Stranded sailor says ‘bucket list’ led him to nearly die on 5,000-mile Pacific journey

Eighty-six-year-old sailor Harry Blodgett and his dog Sasha were rescued after drifting for nearly two months in the Pacific, hundreds of miles off San Diego. Blodgett said the 5,000-mile voyage from Oregon to American Samoa was the final item on his bucket list, and that he still has no regrets.

Blodgett lost his sails about two weeks after setting off from Astoria in August and was nearly out of fuel, but waited weeks before activating his emergency beacon. After friends raised the alarm, the Coast Guard received the beacon signal on 27 October; a nearby ship rescued the pair the next morning. They had travelled more than 1,000 nautical miles and survived on freeze-dried food and poor-quality water.