Women rescued after months adrift at sea
Voyage of a lifetime from Hawaii to Tahiti goes from bad to worse
A planned voyage from Hawaii to Tahiti on a small sailboat didn’t start off well for t wo Honolulu women. One of their cellphones washed overboard on their first day at sea.
From there, things got worse. Much worse. About a month into their trip, bad weather caused their engine to lose power. Their mast was damaged. And then, as they drifted across thousands of kilometres of open ocean, their water purifier stopped working.
But the two sailors, accompanied by their dogs, had more than a year’s worth of food, and after more than five months of being lost in the vast Pacific Ocean, sending out daily distress calls that no one heard, they were rescued by the US Navy on Thursday about 1500km southeast of Japan. Their intended destination: Tahiti — thousands of kilometres off course.
The USS Ashland rescued the women after a Taiwanese fishing vessel spotted their crippled vessel on Tuesday and alerted the US Coast Guard, the Navy said.
The women, identified as Jennifer Appel and Tasha Fuiava, of Honolulu, lost their engine in bad weather in late May but believed they could still reach Tahiti using their sails.
“They saved our lives,” said Appel through the Navy release. “The pride and smiles we had when we saw ( US Navy) on the horizon was pure relief.”
Appel said they had sent a distress signal for 98 days with no response, according to the Honolulu StarAdvertiser. “It was very depressing and very hopeless, but it’s the only Jennifer Appel thanks USS Ashland Command Master Chief Gary Wise after being rescued. thing you can do, so you do what you can do,” the newspaper quoted her as saying.
She also said the ordeal was lifechanging, Hawaii News Now reported: “There is a true humility to wondering if today is your last day, if tonight is your last night.”
Appel’s mother told the Associated Press that she never gave up hope that her daughter would be found.
Joyce Appel, 75, who lives in Houston, said she got a call from her daughter yesterday more than five months after they had last spoke.
She answered the phone as she always does, wondering who wanted to sell her something, when she heard her daughter’s voice on the other end of the line.
“She said, ‘ Mom?’ and I said, ‘ Jennifer!?’ because I hadn’t heard from her in like five months,” she said. “And she said, ‘ yes mom’, and that was really exciting.”
Jennifer Appel departed on May 3, her mother said.
Joyce called the US Coast Guard about a week and a half after her daughter left Honolulu, she said. “I had hope all along — she is very resourceful and she’s curious and as things break she tries to repair them.”