Man swims five hours in order to get help to rescue his family from after their boat capsized off Maryland's Eastern Shore Wednesday.

John Riggs swam and climbed the rocks along the shore for three miles until finally reaching a home after the man swims for five hours.

"He came to the right house," Angela Byrd told Fox News, who answered to the knocking of the 46-year-old man who swims for five hours. She said he was soaking wet and barefoot.

Waiting with the help of life-vest, Contessa Riggs, the sister of Riggs told Fox News that she clung to the boat for five hours with her three-year-old son, Conrad Drake; her 70-year-old father and his nine-year-old granddaughter, Emily Horn, a fourth-grader visiting from the San Francisco Bay area.

Byrd was able to get the help that Riggs needed to save his family. 911 and rescuers were called to help find the 16-foot boat that was capsized. A Maryland State Police helicopter hovered above the boat as firefighters from Deal Island, Mount Vernon and Fairmount in Somerset County and Westside in Wicomico County pulled alongside. The U.S. Coast Guard also was on the scene, Albert said

"Just not knowing what's going on with them while I was gone. It was getting nasty and blowing harder. And not knowing if we would be able to find them when we got back out there," Riggs told WBOC.com.

They were able to rescue the family and the fire chief of Deal Island told WBOC that it was "some of the worst tides in the Chesapeake Bay."

"I've never been so happy to see search boats in my life," Contessa said Wednesday by telephone. "It took him five hours to swim ashore. He had to stop and grab a crab pot buoy and rest, then swim. We clinged to the side of the boat and got stung by sea nettles in the dark."