B.C. man survives six days at sea after boat sinks in Caribbean

'I got an abrupt awakening when I hit a reef. You know you're on ground when you're sailing along and then you hear a big thump,' Don Cavers said.

A B.C. man who survived six harrowing days on a life raft, with little food and water after his sailboat sank, says he never really thought about dying.

“I was more concerned about people concerned (for me),” said Don Cavers, 77, a Shuswap resident who was found adrift in the Caribbean.

“That actually never became part of my thinking. I don’t know where that comes from; the eternal optimist, I guess.”

An active boating enthusiast for 30 years who’s sailed to and from Mexico in the past, Cavers had purchased a used sailboat in Colombia for US$45,000 and was planning on doing a leisurely trip to Puerto Rico to meet his son.

Enter Mother Nature, who trashed Cavers’ plan by whipping up rough seas.

After leaving port, Cavers encountered 15-foot waves (4.5 metres) on his second night. Water quickly flooded the cabin, three inches above the floorboards, with Caver blaming top-side leaks and a faulty bilge pump.

“The boat got a bit sluggish, and then I discovered I was taking on quite a bit of water,” Cavers told Global News. “So I turned to get the water off the decks so the waves weren’t breaking over the bow.”

With the boat on autopilot, he then began bailing, which took several hours in rough seas.