Jim Emma vividly remembers the cold-soaked nightmare that occurred a year ago.

Dark green water rushed over the back of the 39-foot fishing charter, violently swinging the back end down, a wave driving most of his fellow passengers back into the cabin.

He described the scene as the boat went vertical as he and the others tried desperately to swim out of the cabin before the boat went under.

“It’s a fishing boat, and there’s stuff sticking out all over.” Emma said, adding that the sinking boat sucked them under the waves. “It’s a miracle we all got out. I remember being up in the water for a while and others still popping out.”

One year from the day that the Fin Seeker sank two miles off the shore of Waukegan, the fishing charter boat still lies under 70 feet of water.

Former charter captain Jason Lee, 39, and his passengers from that fateful day gathered on Saturday at the Kenosha Coast Guard station to reunite with their rescuers.

For Lee, it was an emotional moment.

“Coming up here, I didn’t know what to expect. You hate to cry in front of the guys, you know,” Lee, of Decatur, Ill., said. “It brought back a lot of memories. I’m just glad to be here today and thank the guys that helped us.”

The other “Lake Michigan 7,” as their bright orange shirts proclaimed, were equally grateful.

“We’re thankful every day that you came out and got us. We’re thankful every day to be here,” survivor Brian LaValliere told his rescuers.

Passengers also credited Lee’s 15 years of charter fishing experience, nearly 12 of them on his own boat, with their ultimate rescue.

“When you tell some stories, you have the tendency to embellish it, but this one you have to downplay because no one is going to believe you,” Emma said.

Fishing trip

Emma headed a group from Nova Communications Inc. in Geneva, Ill., that booked what was supposed to be a fun afternoon of fishing on Lake Michigan on May 30, 2008.

The group was on the water for about an hour when the wind picked up quickly into what was later called a rare “wake effect low pressure,” with tornado-like winds. Suddenly the gentle waves became 10-footers and growing.

Emma remembers the waves creeping up the back of the boat, closer and closer.

When a giant wave crashed into the cabin and broke the window, spraying Lee with glass, he told his passengers to don their life jackets and he radioed a distress signal with their coordinates.

Minutes later, he sent another message, saying they were going in the water.

Cut by the glass and bleeding, Lee exited the vertical boat by crawling through the broken window.

“I thought I was going to die with my life jacket on,” Lee said of the huge waves that were only six feet apart that kept him underwater.

Emma had his life jacket ripped off by a huge wave but was able, with others’ help, to wriggle back into it in the 48-degree water.

“Another minute or two and I wouldn’t have been here,” Emma said.

Rescuers get the call

For the rescuers, which included petty officers Matt Collins, Shawn Downs and Brian Buck, who attended the reunion, the details revealed the peril they too were in on that day.

The rescuers were about to take the station’s smaller boat when at the last minute word came that there were seven people in peril, Collins said. That’s when the decision was made to take the station’s larger 41-foot utility boat.

When the Coast Guard boat left the Kenosha harbor, the sun was shining, but when the guardsmen crossed the state line, the weather exploded.

Suddenly the utility boat was maneuvering over the crest of waves and dropping 15-20 feet into the swells. It was slow going.

Wind gusts of over 90 knots drove spray so relentlessly the boat’s windshield wipers couldn’t keep up. The crew opened the windows so the pilot could see, but water came in through the open window and sizzled their electronic equipment.

Every time the boat slammed down a wave, Collins thought of the quarter-inch aluminum hull. Sitting in the pilot’s seat, he put his seat belt on for the first time in his career.

If it hadn’t been for the Coast Guard HC65-Dolphin helicopter spotting the victims in the water, the rescuers on board the Kenosha boat might not have found their quarry. Because of radio static, the coordinates the Kenosha crew received were incorrect; rescuers thought the boat went down off of Zion.

LaValliere, Lee and a third survivor, Gail Burke, were 100 to 125 yards away from the other four survivors when the helicopter arrived over the larger group. They all had been in the water for more than a half hour, and hypothermia had started to set in.

The others were hauled one at a time via a rescue basket before the helicopter hovered over the trio. LaValliere was taken up in the helicopter, and Lee and Burke were hauled into the Kenosha boat.

All were taken to a hospital and later released.

Back in the Waukegan harbor, 50-foot sailboats were knocked off their moorings.

Staying off the lake

LaValliere said he still hasn’t gone back out onto Lake Michigan, preferring to fish the inland lakes.

As serious as the situation was, when the danger was over, there were lighter moments.

As they were safely back in the Waukegan harbor, Lee told Collins to write himself a ticket.

“We were in a ‘no wake zone’ and he was still going pretty fast,” Lee said. “I still had my sense of humor.”