Naked man on channel marker rescued
BY ADAM LINHARDT Citizen Staff
alinhardt@keysnews.com
A man in his birthday suit instead of his bathing suit found stranded on a channel marker was rescued Wednesday after a charter boat happened upon him, according to the Coast Guard.
The man, whose name was not released, had been on a sailboat at anchor near a Northwest Channel marker when he apparently was caught in the current and drifted away while taking a swim.
He was eventually able to cling to the marker and climb up it, according to reports pieced together by responding Coast Guard crews and charter boat mate Chris Green.
A Coast Guard Station Key West response boat rescued the man and returned him to his sailboat uninjured, said Coast Guard spokesman Lt. Peter Bermont.
Green was aboard the 40-foot catamaran, Footloose, operated by Barefoot Billy’s, working a dolphin watching charter when the boat happened upon the naked man about 1:30 p.m., Green said.
The crew didn’t realize the man was naked when they first saw him, Green said. Neither Bermont nor Green said they knew if the man was naked when he entered the water or if he lost his clothes in the current.
Green, 36, and company called the Coast Guard after spotting the man.
The Coast Guard boat crew was already on the water training and was able to quickly respond, Bermont said. They took him back to his boat after removing him from the channel marker.
“I heard about a man stuck on a marker on the other side of Sunset Key a few years ago, but a naked person stuck on one is a first,” Green said.
“It looked like he didn’t know what he was doing and got carried away,” she added.
alinhardt@keysnews.com