Épisodes

  • The Shoe on the Buoy: How a Lost Boy's Sneaker Became a Maritime Mystery

    The Shoe on the Buoy: How a Lost Boy's Sneaker Became a Maritime Mystery
    Oct 4 2026
    The Shoe on the Buoy: How a Lost Boy's Sneaker Became a Maritime Mystery

    A size-two blue canvas sneaker, salt-stiffened and nailed to a buoy in Harwick Shoals, became the only visible trace of seven-year-old Marcus after five people were pulled from a thirty-eight-foot sailboat adrift in the Atlantic. How did that shoe end up pinned to navigational hardware while no one on board - or ashore - could explain where Marcus went?

    In this episode, we tell the story of the Ariel Blue and the voyage that began on August 10, 2011, covering the crew, the storm that left the vessel disabled, and the odd, unanswered evidence that followed. What sequence of failures, missed communications, and small decisions left a boy missing and a sneaker nailed to a buoy?

    Vessel: Ariel Blue
    Date: August 10, 2011
    Location: Harwick Shoals / Outer Banks route
    People aboard: Five (two co-owners, one retired electrician, one deckhand, one child)
    Injuries: Dislocated/fractured shoulder and two cracked ribs

    - The Ariel Blue departed Beaufort, North Carolina on August 10, 2011, with clear skies and a light southwest breeze.
    - By 2 a.m. on August 11, winds reached 52 knots and seas climbed to 12-14 feet, causing the forestay to fail and the headsail to flog loose.
    - The engine flooded because a ventilation hatch above the air intake had not been dogged shut, allowing saltwater in and disabling propulsion.
    - A personal locator beacon and a paper notebook were two of the three things that kept the five survivors alive; a phone message went unheard in voicemail for more than 30 hours.
    - A size-two blue canvas sneaker, nailed to a buoy, was found eight days after the five people were pulled from the adrift thirty-eight-foot ketch, and nobody claimed it.

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    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    24 min
  • The Beacon Lied: How a Clerical Error Left Her Adrift

    The Beacon Lied: How a Clerical Error Left Her Adrift
    Oct 3 2026
    The Beacon Lied: How a Clerical Error Left Her Adrift

    Cold, precise signals saved Julie Keller's life twice over - once by transmitting her position within six minutes, and once by failing to point to her boat. The EPIRB worked perfectly, but its MMSI identified a different vessel 62 miles away, and that single clerical mismatch put Julie alone in the Pacific rationing four ounces of water every six hours; how did one nine-digit number become the difference between rescue and oblivion?

    In this episode, we tell the sequence of events from the July 3rd float plan to the EPIRB activation on July 6th and the discovery of the dry bag on July 14th, laying out the procedural gap that routed Julie’s distress to the wrong ship and asking whether rescue systems can be trusted when paperwork lags behind reality.

    Person: Julie Keller
    Date: July 6, 2019 (EPIRB activation at 04:22; boat sank at 04:31)
    Location: Pacific Ocean off Astoria, Oregon
    Vessel: Aravali Wind (42-foot carbon-fiber sloop)
    MMSI error: Beacon registered to Heron Bay (30-foot ketch) in Newport, Oregon

    - Julie rationed four ounces of water every six hours while adrift in the life raft.
    - The EPIRB signal reached a NOAA satellite and was processed at a ground station within six minutes of activation.
    - The MMSI in Julie’s EPIRB belonged to a ketch registered 62 miles away in Newport, Oregon.
    - The starboard shroud failed at 03:40 on July 6th, mast came down, and Aravali Wind sank at 04:31.
    - An orange dry bag with a dry log and last entry "The beacon was wrong. Check the MMSI." washed ashore in Prater Cove, Oregon on July 14th, eight feet up in a pine tree.

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    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    24 min
  • Survived Six Days: The Hatch Cover That Shouldn't Float

    Survived Six Days: The Hatch Cover That Shouldn't Float
    Oct 2 2026
    Survived Six Days: The Hatch Cover That Shouldn't Float

    A woman survived six days adrift on a fifty-four-inch piece of waterlogged plywood that, by weight and physics, should have submerged her; inside her jacket pocket a child's brass compass sat bone dry. What made a teak-framed hatch cover-too small to hold two people and not from the capsized boat-appear at the capsize site, and how did April Weber navigate sixty-three miles to shore while planes flew overhead twice?

    In this episode, we tell the sequence of events from departure to recovery, laying out the known facts and the anomalies that refuse a tidy explanation, and ask whether the official record captures what really happened to April Weber and her companion that night.

    Person: April Weber
    Age: 28
    Date: June 1-June 9, 2017
    Vessel: 32-foot sloop Kestrel
    Location: ~40 miles west of Tillamook Head

    - April Weber was found alive after six days in the ocean, face-down on a waterlogged plank.
    - The drifting hatch cover measured 54 inches by 32 inches and had stainless hinges along one edge.
    - The Kestrel’s EPIRB activated at 02:17 and transmitted the last known position before submerging.
    - Wind gusts reached 38 knots and swell climbed to 12 feet before the vessel capsized.
    - April carried a child's brass camping compass in her offshore jacket pocket; its crystal was cracked but the compass was bone dry.

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    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    21 min
  • Found in a Tupelo: The Logbook That Led Him Home

    Found in a Tupelo: The Logbook That Led Him Home
    Oct 1 2026
    Found in a Tupelo: The Logbook That Led Him Home

    The thought of a waterlogged journal standing upright in a tupelo tree - pages open to the sky - creates a quiet, almost impossible clue: the logbook that helped save a man who had been alone at sea for thirteen days. How did a sailor with a dead friend, a sinking boat, and no working radio make it into a Georgia salt marsh and place a journal where someone would find it?

    In this episode, we follow the precise timeline from departure to discovery, outlining the decisions, failures, and unlikely survivals that connect a storm-tossed sloop to a mud flat rescue, and we ask whether method and habit can become the last line between life and loss.

    Person: George Duncan
    Person: Paul Ingram
    Date: May 3-19, 2011
    Location: Brunswick Marina to salt marsh south of Hatchett Cove, Georgia
    Event: Mast failure, 30-hour storm, 13 days alone at sea

    - George Duncan was 54 years old in spring 2011 and owned a 40-foot sloop named Maren Rose.
    - The voyage departed Brunswick on May 3, 2011, bound for Nassau with Paul Ingram as crew.
    - A storm beginning early May 5 produced 42-knot winds and 12-16 foot seas and lasted approximately 30 hours.
    - After the storm the boat was recorded in the logbook as 60 miles southwest of the intended track and off the shipping lanes.
    - Eddie Pryor found George Duncan lying face-up in eight inches of water on a mud flat the same morning Jason Roberts photographed the logbook on May 19, 2011.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    20 min
  • Hot Soup, Empty Helm: Daughter Adrift Nine Days After Dad Falls Overboard

    Hot Soup, Empty Helm: Daughter Adrift Nine Days After Dad Falls Overboard
    Sep 30 2026
    Hot Soup, Empty Helm: Daughter Adrift Nine Days After Dad Falls Overboard

    Warm soup, a running engine, and an open hatch greeted the Coast Guard - but no one was aboard Callie Mae; one person was dead and another would spend nine days adrift in the Atlantic. The EPIRB was registered only to the boat and sent rescuers to the wrong area, while a loose VHF antenna and a drifting cabin cruiser turned a short weekend trip into a survival ordeal. How did a single outdated registration and a handful of failed systems determine who was found and who was not?

    In this episode, we follow the timeline from departure on March 30 to the discovery of the abandoned boat on April 9, detailing the equipment failures, the actions taken by Debra, and the bureaucratic gap that redirected the search. What choices and chance events compounded to create a nine-day drift alone at sea?

    Person: Frank Dupree
    Person: Debra Vaughn
    Date: March 30 to April 9, 2019
    Location: Ossabaw Sound and adjacent Atlantic waters
    Item: EPIRB registered to Frank's Dunmore Landing address and vessel only

    - Callie Mae is a thirty-two-foot cabin cruiser with a single inboard diesel engine.
    - Frank Dupree was 51 years old and semi-retired, owner and operator of Callie Mae.
    - Debra Vaughn was 23, a marine technology student who ran a weekly Tuesday role-playing game.
    - Frank went overboard the night of April 2 between 9:00 and 11:00 PM; he did not return aboard.
    - The Coast Guard boarding team found hot soup steaming in a white ceramic bowl when they stepped onto Callie Mae on the morning of April 9.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    21 min
  • The Sealed Bottle on a Gulf Beach That Shouldn't Exist

    The Sealed Bottle on a Gulf Beach That Shouldn't Exist
    Sep 29 2026
    The Sealed Bottle on a Gulf Beach That Shouldn't Exist

    A sealed pill bottle with forty-five tablets and a childproof cap was found dry on a Gulf beach atop a soaked, legible logbook eleven days after the owner, Kimberly Ramsey, was reported missing - yet Kimberly needed that medication every morning and had been adrift at sea for eight days. How could a full, sealed prescription bottle appear on the sand while its owner was still unaccounted for?

    In this episode, we follow the discovery on the Santa Rosa Sound shoreline and the timeline from departure to the search that followed, laying out the facts that create the central mystery: why was the bottle full when Kimberly required daily doses?

    Person: Kimberly Ramsey
    Date reported missing: eleven days before discovery
    Location of discovery: Santa Rosa Sound shoreline
    Medication count in bottle: forty-five tablets
    Time of discovery call to dispatch: 6:51 AM

    - The bottle was photographed where found at 6:49 AM on March 14, 2019.
    - Kimberly had a February 26 refill of forty-five tablets still sealed and tucked separately.
    - Kimberly had been adrift at sea for eight days without resupply before the bottle was found.
    - Blue Collar’s EPIRB transmitted for nine minutes after the mast came down on March 7, 2019, then went silent.
    - Craig Pelletier, age 44, reported seeing a light two hours after the rafts separated and was pulled from the water on March 8, 2019.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    21 min
  • Soaked Signal Mirror: How a Dripping Clue Led to Dean Hall

    Soaked Signal Mirror: How a Dripping Clue Led to Dean Hall
    Sep 28 2026
    Soaked Signal Mirror: How a Dripping Clue Led to Dean Hall

    A soaked marine signal mirror was found in a dry parking lot eleven days after the last rain and four miles from the nearest ocean - yet it was dripping. That impossible detail refused to leave investigators and would become the single clue that tied a crippled sloop, a drifting life raft, and a sixty-two-year-old man together; how did a mirror from a life raft end up in a storm drain behind a bait shop?

    In this episode, we follow the timeline from the morning a teenager found the mirror through the coordinated responses that unfolded when Dean Hall failed to call his daughter at ten fifteen. We trace Hall’s meticulous preparations, the Ardea’s sudden failure, and the search decisions that almost sent rescuers the wrong way - and ask how one wet object shifted the entire case.

    Person: Dean Hall
    Person: Melissa Hall
    Person: Nancy Padgett
    Event: Forestay parted under load causing mast to fall and hull fracture
    Location: approximately eight nautical miles from shore

    - The mirror was found at 7:00 a.m. wedged in a storm drain behind a bait shop on Gull Marsh Road.
    - Pellar County had no rain for eleven days prior to the mirror’s discovery.
    - Dean Hall was sixty-two years old and had retired after thirty-one years as a civil engineer.
    - The Ardea sank by 10:00 a.m., resting in approximately sixty feet of water less than eight nautical miles from shore.
    - Melissa and her father spoke every Wednesday at exactly 10:15 p.m.; she called Frank Utley at 11:00 p.m. when the call did not come.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    21 min
  • She Surfed a Rogue Wave - Saved by a Steel Cleat

    She Surfed a Rogue Wave - Saved by a Steel Cleat
    Sep 27 2026
    She Surfed a Rogue Wave - Saved by a Steel Cleat

    The ocean can erase modern navigation in an instant: a rogue wave struck at 11:40 a.m. and ripped the GPS, chartplotter and EPIRB from the cockpit, leaving three people adrift with no beacon. One of them climbed a cliff at 4:00 a.m. with a steel cleat from the sinking boat, its scratched surface holding the only clue that would save a life - how did those scratches point rescuers to a man running out of time?

    In this episode, we tell the passage that began on January 3, 2004 and turned into a thirteen-day survival story after the wave on January 5. You’ll hear how Marie Rice navigated roughly sixty miles of open water without electronic aids, how one crew member was lost, and the single decision on day eleven that search teams struggled to understand.

    Person: Marie Rice
    Person: Brent Hollis
    Person: Derek Costello
    Date: January 5, 2004 (rogue wave event)
    Location: approximately ninety miles south-southwest of Harwick

    - The Ardea Gray left Harwick on January 3, 2004 for a planned 340-nautical-mile passage.
    - The rogue wave struck at approximately 11:40 a.m., destroying the chartplotter, fixed VHF radio, GPS unit and main compass.
    - The EPIRB was ripped from its mount and never transmitted; the bracket remained bolted to the stern.
    - Derek Costello, a 29-year-old passenger, was below deck during the strike and was never recovered.
    - At 4:00 a.m. on January 19, 2004, Marie Rice was found standing barefoot on Route 9 shoulder and carried a steel cleat scratched with marks crucial to finding Brent Hollis.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    24 min