thought this was funny

i had forgotten about this band

Exhausted, waterlogged and stung by jellyfish, musician Orlando Phillips had thoughts of gratitude, but not happiness, when he was pulled from the choppy waters of the Chesapeake Bay after his boat went down near Deale.

"I had the feeling that I didn't want to live without my brother, and that my friends were gone," he said yesterday, recalling his desperation.

When Phillips' boat became entangled in fishing net and sank about 10:20 p.m. Sunday, he became separated from his brother, Gregory, and two friends. Orlando Phillips clung to a rope tied to a pole in the water.



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"I couldn't see them. I said 'Swim to my voice,' and they answered. But then I didn't hear them anymore. I thought they must have drowned," Orlando Phillips, 51, of Annapolis said, his voice hoarse from the shouting. "It never occurred to me they would drift out of my sound range."

The current had whisked away those three men, who were clinging to each other.

Nearly two hours after Orlando Phillips was pulled from the water, he said "it was complete joy" when he saw his brother and friends, who had been brought ashore by Coast Guard rescuers.

"We were all very happy, overjoyed," he said. "We hugged, cried, laughed."

Gregory Phillips, who turns 49 today and also is from Annapolis; and two friends, Pantelakis Panayi, 41, of Annapolis and Francois Koryak, 40, of Glen Burnie, were - like Orlando Phillips - exhausted but OK, Coast Guard officials said yesterday.

The men described a harrowing experience, and Anne Arundel County Fire Department Lt. Frank Fennell called them "very fortunate, considering they got separated."

Orlando Phillips, who plays Caribbean steel drums and saxophone, had taken out his 25-foot powerboat to go from his Annapolis home to his gig at Calypso Bay, a restaurant and bar at Herrington Harbor North near Deale.

His brother - with whom he had played in the 80s R&B band Starpoint, best remembered for the hit "Object of My Desire" - had joined him for some of the songs, ending about 8 p.m.

More than an hour later, a rain shower had ended, they had loaded the boat and, with two friends, set out for home, down Tracys Creek and into Herring Bay.

"It was very dark," Orlando Phillips recalled. "There was no visibility because there was cloud cover."

Away from the marina, he let Koryak take over. As he showed his friend their location on the global positioning system, Orlando Phillips said, a fishing net in the area snared the propeller "and we were caught like a big fish."

He cut the engine, but the men were unable to slash the net away with a knife or bail out the boat fast enough.

"At that time I told everyone to go put on life preservers," Orlando Phillips said.

They called 911 twice by cell phone - the first call was dropped - about 10:20 p.m. Orlando Phillips couldn't read the GPS location in the tumult in the pitch darkness.

The net sucked the boat into the water, and waves a couple of feet high sloshed in, quickly submerging the vessel, said Coast Guard Petty Officer Joshua J. Rihm.

Three men jumped off the boat, followed by Panayi, who later told Orlando Phillips that he hit his head on the canopy, was yanked down by waves and then popped up as the boat sank.

Orlando Phillips clutched his rope, most likely tied around a pole holding a pound net in the fishing haven. As he bobbed in the water, he chided himself for not grabbing flares.
[Edited 8/8/07 14:35pm]
[Edited 8/8/07 14:36pm]