PLAQUEMINES PARISH, La. — It's been almost two weeks since the U.S. Coast Guard had to rescue Captain Timothy "Blimp" Cheramie, after he was stranded on his boat in the Gulf of Mexico.
The next day, Cheramie was still determined to get his boat back. He reached out to his neighbor, Jimmy Rigsby, also a fellow boat captain, to drop him back off at his boat.
"He didn't want to drop me off, but I said I'll be fine, it's cool, I was good," Cheramie said.
He told his friend to let his daughter Tiffany, know where he was but the message never made it to her.
"I told them to tell her that he was on the boat and they said yeah they would take care of it," said Rigsby.
Cheramie would stay on his boat for 3 days waiting for help, but that never came. He then realized he needed to get off the island.
"I can't stay here no more because if I stay here when that shower starts coming off that gulf, it's going to beat the boat to pieces," he said.
He would find a nearby camp that was abandoned, and came upon a aluminum crab table which he used to paddle back little by little, to land.
"It's 3 foot wide and 8 foot long, it's aluminum it's heavy and has no flotation at all to it but if you turn it upside down and get it in, you can float," he says.
Cheramie would spend the next few days, paddling, walking, and sleeping on small sand bars off the Gulf of Mexico, doing anything he could to get back home.
"I got into the little boat, my adrenaline was up by now. I don't want to die like this, I want to make it to the bank. I was closing my eyes and hit it as hard as I could," recalled Cheramie.
Finally after 6 days, he made it ashore but not in the way he expected. Many not even noticing his return.
"I can't believe this right, with all the freaking luck in the world, you gonna make it right here and they got 1000 people right here and not one of this people see me."
After taking the first sip of water Cheramie had in several days, he was interrupted by someone recognizing him.
"Blimp! Where you come from?" I come from across that bay you didn't see me walk up the stairs? Looks at the cameras, you'll see lord," he said.
His adventure ending, but still reminiscing about his memories and life back on his boat.
"It's my whole life, it's what I do. Now I got nothing to do, how am I gonna feed myself? I'm a shrimper, I'm 60 years old."
KATC asked if he regretted trying going back from his boat.
"No, I don't regret going back I regret not getting it."
Cheramie tells KATC that he has plans to go back to his boat and try to salvage anything he can. He also is gearing up to launch a GoFundMe campaign to replace his boat.
