Jordan had been living on his sailboat at a marina in Conway, South Carolina, near Myrtle Beach, until January, when he told his family he was "going into the open water to sail and do some fishing," said his mother, Norma Davis. He sailed out of the marina Jan. 23, Coast Guard officials said, and hadn't been heard from him since.
    The details of Jordan's whereabouts and how he might have survived for at sea were still unclear, said Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Ryan Doss.
    "We don't know where he capsized," Doss said. "We really won't know what happened to him out there until we talk to him" at length, he added, but said Jordan did manage to eat fish he caught while at sea.
    Records show Jordan sailed out of the Conway marina Jan. 23, aboard Angel, said Marilyn Fajardo, a spokeswoman for the Coast Guard's 7th District. Fajardo said the Coast Guard in Miami was notified by his father, Frank Jordan, on Jan. 29 that he hadn't seen or heard from his son in a week. One week later, Davis said their son was still missing.
    Jordan told WAVY that he was traveling north when his boat hit bad weather. He said he saw a wave crash into his window, and the boat eventually filled with water. He said at one point he was flying through the air and he thinks he broke his shoulder.
    He said he rationed his water to about a pint a day, but "for such a long a time I was so thirsty."
    Alerts were issued from New Jersey to Miami to be on the lookout for Jordan and his sailboat, according to the Coast Guard. Officials also searched financial data to determine whether Jordan actually had come ashore without being noticed but found no such indication, she said.
    A search began Feb. 8, but Fajardo said the Coast Guard abandoned its efforts after 10 days. Some sailors reporting seeing Jordan's sailboat, but none of the sightings were confirmed. The case was suspended.
    The Coast Guard said Jordan didn't file a "float plan," the nautical equivalent of a flight plan, to determine his route or destination, and Fajardo said there wasn't enough information to narrow down his whereabouts.
    "We're elated that he survived. We were never able to determine where he was headed," Doss said. "Without that as part of the equation, it was difficult to come up with a search area."
    In a Coast Guard audio recording of the first post-rescue contact with his father, Louis Jordan says, "I haven't heard you in so long."
    Frank Jordan tells him: "I'm so glad that you're still alive. We prayed and prayed and we hoped that you were still alive, so that's all that matters."