With a black wind mask over his face, the men he saved had no way of telling who he was.
But Darren Moran and Chip Wilcox, two neighbors in Brooklyn, say they owe him their lives.
They had just anchored their small boat in the Thames River in Norwich, when the line went taut and rushing water pulled their stern into the water.
"When it got hold of the stern it just dragged it under in two seconds and there was nothing you could do," said Moran. "You couldn't reach for a PFD, you couldn't call from your cell phone, you couldn't do anything but grab the boat and yell."
Wilcox went into the water and Moran had to reach down and hang onto him.
"I just kept going under, fighting to get back up," said Wilcox. "I just kept hearing Darren yelling Chip, Chip, and if it wasn't for him I wouldn't be here right now because he got me back on the boat."
Both men say they might not have survived if two fishermen hadn't responded to their yells for help.
"We really want to thank them," said Moran. "We have no idea who they are. I guess it's kind of the maritime motto, if somebody's in trouble on the water you have to go and do what you can and they really did."
Wilcox, still in the water and fighting against the weight of his clothing to stay afloat, said he could see the black-masked man from beneath the surface.
"He just looked like a black angel, just come and pluck us out of the water, just went and got his boat, saved our lives," said Wilcox.
Not only do the men think the two mysterious rescuers saved their lives, they say they saved Moran's boat, now tied up in his backyard.
