ROCKLAND, Maine — Robert “Bo” Curtis has a pair of high-powered binoculars on the deck of his Mountain Road home that overlooks Rockland and Penobscot Bay. From that vantage point, Curtis can see a speck in the distance that is the buoy he clung to for 27 hours in the dead of winter more than 30 years ago.
Curtis said he does not spend much time thinking about it 31 years later, but the subject comes up every now and then.
The ordeal has not kept him from the water, however. He spent another six to eight years clamming and since has been lobstering out on the bay.
Curtis gained national attention on Sunday, Jan. 15, 1984, when the then 25-year-0ld left Rockland in a 15-foot boat with a 40 horsepower outboard motor to go clamming on North Haven. He paid $100 for his clamming license, which he pointed out was a lot of money then, and wanted to get in as much digging as possible.
The weather forecast for the day predicted winds of 5 to 15 mph and seas of only 1 to 3 feet, he recalled. When he got out into Penobscot Bay, however, the weather took a turn when a squall hit.
He said he estimated winds reached 35 knots and 5-foot-high seas. About 4 miles offshore, he realized he was in trouble. He battled the increasingly high seas and water that was filling his small open boat.
Eventually, Curtis was able to see a whistle buoy about 3 miles south of Vinalhaven. He managed to get to the 8-foot-tall buoy with the intention of tying his boat to it until the weather improved. But as he stepped one foot onto the buoy, a wave knocked his boat away and he watched it, engine idling, drift away. The boat contained supplies, including food.
Curtis looked at his watch and remembered it was 10:45 a.m.
He took off his belt and looped it through a little bar on the buoy, then passed it through two belt loops on his pants to prevent him from being tossed into the icy waters.
“The buoy was dancing,” Curtis recalled.
Curtis said he believes he survived the ordeal because he did not panic.
“Most people who die on the sea or on land due so, in part, because they panic. I tried to think it through when I saw the situation I was in,” Curtis said.
He sat in a fetal position and pulled his sweater over his knees, trying to stay as warm as possible. He was wearing hip boots and had a Bic lighter on him. Those two items would help save his life.
He used his teeth to rip strips off the boots and then lit them using the lighter under his sweater to provide some heat. He repeated that process throughout the day and night.
He sat on his down vest so he would not freeze to the buoy.
Curtis was on the buoy for about a half-hour when he could see a lobster boat in the distance. He waved to the boat, but it passed by without spotting him. At 11 that night, he could see a helicopter, but again he was not seen.
“Just before dawn I debated whether to get in the water and get it over with,” he said.
But he received a brief chuckle when he spotted a duck paddling toward the buoy, as though it could not see Curtis. As the duck got closer, Curtis yelled out, which startled the bird, and the duck flew away.
“That was the first time I smiled since I got on the buoy,” he said.
Shortly after 2 p.m. Monday, Curtis saw the Coast Guard vessel Point Hannon approaching. Within 10 minutes of seeing it, the vessel arrived at the buoy and he was rescued.
Curtis suffered some frostbite and lost several fingernails and toenails but otherwise was unscathed by his 27 hours on the buoy.
His boat was never recovered.
“It could have gone to England,” he said.
The experience did not traumatize him. He said all fishermen have close calls from time to time.
“If you drive a car for 20 years, you’re going to run into some bumps every now and then,” he said.
The event received national attention. Newspapers and television stations across the country reported on his experience. The Weekly Reader for children published an article. A 2005 public television documentary “Survival: The human body in extreme environments” included a segment on what he endured.
Curtis said he kept a lot of the newspaper clippings over the years, but they have been lost in the past three decades.
In addition to lobstering, Curtis and his longtime companion, Vicki Wall, restore old boats. The couple are working on converting a former tuna boat with a tuna tower into a lobster boat, which they plan to race in the upcoming summer lobster boat races.
“She’s my finest catch,” he said of Wall.