Insomnia Stories Podcast
Insomnia Stories Podcast

I Survey The Seafloor Alone Off The Oregon Coast. Something Down There Kept A Man For Eleven Years.

August 4, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

The Case from 86 Feet

A hydrographic surveyor working a solo contract forty miles off the Oregon coast was running lines over a drowned kelp forest when the sonar cable jerked. He pulled the package up, lowered it again, and felt it catch a second time. At 86 feet, he went over the side to free it. The net that had snagged his equipment lay across the bottom in a wide sheet, thick with marine growth. While cutting the cable loose, his hand closed around something hard with corners. It was an aluminum equipment case, wired deliberately into the net, not tangled there by accident.

The case had been underwater long enough to be covered in barnacles and a dark mat of growth. Back on the boat, he broke the latches open with a screwdriver and a flat bar. Inside was a sealed plastic sleeve containing a dive logbook with a Coast Guard emblem on the cover. The pages were dry. The first entry was dated November 2013. The name on the page was Caden Carr.

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What you'll learn

  • 1 I Survey The Seafloor Alone Off The Oregon Coast. Something Down There Kept A Man For Eleven Years.
  • 2 (00:58) **Setting the Scene** - Alvin, a solo hydrographic surveyor, calls his sister Callie from 40 miles offshore near Heceta Head on a six-week mapping contract
  • 3 (08:09) **The Snag** - While running survey lines over a drowned kelp forest, Alvin's sonar cable catches on something at 86 feet
  • 4 (11:11) **Entangled in the Net** - Alvin finds a large ghost net on the bottom and gets his fin caught in the mesh
  • 5 (12:52) **The Aluminum Case** - Beneath the net, Alvin discovers an equipment case that was deliberately wired into the mesh, not accidentally tangled
  • 6 (16:14) **Opening the Case** - Alvin struggles with corroded latches before forcing the case open on the galley table
  • 7 (20:48) **Caden Carr's First Entry** - The logbook describes a search near Key Largo in November 2013 for the wreck of the *Ardent Wren*, a shrimp trawler

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Show Notes

I Survey The Seafloor Alone Off The Oregon Coast. Something Down There Kept A Man For Eleven Years.

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