Solo sailor returns with whale of a tale

"I started making my peace with God," says Max Young, a sailor from Sacramento whose 50-foot boat collided with a breaching whale off the western coast of Mexico. “I thought I was going to die.”

“I could see its head,” the 67-year-old adventurer says of his much-too-close encounter on June 12. “He only had a few barnacles.”

The 55-foot-long whale left Young bailing fast in a sinking boat with the nearest hope of rescue — a merchant ship — 60 miles away.

When he’d all but given up, Young told the AP on Sunday night that he saw the freighter. "I knew I was going to be OK."

After almost a week on the freighter, the sailor was back on dry land late last week.