The phrase, "man overboard" is now all too real for a Duluth, Minnesota, man who is counting his blessings.
Peter Joice was on a ferry boat, leaving from Grand Portage, Minnesota, and headed for Lake Superior's Isle Royale where he was meeting friends for an annual fishing trip. The trip is about 15 miles.
That's when Joice says he leaned where he shouldn't have. He ended up in falling into the frigid lake without a life jacket.
What was worse for Joice? The boat's captain didn't realize it and continued on his path. Oh, and it was nighttime.
"When I ended up in the water and I saw the boat trailing away, I just kind of came to grips with the situation," Joice explained to Duluth's Northland News.
Joice says he knew it would only get worse off if he started panicking, so kept his cool and ended up swimming two miles to the island in the dark. He actually shed his outer clothes because he said it was "limiting" his swimming stroke. To conserve energy, Joice also mixed up the type of swimming he did, doing the backstroke or sidestroke when his hands got tired.
Once on Isle Royale, Joice was trapped on a rock, surrounded by water and cliffs. He actually gathered a few plants to try and keep warm in the complete darkness of the world's largest freshwater lake.
He was eventually picked up by a local conservation officer and says words can't express his gratitude.
"You just don't realize how much people care about you until you see the panic they have in looking for you," he says.
The water temp in the notoriously chilly lake is actually a reasonable 60 degrees in early August, but that's cold enough for hypothermia to set in within an hour or two, making Joice a very lucky swimmer.
Joice also thanked his mom for signing him up for swimming lessons as a kid. You can read his firsthand account of the ordeal here.