I saw three guys picked up off Charleston just three days after their vessel went down off the Florida east coast in a gale.
They looked like they had been adrift for a month or longer.
Floating around in the ocean is no picnic.
Imagine being stuck out in the ocean, with no shade, for days. Any exposed skin will be black. Surrounded by water - none of which you can drink. You can’t catch fish. Being covered in salt and oil, perhaps burned from swimming. Plus, look at a map of the Pacific: Between the continents of the Americas and Asia is 99.999% water. Planes flying overhead every now and then, giving you hope of a rescue, but they quite likely didn’t see the speck bobbing up and down on the ocean that was you and your buddies. Surely someone was instantly conspiring to get more than their share of what little supplies you had. Sick from the waves, sick from swallowing seawater and oil, people dying, people going crazy, sick from the sun... It’s a miracle anyone ever survived.
My dad was a merchant marine during WWII in both the Atlantic and the Pacific.
He said their fear of u-boats was real, but secondary to their fear of the weather.
He said you can’t hide from, trick, deceive, or fight back against the weather.
(miss you, dad)
Blackbeard left his crew on an island in the British Virgin Islands:
Fifteen men on the dead man’schest
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!
Drinkand the devil had done for the rest
Yo-ho-ho,and a bottle of rum!