5-month ordeal at sea ends for intrepid pair of women
HONOLULU: A planned voyage from Hawaii to Tahiti aboard a small sailboat didn’t start off well for two women.
One of their cellphones washed overboard and sank on their first day.
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 miles of open ocean, their water purifier stopped working.
But the two sailors, accompanied by their dogs, were resourceful and had prepared with more than a year’s worth of food.
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 Wednesday about 1 400km south-east of Japan. They were thousands of kilometres off course from Tahiti.
The USS Ashland rescued the women after a Taiwanese fishing vessel spotted their crippled vessel on Tuesday and alerted the US Coast Guard.
The women, identified by the Navy as Jennifer Appel and Tasha Fuiava, both 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 about the Navy. “The pride and smiles we had when we saw the US Navy on the horizon was pure relief.”
Appel said they had sent a distress signal for 98 days with no response.
A group of sharks attacked their boat one night, and a single shark returned a day later.
“Both of us… we actually thought it was lights out, and they were horrific,” Appel said. “We were just incredibly lucky that our hull was strong enough to withstand the onslaught.”
Asked if they ever thought they might not survive, she said they would not be human if they did not. She credited the two dogs, which she called their companion animals, with keeping their spirits up.
“There is a true humility to wondering if today is your last day, if tonight is your last night,” she said.
Appel’s mother, Joyce, said on Thursday she never gave up hope her daughter would be found.
Joyce , 75, who lives in Houston, said she got a call from her daughter early on Thursday more than 5 months after they had last spoken.
She answered the phone, wondering who wanted to sell her something, when she heard her daughter’s voice.
“She said ‘Mom?’ and I said ‘Jennifer!’ because I hadn’t heard from her in five months,” she said. “And she said ‘yes mom,’ and that was really exciting.
“I had hope all along… she is very resourceful and she’s curious and as things break she tries to repair them (Jennifer repaired the water purifier); she doesn’t sit and wait for the repairman to get there, so I knew the same thing would be true of the boat.”
The women received a medical assessment, food and beds aboard the Navy ship, where they will remain until the next port of call. – ANA-AP