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Patrick sat in that union room, consoled by the union rep, for what felt like hours. Then a friend poked his head into the room and said, “It looks like they’re going to make it. They’re on the wings of the plane.”

Patrick later told me that his relief was beyond words.

ONE OF the passengers was sitting near Jeff and me in the raft. Like so many people, he was drained and emotional. But he wanted me to know that he appreciated what the crew and I had done to bring the plane down safely.

He took my arm. “Thank you,” he said.

“You’re welcome,” I told him.

It was the simplest exchange between two men at an extraordinary moment, but I could tell it meant a great deal to him to say it. It meant a great deal to me to hear his words, and for Jeff and Donna, near us, too.

The cold air and wind were not immediately debilitating. But as we all waited for our turn to be rescued by the ferry Athena, a lot of us were in pretty rough shape. Many couldn’t stop shivering.

I made sure I was the last person off the raft, just as I had wanted to be the last person off of the plane. I don’t think there are any written guidelines suggesting that the captain be the last to leave a plane or any other vessel during an emergency. I was aware of the maritime tradition, but that wasn’t the reason I did it. It was just obvious to me: I shouldn’t be rescued until all the passengers in my care were attended to.

The rescue went quickly, all things considered. The deck of the ferry was about ten feet above the raft, so it took some effort for passengers to make their way up. By the time it was my turn to climb up the ladder, I was so cold that I could no longer use my hands. I had to stick my forearms through the rungs. I couldn’t grasp anything with my fingers.

From the deck of the ferry, standing with seventeen other survivors from Flight 1549, including Jeff, I looked back at the airplane. It continued to slowly sink lower in the water, as it drifted south toward the Statue of Liberty surrounded by a small trail of debris and leaking jet fuel.

Standing there, I realized I still had my cell phone on my belt. Though my pants were drenched, the phone was dry and working. It was my first moment to call Lorrie.

We have two landlines in the house and she has a cell phone, but I couldn’t get through to her on any of them. She wasn’t answering because she was on one of the lines, talking to a business associate. She saw my number come up on her cell phone, but at first she ignored it.

Given all the ringing, she told the person she was talking to: “Sully is calling every line in the house. Let’s see what he wants.”

She answered the other line, saying, “Hello.”

Hearing her voice, not knowing what she knew or didn’t know, my first words were meant to reassure her: “I wanted to call to say I’m OK.”

She thought that meant I was on schedule to fly back to San Francisco that night.

“That’s good,” she told me. She assumed I had already landed Flight 1549 in Charlotte. I saw she needed an explanation.

“No,” I said. “There’s been an incident.”

She still wasn’t getting it. She didn’t have her TV on, so she was unaware of the nonstop coverage of the incident that was all over the national cable networks. She assumed that I was trying to tell her my flight was delayed, and that I might not make it home.

And so I told her straight, almost as if I was giving her bullet points. “We hit birds. We lost thrust in both engines. I ditched the airplane in the Hudson.”

It was a lot for her to digest. She paused and asked her first question. “Are you OK?”

“Yes,” I told her.

“OK OK?” she asked. Obviously I had survived. She was asking if I was OK in a broader sense.

“Yes,” I said. “But I can’t talk now. I’m on my way to the pier. I’ll call you from there.” I felt pretty emotional hearing her voice; I could have used her consoling words. At the same time, there was so much to tell her and no time to do so. I wanted the kids to know I was safe, too. Until I could get back to them, they’d be hearing everything from the news reports on