaska, and they would get through this one too. Davidson was so confident in his decision making that he told them he was going to go take a nap downstairs, and if they really needed him, if something serious happened, go and get him. And with that, he left the bridge and went down to his room. As the minutes of the night ticked by, Danielle stayed up in the bridge, and she braced herself against a steel girder and looked out the window at the rain that was just slashing across the window and the waves that were the size of three-story houses crashing in on either side of them. And then by the morning when the sun came up, the sky just stayed totally black because they were right outside the eye of the storm. Suddenly, under their feet, Danielle and the navigator and the other people up on the

bridge heard this awful clanging metal sound as the constant rocking of the ship had finally loosened up the straps, holding down these massive metal containers down in the cargo hold. And they were now loose, smashing into the inside of the ship. And then they heard an even worse sound, and the black box recorded it too. And that was the shrill of an alarm that meant el faro was taking on water danielle left the window and ran around to the radar screen to see if there was any ships in the area that might be able to help them when she looked there was no blips on the screen all the other ships had diverted to avoid this storm el faro was totally alone at the sound of the alarm davidson came running back up to the bridge and you hear him on the black box, and he sounds like someone who's acting calm,

but there's a tightness in his voice that he's trying to conceal the fact that he's actually probably quite scared. Because at this point, the reality was, the Alfaro was now too close to the eye of the storm, and they would be unable to escape its grasp. They were going to get pulled into the eye of this hurricane. Furious with her captain, she brushed past him without saying anything, and then very carefully made her way down the stairs to her room. And the whole time she was walking, she would have been barely able to stand, because now with those loose

shipping containers down in the cargo hold, the ship would rock even farther to each side, because as soon as it tilted one way, the containers would slam into the wall, driving it even farther into the water. When she finally staggered her way down and got to her door, she would have opened it up and her whole room would have been trashed. Everything that wasn't anchored down had been tossed all over the room, all of her clothes, any furniture would have been dumped all over the room. But she didn't care about any of her stuff on the ground. She only wanted her laptop. She found it. It was on the ground. She picked it up. She put it on her desk that was bolted down and very carefully she picked it up, she put it on her desk that was bolted down, and very carefully, she opened it up and she opened her email. As the alarms are shrieking in the background and she can hear the sound of these shipping containers smashing into the inside of the cargo hold,

she writes this note to her mother where she tells her the winds are really bad and it looks like they're sailing right for the center of the storm. And she's about to hit send when she stops for a second, she looks at her computer screen, and she adds one more line, love to everyone. Danielle never said things like this. She was always strictly business. And so for her to put that line was an acknowledgement that this might be the last time she ever talks to her family. Shortly after Danielle hit send on that email, the ship listed hard to one side and then it stayed there. The loose containers down in the cargo hold had finally shifted the ship listed hard to one side and then it stayed there. The loose containers

down in the cargo hold had finally shifted the ship's center of gravity. Water immediately began pouring into the lower sections of El Faro. Danielle knew it was only a matter of time before the water reached her and so she leapt out of her room and ran down the hall which was now sideways. She got to the stairwell and climbed her way up to the bridge. As soon as she got up there, all the people on the bridge were holding on to the center console so they climbed her way up to the bridge. As soon as she got up there, all the people on the bridge were holding onto the center console so they didn't fall up against the wall. And she heard Davidson ordering the navigator to turn the ship into the wind. It was a last-ditch Hail Mary effort where Davidson believed the wind was so strong

it would blow the ship back upright. If this didn't work, the ship was going to sink. And so the navigator began desperately turning the wheel, the lights inside of the bridge began to flicker, and the engines growled and vibrated as it turned, trying desperately to get up and over this enormous wave. But as they were just about to crest the top, the engines completely died and it went silent in the bridge.

And so now that Alfaro is without power, it's just sitting idle in the middle of the storm and it's getting smashed by these three-story high waves, and it begins to force the nose of this giant ship to go under and stay under. Davidson breaks the silence by hitting the emergency beacon that notifies the Coast Guard, and then he screams to everybody on the bridge to go downstairs and wake everyone up. We have to get off the ship. On the black box, a new sound is heard, the abandoned ship alarm.

we have to get off the ship. On the black box, a new sound is heard, the abandoned ship alarm. At this point, the black box faintly picks up Davidson screaming from somewhere outside of the bridge for people to get in the raft, get off the boat, get in the water. By this point, the back of the Alfaro would have been off the water and the nose would have been almost pointed straight down. And so Davidson is heard coming back up into the bridge. But at this point, the bridge is sideways. It's looking straight down at the water. And it's clear there is another crew member that is stuck inside of the bridge. And he's yelling out to Davidson, Cap, Cap, you got to help me. And Davidson is trying to find him. And he's yelling for him to come to him, come to him. And the man tells him he's stuck. He can't go anywhere. He's a goner. And Davidson, with the

final words uttered on this black box, would yell to this man, I'm not leaving you, it's time to come this way. And then the black box would cut out because the black box was now underwater. For three days, searchers could not even get close to the El Faro wreckage because of the storm. But when they did finally get there, all they could find were three life rings, two life rafts, and the starboard lifeboat that had been crushed on both sides. A Coast Guard helicopter found a body floating around some of this wreckage, but when they went down to retrieve it, it slipped under the water. Five days after Alfaro's last frantic plea for help, the Coast Guard declared the ship had sunk and everyone on board had died. Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin podcast.

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