Tourist Who Spent Two Days Adrift `Just Refused To Die'

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - For two days, Dale Chimenti drifted on the open sea with only a lifejacket to keep him afloat. He fought off eels. He watched sharks approach, sniff him and leave. He endured fish nibbling at his arms and legs.

What had started as a water-scooter ride off Cozumel, Mexico, on Friday had Chimenti pleading with God by Sunday, "Do you want me to go, do you want me to stay? But give me a sign."

A few hours later, the sign came: A capped Coke bottle encrusted with mollusks.

An inch of liquid was trapped inside the bottle. It was enough to keep the dehydrated Michigan man going until he was rescued by a German freighter and an officer named Arcangel Cajayon.

Yesterday, Chimenti arrived in Port Everglades, Fla. with the freighter, was treated by doctors and released.

"I just refused to die," Chimenti, 40, said. Mentally, "every night I would tell (his wife Lizabeth) `I'm still alive.' "

Somehow, Lizabeth got that message. For two days, she rented a plane to search the ocean. She sent their two children home, telling them their father was alive.

"We had just told them he was playing hide-and-seek, and he was a better hider than we are a seeker," Lizabeth Chimenti said.

Dale Chimenti's 51-hour, 138-mile trek started Friday morning when he and his cousin, Dan Carcone, went for a pre-breakfast ride on a water scooter - a motorized piece of equipment similar to a Jet Ski. It was the first full day of vacation for Chimenti.

The men got on their rented water scooters about 10:30 a.m. and after about a mile and a half, Chimenti's machine stalled and died, Carcone said.

The two men agreed that Carcone should head to shore for help.

The rental shop responded by sending first a water scooter, then a chartered boat to find Chimenti, Carcone said. They looked until dark.

"By the time they came back, I was long gone," Chimenti said.

As night approached, Chimenti ditched the sinking scooter but kept the buoyant seat cushion. He put his shorts over his head to keep his head warm. He wasn't wearing a shirt.

"I am not a strong swimmer," he said. "But my determination is second to none."

On Saturday, things got more desperate, both for Chimenti and his family.

The lack of water started to give Chimenti delusions. He ditched the floatable seat cover because, at one point, he thought he was sitting on the beach drinking orange juice. He wasn't.

Chimenti said he was bothered by eels and snakes slithering around him. He hates snakes.

Sharks would swim by. "It's much like the walking down the street, and all of a sudden you are confronted by a large dog that sniffs, and you drifted away," Chimenti recalled.

Back on land on Saturday morning, Lizabeth Chimenti rented a small plane to scour the coast. She and Carcone took turns flying and coordinating the search.

Frustrated by the Mexican authorities' reaction, the family got help from the U.S. Coast Guard, which sent out messages to boats to be on the lookout for Chimenti.

Early Sunday morning, the German freighter Almania got one of those messages. Capt. Volquard Richter read it but figured his ship was too far north to find this man.

Meanwhile, Chimenti's delusions grew more vivid. He swam toward condos, only to realize later that they were clouds.

"This was my last day," Chimenti said.

He believes one ship had already passed him.

So Chimenti, who had never considered himself very religious, began pleading for a sign from God.

When the Coke bottle appeared, he drank its yellowish liquid.

"It gave me energy," Chimenti said. "I don't know what it was. It could have been urine for all I know. It gave me the energy."

A few hours later he saw the 328-foot German freighter, but to Chimenti's delusional mind it was a small pleasure craft. Still, he shouted for help.

Ship's officer Cajayon was on deck about 1 p.m. when he heard Chimenti's call for help and another officer saw him. They turned the boat and rescued him.

Chimenti was so weak he couldn't stand.

Chimenti was sunburned all over. Slowly he drank water through swollen lips.

It tasted "wonderful," Chimenti said. That night, he called his family to tell them he was safe.

The ship wasn't supposed to be where it was when they found Chimenti, Richter said. It was a tad off course and two days late.

"He was lucky," Richter said.