THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

It may be a 2,700 mile trip but sailing from Hawaii to Tahiti does not take 5 months, nor does it end up closer to Japan than to the destination. That is what happened to Jennifer Appel and Tasha Fuiaba and they most definitely did it the hard way.

They survived shark attacks, the loss of their engine and then their main mast during a five-month ordeal lost at sea. Now, two sailors and their dogs are finally safe after being rescued by the US Navy on Wednesday.

Jennifer Appel and Tasha Fuiaba ran into trouble during the 2,700-mile journey from Hawaii to Tahiti. After their rescue, they credited the two animals onboard with them with keeping their spirits and said they managed to stay alive because they had packed a water purifier and enough food to last for a year before leaving.

“There is a true humility to wondering if today is your last day, if tonight is your last night,” Appel told media from the USS Ashland, which rescued them.

The women, who are both from Honolulu, lost their engine in bad weather in late May but believed they could still reach Tahiti using their sails. But they were left drifting in the ocean when their mast broke, Appel’s mother said after speaking to her on the phone.

Two months into their trip, well after they were scheduled to arrive in Tahiti, the sailors began making distress calls. But there were no vessels close and they were too far out to sea for the signals to be detected on land.

Appel said they sent out a distress signal for 98 days afterwards, but got no response. “It was very depressing and very hopeless, but it’s the only thing you can do, so you do what you can do.”

A group of sharks attacked their boat one night, and a single shark returned a day later, she said. “Both of them, we actually thought it was lights out, and they were horrific. 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.

The US navy rescued the women on Wednesday after a Taiwanese fishing vessel spotted them about 900 miles south-east of Japan, well off their planned course, and alerted the US coast guard.

The USS Ashland arrived early the next day, the navy said in a statement released on Thursday.

Now the question is will they return to the sea or has their adventure turned them into convinced landlubbers ??