Walter Wyatt’s Shark Night

In 1986, a man named Walter Wyatt Jr. left Nassau for Florida in a plane whose instruments had been vandalized and partly stolen before the flight. Storms, a damaged compass, and engine failure forced him down into the Atlantic near where the plane sank and left him alone in the water through the night. Wyatt later spent about 15 hours at sea with a failing life jacket, swollen eyes, biting parasites, while being regularly pursued by at least 3 different shark species (bull, mako, and hammerhead). A shark was even in pursuit of him when he was spotted by the Coast Guard and rescued.

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