Call it a Christmas miracle. Or call it Bud and Anthony's excellent adventure. Or just call it a lot of hoopla about two guys who were nearly lost at sea.
What ever you call it, Herbert "Bud" Clarity and Anthony "Fareed" Suraleigh arrived home Thursday, 11 days after being rescued from a tiny life raft in a ferocious storm."I'm glad to be back. This whole thing has been a great adventure. You head for Bermuda and end up in Ireland," said Clarity at a news conference at John F. Kennedy International Airport.
The pair left New York for Bermuda on Dec. 8 in a 30-foot boat. Both were experienced sailors, but their boat capsized in a surprise storm three days later.
They clung to a life raft for 11 hours in 70 mph winds with 35-foot waves before being rescued by a Japanese freighter. The freighter was headed to Ireland and the men arrived there Wednesday, then flew back to New York.
The storm had made an air rescue by the Coast Guard impossible, but hearing the Coast Guard planes flying overhead in the dark kept the two men going.
Clarity, 63, a retired fire captain from Harrison, N.J., was greeted by his wife, six children and eight grandchildren. Suraleigh, 47, who owns a boat-repair business, was met by his wife and two children.
Clarity's family said his Christmas presents include replacements for items he lost in the storm - a duffel bag, jacket, electric razor and camera - as well as a scrapbook of press clippings about the rescue.
Clarity's wife, Betty, said earlier that her family was "running around like chickens with their heads cut off, doing this and doing that, trying to decorate the house with `welcome back' " signs.
Both men said they would sail again and downplayed their celebrity.