Two Panama City area men believed dead and lost at sea were rescued Thursday as they drifted on a raft - almost a week after their boat sank in the Gulf of Mexico.



The U.S. Coast Guard told Bay News 9 on Thursday night the men were on a barge trip destined for Cancun, Mexico. Gerald Cheser and Vance Bryan, from Panama City, were ultimately bound for Belize.

Their boat sank Sunday in the Gulf, northwest of Tarpon Springs.



"We had been in the live raft for about seven days,'' said Bryan, retelling his ordeal Friday morning on dry land. "It was terrifying (but) we knew someone was looking for us. Thank God for the U.S. Coast Guard. Without them, it would have been over with.''



Cheser's mother, Joyce Bell, said her son and Bryan's barge capsized as a large wave hit them and it sank into the Gulf of Mexico, forcing the men to evacuate into a raft and begin drifting in the water.



The USCG in St. Petersburg received a call around 11 a.m. Sunday from a friend of one of the men stating the two men left from Captiva Island, south of Sarasota, on June 18 and were scheduled to arrive in Cancun on Saturday.

The men had not arrived on schedule and had not made contact with anyone to update their position in the Gulf, the person said. According to a USCG spokesperson, a C-130 aircraft was first launched from Coast Guard Air Station Clearwater around 1 p.m. Sunday to begin a search.



Bell said she and Cheser's family first received word that something was wrong Tuesday around 4 p.m.



After exhausting search efforts and facing more bad weather from Tropical Storm Debby moving toward the state, "finally they just gave up," Bell said, "and you know, there was no way they could have made it, because the storm came in that next day when they were hit." The family was taking the new reality one day at a time, slowly coming to understand that the men were gone, while holding on to faint hope.

At 6:30 p.m. Thursday, the tug barge Rikki S. spotted the men and the raft roughly 90 miles off the coast of Tarpon Springs. The person who spotted the men from the tug barge contacted the Coast Guard in Miami and reported the men were dehydrated, but alive.

A USCG spokesperson said the Coast Guard Cutter Bonito was diverted from Pensacola pick up the men and transport them back to land at the Coast Guard station in St. Petersburg by early Friday morning.



"I was more concerned with my family and how they were feeling,'' said a relieved Cheser. "Than I was worried about myself.''

