Washed ashore after three days stranded at sea, boaters are ‘thankful to be alive’

A dingy washed ashore in Boca Raton on Tuesday. Its two exhausted, dehydrated boaters were thankful to be alive, having been stranded at sea for three days — rowing 70 nautical miles, with only the stars to guide them.

Michael Ayers, 46, and Steffon Moore, 19, started their journey from Key Largo to Bimini, Bahamas in a 41-foot boat named the Lady Rosalee on Saturday.

Just hours into their trip, the boat hit some debris. It started to sink.

The men grabbed some snacks and water and climbed into a dinghy where they unsuccessfully signaled for help.

"The most depressing part of it was when I made it to the shipping channel and tried repeatedly to signal ships in the shipping channel with flares," Ayers told WPBF 25 News.

The flares went unnoticed, even bouncing off one of the ships they were trying to signal.

So the men started to row, navigating strong winds and 15-foot waves. They covered themselves with the Styrofoam from their life jackets to prevent hypothermia.

"We were going so fast by everything we couldn't even row to the coast anymore," Ayers said. "So as quickly as we'd row, we would just find another target and another target, and we went by all these cities to no avail. Boca saved us."

The men reached the shores of Boca Raton on Tuesday morning.

"It's a small, I would say 8 to 10 foot little dingy type boat," said Sandra Boonenberg, Boca Raton Police spokesperson. "There is not much to it."

The men were treated for dehydration at nearby Boca Raton Regional Hospital and released that same day.

As for Ayers, he's just happy to be alive.

"I'm thanking God, and I'm thanking my lucky stars," he said.

Ayers proposed to his girlfriend of three years shortly thereafter.

"He said, 'I'm here. I'm alive. We're getting married,'" Ayers' fiancée Liz Murphy Brown told reporters.