The sheer will to survive never ceases to amaze me. Lillian Ruth Simpson was rescued after floating for 19 hours on a water container off the coast of Maui.

Simpson was canoeing alone when winds flipped her canoe. She tried to reflip her canoe, but gave up and decided to swim to shore. Luckily, the temperature of the water averaged 80 degrees. Simpson was found a little dehydrated and sunburned, but did not require a hospital stay.

"I just kept trying to swim toward Olowalu, but really the water did not want to take me there," she said.

Simpson spent a long night dozing off, accidentally swallowing sea water, throwing up and trying to keep warm.

Joseph Carvalho Jr., captain of the boat Strike Zone, spotted what he first thought was a large balloon in the ocean early Friday morning. He went to investigate because floating objects usually attract mahimahi and other game fish.

It wasn't until the boat got close that the crew realized it was Simpson. After they carried her aboard, she was hungry, thirsty and couldn't remember her name.

"She told me that she kept telling herself, 'At least the water's warm,'" Carvalho said. "Your survival instinct kicks in. She made something out of nothing and that saved her life."

Simpson said that she is not a strong ocean swimmer, but that she has been around boats all her life because her father and sister fished.

"I won't say I'm not going back in the ocean," she said. "But I'm not going back alone anytime soon."