re: Missing Kayaker in the gulf

I was on a boat that flipped over offshore and we climbed up onto a platform. Platform was unmanned so I shut the rig in (yep oil and gas co. not too happy bout that) but there were no other boats around and no way to communicate w/ a manned platform (before days of offshore cell service and boat flipped quickly so no chance to radio a mayday etc). I hope and pray the kayaker made it to a platform and based on timeline, the platform must unmanned and shut in so he might be tough to locate. Thoughts and prayers to the family

Lessons learned from this was to always have a ditch bag – waterrpoof bag w/ cell phone, handheld vhf (w/ good batteries), maybe an epirb if you are in a remote area, and a few survival items. Bag has to be handy so you can grab it quick because when it goes bad it generally goes bad quick