From KCRW, I'm Bob Carlson, and this is unfictional.

And in the summer of 1984, a call came in to the Volunteer Rescue Team in the Shetland Islands village of Eighth.

A man rowing alone in a small boat was in trouble in the sea below the cliffs.

Two hours later the boat was found,

the occupant was absolutely exhausted,

boat taking water,

and they did not know where he was.

Being only one mile from the rocks, another hour would have been disasters.

Unfictional is a program of true stories, Personal Documentaries, and Radio Movies.

And on this episode, The Rowing Man, a story written by the Danish producer Ricky Hood,

about finding a village full of friends, even when you're rowing alone across a ferocious sea.

Hello everybody how are you? I am fine and I'm very happy to be together with you.

You are some of the most beautiful people I ever have made from my life.

I might have been on air wrestling in the social club.

Sooney's arm wrestling all the men in the social club. Soni's arm wrestling all the men in the social club.

He erm wrestled a lot of the main.

Because obviously he rode so far.

He was fit and he was strong.

The remote Shetland islands, 110 miles from the Scottish

mainland, a place where the old world is still the present. The dialect and the

culture is halfway Nordic, halfway Scottish.

And you'll hear several people in the story

...