Fishing-industry-vessel survivor prayed for a miracle

Wearing a torn survival suit and bobbing in the cold water of the Gulf of Alaska, Robert Jack looked to heaven for a miracle.

"I prayed to God that I would be able to see my daughter again," Jack, 52, said Wednesday morning from a hospital bed in Anchorage. "If you go into 30-degree water and leaking from your survival suit and waves are overtaking you, I thought I was dead."

Jack was on the 75-foot fishing-industry vessel, the Northern Belle, which went down in the Gulf late Tuesday, leaving the captain, Robert Royer, 54, of Seattle, dead, but sparing Jack, of Federal Way, and the two other crew members, Nicole Esau, 36, of Anacortes, and Tod Knivila, 48, of Seattle.

Royer's decision to make a last-second mayday call before the vessel sank likely saved the lives of his crew, Jack said, but may have cost him his.

As the boat suddenly turned onto its side, Royer, rather than immediately jumping ship with the others, stayed in the wheelhouse to make a frantic mayday call and give their position to the Coast Guard, because the boat's Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB) had not activated.

By that time, the boat was listing badly, starboard side down, port up. As Royer left the boat, one of the crew members saw him get slammed in the head by a heavy metal box. He immediately drowned, the crew members believe.

"There's only two ways we could have got saved: the EPIRB or the mayday call, and our captain made it in there and sacrificed himself, I believe, to make a mayday call for his crew," Jack said.

Jack said the Northern Belle, heavily loaded with supplies in Seattle, was headed to Dillingham, Alaska, to offload its cargo and then move on to a herring fishery in Togiak, Alaska.

Tuesday night, Jack said, as the Northern Belle was about 50 miles south of Montague Island, the boat started listing.

Jack, who was at the wheel, told crew members to put on their survival suits, and Royer made the mayday call. They couldn't get the life raft untied, so they began jumping into the water.

As Jack left the boat, he tore his suit on a piece of metal.

He was sucked underwater by the boat, he said, but was able to pull away, spraining his ankle.

The waves grew to 12 feet, Jack said. He found a pallet floating in the high seas. He pulled himself on top of it and took out the whistle from his survival suit. "I whistled and whistled and whistled until two crew members heard me," he said. Esau made it to the pallet, and the two of them huddled to keep warm, while Knivila was still floating in his survival suit.

Jack said he was in the water about 2 ½ hours before a Coast Guard helicopter flew over and dropped flares and a life raft. A half-hour later, a helicopter retrieved Royer's body and then lifted Esau, Jack and Knivila in a rescue basket and took them to Cordova for medical treatment.

Esau was on her first trip. She is a woman born for adventure, says her mother, Audrey Castile, speaking from San Diego. "This was something she always wanted to do," Castile said. "She was born a 2-pound baby and has been a miracle all her life."

Because Jack had the most serious injuries, he was flown early Wednesday to a hospital in Anchorage.

Jack said he doesn't think of himself as a hero. "We all worked together," he said. "I don't think I've had time to process this. I've shed some tears. I was close to the captain."

Jack told his former wife that the captain put the vessel's "boat dog," a beloved black cocker spaniel named Baxter, in his survival suit, but the dog didn't survive the ordeal.

Castile said she had a vision when she learned her daughter planned to work on a fishing boat. She saw her daughter in the open sea on a pile of wood, and knew she would be safe. "God gave me that vision so I'd have peace, and that's what I clung to."

Esau told her mother that once in the water, she followed Jack's whistle and huddled with him on the floating wooden pallet.

"She said she felt she needed to be where she was, even when she felt it was the end," Castile said.

Esau told her mother that her next adventure will be gardening.

Susan Gilmore: 206-464-2054 or sgilmore@seattletimes.com

The Associated Press also contributed to this story.