Tony Marisco, 54, of South Lake Tahoe capsized his 14-foot Force 5 sailboat twice Thursday afternoon at the mouth of the Tahoe Keys Marina. He was not wearing a life jacket.
"It got a little choppy," Marisco said. "I thought the boat could handle a little more than it did."
After righting his boat, Marisco capsized his boat a second time while reaching over the side to get his life jacket, which was floating in the water.
"He ducked just before the boom hit him," said Lou Denny a witness and sailor visiting from Lake County, Calif.
Police responded to the scene after receiving a 911 call from an unidentified woman, according to Denny.
The woman apparently thought Marisco, who was standing on the center board of his capsized vessel, was incapable of pulling his boat upright. In reality Marisco was simply looking for his keys, which were attached to a floating key chain.
Marisco, who was a Sea Scout when he was 13-years-old, said, "I could've been knocked in the head. I know better than that."
He had only been sailing 75 yards from the shore and ended up walking along the shallow beach to get his boat back to port. Marisco later scouted out his keys from a location on the beach.
"I said a little prayer to the higher powers," he said. Marisco calculated the possible location of his keys before discovering them bobbing up and down in the water. Wearing his life jacket, he swam to retrieve his keys.
"No action was taken, no reports were taken," said Sgt. Richard Munk of the South of the Lake Tahoe Police Department.
