Brett Martin

They drank some rum, or maybe cognac.

One way or another, they drank a lot of it.

At one point, they almost crashed into a small island.

Gas was running low, but they figured that if worse came to worse, they could always put up the sails and still make it home.

Then they got caught in a strong current that turned the boat in circles.

The perfect time, you would think, to begin to panic.

Or, if you're the kind of person who forgets trouble the moment you're out of it, or even while you're in it, the perfect time to shoot off all the boat's flares into the water, just for fun.

Finally, the series of mistakes reached a critical mass.

They had no cell phone.

Roman's had died when he fell in the water.

No flares, no captain and almost no gas.

Even Alex had to admit they were in trouble.

It was a glorious spring morning on Jamaica Bay, sun glinting off the water, gulls calling overhead, as our young pleasure cruisers slumbered.

The light filtering into the boat's cabin woke Roman and Alex Glubachonsky first, and they came up on deck.

What they saw was not good.

After drifting through the night, the boat had come to rest in the shallows of a small bay alongside an uninhabited landmass.

Stretching out behind them, they could see a long furrow where the tide had dragged them deep into thick mud.

And as they stood there, blinking and wondering how this might have happened, the wind carried them another 10 feet inland.

They could see the skyline of Manhattan on the horizon, the runways of JFK Airport a little closer, and signs of civilization in every direction.

They could even see boats passing by in the distance, but these were too far away to take any notice.