UKUMEHAME, Maui — A woman who said she abandoned a capsized canoe off Olowalu on Thursday was rescued about 19 hours later on Friday morning when a fishing boat captain spotted her in the ocean off Ukumehame, The Maui News reported.

Lillian Ruth Simpson, 49, said she wrapped her bathing suit top around her head to keep warm after sunset and held onto a water container that served as a flotation device.

"I just started shivering so bad with the wind chill factor on my shoulders and head," said Simpson, who arrived on Maui from Juneau, Alaska, less than a month ago. "And then I'd swim. I'd make myself swim to keep my body warm."

On Friday a sunburned and tired Simpson was treated for dehydration at the Maui Memorial Medical Center emergency room. While nursing a sore back, arm and neck, she was grateful to the crew of the Strike Zone who came to her rescue.

Capt. Joseph "Junior" Carvalho on the Strike Zone said he spotted what he first thought was a large balloon in the ocean between 7 and 7:30 a.m. Friday. Because floating objects in the ocean usually attract mahimahi and other game fish, Carvalho went to investigate.

"It looked kind of big and when we got within 30 yards, we saw it was a person. At first we thought it was a body, but when we got closer, she turned around and she put her hand up in the air," he said.

He said the woman was about a mile and a half off Ukumehame when he spotted her.

"We cleared our fishing lines and I got as close as I could. The conditions were pretty choppy, so one of the crew, Dana Klingman, jumped in and got her, swam her back to the boat."

"She was pretty spent," Klingman said. "It was pretty easy to tow her back, just did a cross chest carry.

"She was a pretty tough lady for being alone in the water all those hours. We got her inside, sat her down. She was really thirsty and hungry."

Klingman said the woman apparently was caught in an area off Ukumehame known for its tricky and strong winds. Normal trade winds on Maui are funneled by Ukumehame Valley and Olowalu Valley and pick up speed when they blow out over the ocean.

Carvalho said the woman was holding on to a water container that she was able to use as a flotation device.

Simpson, who had worked as a drug and alcohol counselor for adolescents in Alaska, said she was on Maui more than 29 years ago and returned this time "to heal." Since being here, she had spent time in Pa'ia and Kihei and was planning a fundraiser for a documentary project involving youths and drugs.

She had been camping at Camp Olowalu when she saw "yachts" moored offshore after breakfast and decided to take an invitation to the fundraiser to one of the boats, thinking wealthy people who would contribute to her project might be aboard. Simpson said she took a glass-bottomed fiberglass canoe from the camp and paddled out to one boat, which turned out to be on a snorkel tour, and delivered the invitation.

She was tired from the effort when the canoe overturned. She tried to right the canoe.

"Every Boy Scout knows, but I didn't learn that trick," she said. "I spent the next six hours trying to learn that trick on my own. Every time I turned it, the boat would partially submerge. I tried to make a windsail. I tried everything."

At sunset, Simpson said she decided to leave the water-filled canoe to try to swim for shore. "I just kept trying to swim toward Olowalu, but really the water did not want to take me there," she said. "So then I started shooting for the closest landmark."

She could see the wind turbines at the Kaheawa wind farm on the hillside above Ma'alaea. Overnight, she could see lights from cars on shore and tiny fish that provided illumination as they swam around her.

She swallowed so much salt water that she threw up and would doze off at times.

"The times I thought, 'I'm going to die, I'm going to die,' I would say, 'No, I have three kids and you're not taking me anywhere,' " Simpson said.

She said she has a 23-year-old son, Danny Byers, living in Portland, Ore., as well as her husband, Bob, her 14-year-old son, Bobby, and her 16-year-old daughter, Alisa, in Juneau.

Simpson said she had drifted off to sleep before the fishing boat showed up in the morning.

"I didn't hear them coming. I was so surprised and then, all of a sudden, I came out and there they were," she said.

Carvalho said the woman "didn't even know her name. ... She was kind of loopy after all that time in the water."

A Coast Guard information officer said a crew from the Ma'alaea station reached the Strike Zone about 7:40 a.m. to take Simpson to Lahaina Harbor where she was examined by American Medical Response ambulance personnel and taken to Maui Memorial Medical Center.

Klingman, who's been a boat crewman for more than 20 years, said he hadn't expected to be getting wet Friday morning, but he was glad to be able to help someone in trouble.

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