SWAN’S ISLAND, Maine — A 17 year-old boy from Rockport took shelter in an unlocked home on a small nearby island and did not realize the Coast Guard was searching for him, his father said Wednesday afternoon.
Douglas Day, father of Jackson Day, said that though his son was caught unprepared by foul weather that blew in around midday Tuesday, the boy showed good instincts by staying off the water and not trying to paddle his yellow, 8-foot-long kayak in worsening conditions back to the family’s summer home on Swan’s Island.
“Whenever you have dark, fog, rain and wind, that’s the four horsemen of the apocalypse,” Douglas Day said when contacted by cellphone late Wednesday afternoon. “You don’t want to deal with them if you don’t have to.”
He said his son was asleep late Wednesday afternoon at the family’s summer cottage in the village of Atlantic and was unavailable for comment.
Jackson Day was reported missing by his mother, Diana Day, on Tuesday evening after he failed to return from kayaking. Jackson Day, his two sisters and his mother were staying at their summer home on Swan’s Island, Douglas Day said, while he was at the family’s year-round home in Rockport.
The father said Jackson Day did not have a radio or cellphone with him when he set out in benign weather from the ferry terminal in Mackerel Cove by himself at 10 a.m. Tuesday. When winds kicked up about noon, creating 2-foot waves, the boy decided to wait it out on a small islet rather than try to paddle back the roughly mile and a half to the ferry terminal.
Instead, for fun, he spent the afternoon building what his father described as “artful dwellings” out of driftwood, which is something Day enjoys doing with his friends.
As afternoon turned into evening, with conditions getting worse instead of better, Day — already on the leeward side of Round Island — paddled maybe a quarter-mile to Round Island, where he knew there was a house, so he might find a phone or radio to contact his mother, according to Douglas Day. He did not find either in the unlocked home and elected to spend the night there, out of the weather.
“It was no longer, as we say, a three-hour cruise,” Jackson Day’s father said. “He decided wisely not to leave the island. He simply waited it out.”
Coast Guard officials searched throughout the night Tuesday using motorboats and an aircraft from Cape Cod, along with members of the Maine Marine Patrol, local harbormasters and good Samaritans.
But according to Douglas Day, they were searching, at his recommendation, around islands on the north side of Casco Passage, where he and his son have camped previously. Round Island is closer to Swan’s Island, to the south of Casco Passage. Searchers shot off flares while looking for Jackson Day, but the teenager, sheltered in a cabin more than a mile away, never saw them, he said.
“He was unaware the search was happening,” Douglas Day said.
The father said that, in the middle of the night, he considered bringing his own boat up from Rockport to join in the overnight search, but he was unable to find his moored boat in the fog and rain in Rockport’s harbor. So he drove his car to Mount Desert Island and caught the first ferry out from Bass Harbor Wednesday morning.
It was when the morning ferry was pulling into Mackerel Cove and as a small flotilla of official and volunteer search vessels were getting ready to resume the search that Jackson Day was spotted unharmed and paddling his kayak back to Swan’s Island in the calm conditions.
“This is a very favorable outcome, considering all of the circumstances,” Coast Guard Sector Northern New England commander Capt. Michael Baroody said in a prepared statement Wednesday. “The low visibility, gusting winds and the lack of information on his whereabouts made this case incredibly difficult.”
Baroody added Day was found without a lifejacket.
Air temperatures dipped to 57 degrees Tuesday night with water temperatures below 60 degrees, which if someone is in the water long enough can result in hypothermia and death.
Douglas Day emphasized that he and his family are grateful to everyone who helped search for his son, and even to the owners of the unlocked cabin where his son took shelter
“I’d like to put out a [thanks of] gratitude to the Coast Guard,” the relieved father said. “There was a lot of effort on our behalf.”
“The degree of worry was unprecedented, fortunately, in our lives, and we have taken lessons from it,” he added.
BDN writer Ryan McLaughlin contributed to this report.
