Australian story of John Deer surviving after being stranded 17km offshore in Panama
When Australian sailor John Deer fell off his yacht in the Caribbean Sea, he thought he wouldn’t make it through the night alive. But when he saw his boat drift off into the distance, the 41-year-old realized he had a choice: wait for the waves to finally pull him down or try to swim the 17km to shore. ‘I kind of stepped on the water for a second and I thought, ‘Right, I’m going to die’,’ he told 60Minutes. ‘Then I thought ‘am I just going to float and wait for my lungs to fill with water?’ I might as well start swimming.” “So I started swimming.” Three years ago, Mr Deer left his home in Melbourne to embark on the journey of a lifetime – a solo sailing adventure around the world. He bought a used yacht, called the Julieta, in the Greek Islands and started his journey – sailing across the Mediterranean, visiting Albania, Italy, then exploring the islands around Spain. Despite having no previous sailing experience, he ‘threw himself into the deep end’ and quickly fell in love with his