A fisherman in Hawaii is lucky to be alive after his boat went under the Pacific Ocean back in June. He ended up treading water for hours, hoping someone would rescue him.
58-year-old Michael Bishop went out on his boat alone on June 22. His son Max spoke about how his father was supposed to go with another fisherman to People.
"Everything was already bought for the trip, so he had to make that money back," Max told the outlet. "So he went anyway. My whole life, he's always been the guy to just go."
"He ran out to go look what was going on, and the entire back deck of the boat was already submerged," Max said. "So he ran back inside, put out his mayday call, grabbed as many life jackets as he could and by the time he got back outside, the boat was already sinking."
Fisherman Stranded
In just two minutes, the boat went under the sea. However, the fisherman managed to craft a raft out of floating debris and also grabbed a gallon of drinking water. He began to try to drift to the nearest Hawaiian island.
"He said that he was gonna survive," Max said. "That's what he said he was thinking about; He wasn't gonna go that easy."
"He is definitely beat up about it, the more he goes through it and thinks about everything he lost," Max said. Michael had bought the boat with his sons after his wife died. "That was the family boat, essentially, for us to have job security. If any of us lost our jobs or money was tight and we needed to go make more, we could use that boat and go do what we've done our whole lives, commercially fish."
The family is trying to raise money for another boat for the fisherman.
"He worked really hard on that boat," Max says. "He really liked that one. My dad's not much of an emotional guy, but I know he loved that boat."
