Man recounts 12-hour swim to N.C. shore after kayak tipped

A Richmond man who said he swam for about 12 hours in the Albemarle Sound after his kayak overturned Monday said he moved from buoy to buoy to rest and ate algae as he tried to get to shore.

“The whole way through I was pretty persistent to go to shore, and I was calm about it the whole time,” said Curtis Cooper, 19.

Cooper was kayaking on the sound, in North Carolina, when a big wave hit him and caused his kayak to capsize Monday afternoon. He made it to shore more than 12 hours later and found a couple who drove him to his family’s summer home in Roper, N.C., on the southern side of the sound.

Cooper was kayaking alone, wearing a black bathing suit and no lifejacket.

In a telephone interview Tuesday evening, Cooper said he’s a strong swimmer, and although he hadn’t kayaked on the sound before he thought the water would be smooth.

But the water was choppy, and a wave caused his kayak to overturn a little after noon Monday. It filled with water, so he said he decided to abandon it. He later regretted ditching the kayak.

“I kept swimming,” he said. “The current of the sound was directing me toward the ocean and I didn’t want to go there, so I had to fight the current the whole time.”

Cooper’s mother, Deborah Hedley, called the Washington County Sheriff’s Office to report him missing shortly before 4 p.m. At 5:33 p.m., the Coast Guard spotted his overturned yellow kayak floating on the water.

“We were trying to remain positive but we were definitely thinking more bad thoughts than we wanted to,” Hedley said.

Cooper said he used used crab pot buoys – used for catching crabs – as rest stops as he swam.

“I just kept going from crab pot buoy to buoy,” he said. “I used the buoys as a flotation device and the stuff growing on them - the green algae and seaweed -was my meal because I was really hungry.”

Cooper waved his arms and yelled when a plane went over, but he wasn’t seen, he said. The Coast Guard searched with planes, boats and a helicopter.

Eventually, it got dark.

“All that was going through my mind was that I had to keep going toward land, and I remained calm because you waste more energy by panicking,” Cooper said.

As he got closer to shore there were no more buoys. At one point, he thinks, he swam about half a mile.

He said he made it to shore on the northern side of the sound and collapsed.

“I just remember lying there on the sandy beach for an hour. And then I went to find help,” he said.

He walked barefoot down a long driveway and found an empty house. He knocked on the door of another house.

About 2 a.m. Tuesday, Cooper found a married couple who drove him to his family’s home.

“We got a call from a woman saying, ‘Your son’s in my car, and he’s OK. We’re on the way home,’” Hedley said. “I didn’t get her name.”

Cooper’s hands and feet were blue, his face and neck were sunburned and his throat was sore from shouting, his mother said. But other than that he was fine.

Cooper graduated this year from Fork Union Military Academy in Fork Union, Va., He plans to attend Marshall University in the fall.

He said he’ll wear a lifejacket in the future.

“I would not want to relive it,” he said.

Patrick Wilson, (757) 446-2957, patrick.wilson@pilotonline.com