DECEMBER 2021 • 71Paul Strasser and Mark
Pisano, then two strapping
23-year-olds, were still new
to captaining ships when
they pushed off from
San Pedro at six in the
morning of May- They had 35
passengers aboard
the First String, a boat
they’d helped build, for
a fishing expedition.
The best friends had met as
14-year-olds. Soon after, Strasser had
quit his job delivering newspapers
to join Pisano working on fishing
boats, where they scrubbed decks,
cleaned fish, and earned the title of
“pinheads”—eager young fishermen
learning the ropes.
They graduated to deckhands and
eventually to full-fledged fishermen.
They spent their free time learning
their trade. Before long, they became
two of the youngest captains at San
Pedro’s 22nd Street Landing.
Their fishing trip that day began
uneventfully. Pisano remembers
the weather was “pea soup fog”—so
thick you couldn’t see the stern of
the boat—and the fish weren’t biting
all morning.
“We were going to try one more
spot and then go home,” Pisano
says. But then some yellowtail, a
prized game fish, started biting. The
stranded. Looking into the faces of
her father, mother, aunt, uncle, and
sister, Desireé wasn’t frightened.
“It was like what you would see in
a movie,” she recalls. “You could see
nothing around you. It was just dark.
But it was peaceful, quiet.”
After some time, her father told
them he would swim for help. “I’ll be
back,” he said before disappearing
into the darkness.
“My dad was like the superhero
to me. I actually thought he would
get help,” Desireé says.
After some time, her mother began
foaming at the mouth, and then she
went still. Desireé wrapped a rope
around her mother’s chest and tied
her to the boat so she wouldn’t float
away. Then her sister died too.
“I remember it was just pretty
much quiet after that,” Desireé says.
“I think we were all just kind of inph disbelief and just waiting.”
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After that day, the two
fishermen lost track of
the girl they’d saved