7070 • DECEMBER 2021Kept afloat by her orange life
jacket, nine-year-old Desireé
Rodriguez had watched helplessly
as one family member after another
let go of life. Just as she, too, began
to give up, the skipper of a fishing
boat spotted her bobbing in the
water. Within minutes, the boat’s first
officer leaped in and grabbed
Desireé, pulling her back toward the
boat—and toward life.
That was 35 years ago, and the last
time the rescuers and the girl saw
one another. Until this year.
May 18, 1986, was the kind of
beautiful, sunny day that regularly
brought the Rodriguez family to
California’s Catalina Island for
some fishing on their 28-foot
pleasure boat, the DC Too.
Desireé’s father, a 30-year-old
construction worker named
Thomas Rodriguez, loved the
sport, especially catching
bass. A strong, slender man,
he had instilled in
his oldest daughter a love
of the outdoors, teaching
her how to bait a hook and
cast a line.
As was their custom at
least once a month, the
family boarded their boat
that morning for a carefree day
trip. For the first time, Thomas’s
sister, Corinne Wheeler, 33, and
her husband, Allen Wheeler, 34,
had decided to join them, leaving
their three children at home in the
Riverside, California neighbourhood
where both families lived. They spent
the day fishing in the Pacific Ocean,
then left the island in the early
evening. Soon dense fog rolled in.
Desireé fell into a light sleep
beside her five-year-old sister,
Trisha, at a table on the boat’s
lower deck. Their father’s sharp
orders startled her awake: “Get out
of the boat. The boat’s sinking!”
Desireé pushed her sister into the
cold, dark water. Both girls wore life
jackets. The adults did not. The girls
were followed by their mother, Petra
Rodriguez, a petite, quiet 29-year-old
who was pregnant.
Within seconds, the boat capsized,
leaving just the tip of its bow in the
air—and the six family membersShe had
been drifting in
the cold Pacific
water for a night
and most of
a day.
photo,previousspread:^ courtesy^ mark^pisano.carolyn^cole/^ shutterstock^ (inset)