A man wants to thank the 2 strangers who helped rescue he and his family this past June. Curtis Whitson, his 13 year-old son, and Whitson’s girlfriend were hiking and tubing the Arroyo Seco River in Monterey county (over Father’s day weekend). They had plans to shoot the water fall at the Arroyo Seco Narrows, before meeting up with friends. When they got to the narrows though, they realized the water current was too strong for them to safely pass through. Although they could hear people past a bend in the canyon walls, they could not get those people’s attention until they scratched “help” on a green Nalgene water bottle, stuffed a note inside about their predicament, and threw the bottle into the river. That bottle was picked out of the Arroyo Seco River by 2 hikers….who then alerted authorities. In the meantime, Whitson’s group had spread out a blue tarp on a bit of beach….and used rocks to spell out S-O-S….and then shone a light on the rocks after dark. Some time after midnight, the 3 heard a helicopter overhead, and then someone on a loudspeaker said, “This is Search And Rescue. You have been found”.
Now, Whitson wants to thank the 2 hikers who found his family’s message, and saved them.
