\n\t\t\t\t\t\tIt was a team effort to safely rescue two boaters who went missing for more than a day at sea off the Central Florida coast. New Smyrna Beach\u2019s Marine Unit \u2014 along with the U.S. Coast Guard, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, and the Volusia County Sheriff\u2019s Office \u2014 searched for Patrick Watson and Danny Gibson on Tuesday. By the time WESH 2 News reached Patrick Watson and Danny Gibson, they had just gotten to Patrick’s home in Lake Helen from New Smyrna Beach, where they had launched the Dirty Oar. Patrick hadn’t even hugged his wife for the first time yet since being rescued. She was worried about the duo and even filed a missing-persons report after they went missing for more than 24 hours at sea. \u201cTired, very tired and sunburned and hungry,” Watson said, after being asked how he was feeling. “And hungry. That’s why we’re going to hurry up with this interview.” Watson said he realized there was a problem when he started to come home. “We’re done fishing and everything. We started to go and we had an electrical problem,” he said. “We had to do a little ‘MacGyvering’ to get us back to the docks. He has a troll motor up front, so we had to use that troll motor with batteries aside from the boat’s engine to get us inshore enough to get cellphone signals for our cellphones,” Danny Gibson added. “I actually shot off a few flares, you know, at other boats, but they were too far off to recognize it.” When asked if they ever panicked, Watson laughed, “No, never \u2014 wait a minute, I panicked when I ran out of food.” It was around 7:30 a.m. Monday when the two started their adventure. That’s when they took out the Dirty Oar from New Smyrna Beach and the Swoop Boat Ramp. The boat broke down around 4 p.m. Monday when they were about 33 miles offshore, and they were stranded overnight. But an east wind did help push them into shore. “That’s the only wind we needed and that’s the only wind we had, which that in itself was a saving grace, just because it pushed us inshore and at the moment I got cellphone signal,\u201d Gibson said. Patrick Watson added, “We worried more about what, you know, families and everybody, ‘Oh they’re not home.'” Once he saw an airline around 12:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Gibson said he knew their prayers had been answered.” With his home in Longwood, Gibson told WESH 2 News what his plans were once he got there.\u201cShower, shower,” he said. “Yes, I got a beautiful girlfriend and dog (…) I definitely want to put my arms around both of them, yeah.\u201d\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tVOLUSIA COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n