Every good mariner has a boatload of fish tales and stories that'll set your neck hairs on end. Reese Ward and Steve Leasure have a whopper. And a leading character in their real-life adventure just happens to be a Garmin® chartplotter.

When Leasure, 35, of Charleston, South Carolina, purchased his 29-foot sport fishing boat along with a business partner, he insisted that they spend a little more money on a GPS system. He chose a Garmin GPSMAP 230. Turns out that was a life-changing decision.

Memorial Day weekend, 1999, Leasure, Ward, and four other friends spent a day fishing in the Gulf Stream off Charleston Harbor. After hauling in a sizable catch of mahimahi and wahoo, they turned around the Summer Girl and headed home.

Ward, 30, will never forget what happened next. As he walked to the boat's stern to relieve himself, he was pitched overboard. Ward yelled for help, but no one heard his cries over the noise from the boat, now speeding away at a 23-knot clip.

Shirtless, and without a life jacket, Ward spent the longest 45 minutes of his life bobbing in the warm Gulf Stream waters.

"I'll tell you, a lot of things went through my mind," Ward recalled. "And I was talking to the man above — talking out loud."

As he treaded the warm waters, Ward worried about getting cramps. Then, a scarier thought crossed his mind... sharks.

"But I put that out of my mind real quick," Ward said.

Back on the boat, Leasure woke up from a short nap in the cabin and asked where Ward was. Nobody knew. At first, he thought it was a joke. But it didn't take long to search the boat.

Leasure immediately radioed the Coast Guard. Then he spoke the words every captain hopes he'll never have to: "I'm missing one of my crew members. I need some assistance."

While still on the radio, Leasure started fiddling with the GPSMAP 230. He switched to TracBack® mode, a feature that shows the boat's previous course on the moving map display. Leasure turned the boat around and started to backtrack.

"At first, I thought we would find him in two or three minutes. I had total confidence we would find him," he said.

After about 10 minutes, his confidence began to slip. After 30 minutes, his heart sank. There's no way he could tread water for this long, he thought.

But the man overboard kept treading, and when Ward spotted a dot on the horizon that seemed to be coming toward him, he found the strength to keep going.

Aboard the Summer Girl, Leasure was the first to spot Ward, bobbing in the two- to three-foot waves. He radioed the Coast Guard. "We have him in sight... I can't believe it."

Amazingly, Ward was right on the 230's course plot. "He hadn't drifted a bit, which was unusual," Leasure said. "If we hadn't seen him, we would have run right over him."

Safe on board, Ward hugged everyone and said he was sorry for ruining a good day of fishing.

Ruined a good day of fishing? Nah. These guys netted a whopper of a story and took in some valuable seamanship lessons as well. New rule aboard the Summer Girl: No one goes to the back of the boat unless someone's been notified.

You can bet Reese Ward follows the buddy system. And he's darn glad his buddy was an experienced captain who had insisted on buying first-rate navigation equipment.

We're glad he got a Garmin too.

As reported in the Charleston, S.C., Post and Courier.

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