Shipwrecked Pair Found Safe : Rescue: The men survive a two-day ordeal on West Anacapa Island after a fishing trip goes awry.

Two men feared lost at sea were rescued Saturday after surviving a two-day ordeal on West Anacapa Island that included eating raw sea gull eggs and scaling a 250-foot cliff to scream for help.

U.S. Coast Guard rescue teams picked up Bill Matlock, 29, and Jerry Chavez, 25, at West Anacapa Island on Saturday morning after boaters heard their cries.

Matlock, a Camarillo resident, and Chavez, from Los Angeles, said they were hungry, sunburned and dehydrated but otherwise felt fine. “We’re lucky to be alive,” said Chavez, rubbing a heavy growth of beard as he gobbled chocolate chip cookies from a vending machine at Oxnard Airport, where he was dropped off by rescue teams.

Coast Guard officials said Saturday that they had believed the two men had drowned and were considering calling off the search by about 50 Coast Guard members in five boats, two helicopters and two planes.

“We suspected they were in the water because of the high seas,” said John Lane, a rescue swimmer with the Coast Guard. “They’re real lucky.”

Chavez and Matlock, who work as airplane mechanics for Continental Airlines, had set off from Channel Islands Harbor on Thursday on Matlock’s 22-foot motorboat, the Traci Lynn, for an afternoon fishing trip to Anacapa Island.

Anacapa, 11 miles southwest of Oxnard, is the most popular of the Channel Islands because of its proximity to the mainland. Matlock’s boat was dashed against the rocks on the south side of West Anacapa Island, near Frenchy’s Cove, after the fuel pump broke, Matlock said.

“We couldn’t do anything,” recalled Matlock as he waited for his wife, Traci, to pick him up at the airport. “The waves destroyed the boat.”

The two men jumped into the 13-foot waves with nothing but their life jackets and a piece of rope, Matlock said. After they managed to swim to the island, Matlock said he spelled out HELP with pieces of his boat but the signal was washed out by the tide hours later.

Chavez then decided to scale a steep cliff to look for help, but he got stuck about 100 feet up, he said.

“It got dark on me,” Chavez said. He couldn’t see where to put his feet, and the cliff was so steep that he was afraid to move. So he spent hours clinging to the side of the cliff. “It was the longest night of my life,” he said.

On Friday, Matlock climbed to Chavez and guided him down by telling him where to place his feet. The two spent Friday night sleeping on a cliff, although they got up occasionally to run around and do pushups to stay warm, Chavez said.

Although there is a ranger station on East Anacapa Island four miles away, the two men could not travel easily through the hilly terrain. And although they twice saw helicopters passing overhead, they were unable to attract attention.

The two were rescued Saturday afternoon after scaling a 250-foot cliff and yelling out to a passing boat.

Neither of the two had any experience in rock climbing, but Chavez said they felt they didn’t have a choice. “We had to climb like spiders, it was so steep,” Matlock said.

Coast Guard rescuers said they were amazed that the divers aboard the boat were able to hear Chavez, but Chavez wasn’t surprised. “I was screaming my head off,” he said.

During their time on the island, the pair ate raw sea gull eggs, clams and seaweed. Chavez even stuffed some raw clams into his jacket as a memento.

“The sea gull eggs weren’t too bad,” Matlock said as he fished out his soggy wallet to buy a candy bar.

Times staff writer Jim Herron Zamora contributed to this story.