The Boot in the Marsh That Saved Three Lives at Sea

The Boot in the Marsh That Saved Three Lives at Sea A single white rubber boot, size seven with a woman's sock knotted inside, floated upright in eighteen inches of brackish water in the Marker Road marsh canal - and that odd sight would become the clue that saved three people adrift at sea. How did a boot that snagged on a stern ladder and traveled from a sinking forty-one-foot fiberglass boat through currents to a Carolina marsh connect to a raft drifting southeast of Cape Lookout? In this episode, we tell the sequence of events over the three days in March 2009 that tied a misread EPIRB coordinate, a failed impeller, and a flooded engine compartment to a boot found by an electrician in a marsh, and ask how that chain of small failures and tiny discoveries turned into a rescue. Person: Dawn Davis Event: Sinking of the Pelerin Date: March 2009 Location: Marker Road marsh canal; drift southeast of Cape Lookout; Beaufort Inlet Status: Three people survived on a six-person life raft - The boot found was white rubber, size seven, with a woman's sock still knotted inside. - The boot was floating upright in eighteen inches of brackish water in the Marker Road marsh canal. - The Pelerin was a forty-one-foot fiberglass hull purchased in 2003 and captained by Dawn Davis. - The EPIRB activated at 14:28 but its GPS module failed to acquire satellite lock, sending the marina's registered address instead of the boat's position. - The crew abandoned ship after the main engine seized following a raw-water impeller failure amid eight to eleven foot swells and winds exceeding thirty knots. 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: [email protected].