Two women, Jennifer Appel and Tasha Fuiava, and their two dogs supposedly survived on a boat out in the Pacific Ocean May. Sailors from the USS Ashland found them 900 miles off the coast of Japan despite that they were trying to sail to Tahiti. The women told the sailors that their engine and all communication devices had failed on May 30 and they had been floating adrift ever since. They mentioned to the Washington Post that they fended off 30-foot waves from a massive storm and multiple shark attacks. Appel said in a TODAY report that she, “honestly believed that we were about to die within the next 24 hours.” Their supplies were running low and they were rescued in the “nick of time.”
Appel told CNN reporters that they survived on the two water purifiers and a year’s worth of food they had on board. It was mostly dried pasta, rice and oatmeal. The water purifiers are devices in which salty ocean water is taken in and ran through the purifier in order to become safe to drink in a process called desalination. A person cannot drink straight ocean water otherwise they will become severely dehydrated.
Supposedly, the women say that they had no means of communication after the huge storm made destroyed everything, but many people find the situation suspicious. One major cause for concern is the major storm the women reported. They said in multiple reports to the Washington Post, NBC, and CNN that they experienced a Force 11 storm. According to the Beaufort Wind Scale, this would be a violent storm with 56-63 knot winds and waves of anything from 37-52 feet. A storm this size would be easily seen on satellites, but neither the National Weather Service nor NASA saw the storms on their satellite radars on or around the supposed date of May 3.
The women mentioned all of their communication devices had broken, but this has raised more suspicion. This has been proven to be false because they had an Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB) on board and it was still working. When they were lost, the women could have signaled from this and the Coast Guard would be able to locate them within an hour, according to the Washington Post. The two women, however, never set these alarms off.
“She had stated they never felt like they were truly in distress, like in a 24-hour period they were going to die,” said a Coast Guard spokeswoman, Petty Officer 2nd Class Tara Molle. According to Appel, she would have set them off if she felt distressed or in immediate danger and she never did. Appel did mention to NBC that she set off flares when they saw incoming ships, but they did not work.
Despite the skepticism surrounding the situation, the women’s survival is impressive.
