By Canadian Press

Mother of Hawaii woman lost at sea for months never gave up

Oct 27, 2017 | 9:10 AM

HONOLULU — Two women and their dogs have been rescued after being lost at sea for months while trying to sail from Hawaii to Tahiti.

The U.S. Navy rescued the women on Wednesday after a Taiwanese fishing vessel spotted them about 900 miles southeast of Japan, well off their planned course, and alerted the U.S. Coast Guard.

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

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 through the Navy release. “The pride and smiles we had when we saw (U.S. Navy) on the horizon was pure relief.”

In a phone call with news media from the Ashland, Appel said they had sent a distress signal for 98 days with no response, according to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.

“It was very depressing and very hopeless, but it’s the only thing you can do, so you do what you can do,” the newspaper quoted her as saying.

She also said the ordeal was life-changing, 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 Thursday that she never gave up hope that her resourceful daughter would be found.

Joyce Appel, 75, who lives in Houston, said she got a call from her daughter early Thursday morning more than 5 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 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, but her phone was lost overboard the first day she was at sea, and she hadn’t heard from her daughter since.

“Various things on her boat broke, the mast broke and the engine wouldn’t start when she needed power. So she had several problems that caused her to end up drifting in the ocean,” the elder Appel said.

Joyce called the U.S. Coast Guard about a week and half after her daughter left Honolulu, she said. “The Coast Guard, in Hawaii, did a search and rescue effort,” she said. “I waited and waited and waited to see when I would hear from her.” In that time, the elder Appel moved and got a new phone number and was worried her daughter wouldn’t know where to call. “I knew she didn’t even know the phone number here,” she said.

“I had hope all along, she is very resourceful and she’s curious and as things break she tries to repair them, 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 mother said the pair’s water purifier had stopped working and they were down to their last gallon of water when Jennifer got it fixed.

Two months into their trip, well after they were scheduled to arrive in Tahiti, the women 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.

They told the Navy that they survived because they had packed in a water purifier and enough food for a year, mostly dried goods like oatmeal and pasta.

A photo provided by the Navy shows Fuiava smiling as a Navy sailor greets her dog, Zeus aboard the USS Ashland.

The women received a medical assessment, food and beds aboard the Navy ship, where they will remain until the next port of call, the Navy said.

“The U.S. Navy is postured to assist any distressed mariner of any nationality during any type of situation,” said Cmdr. Steven Wasson, the commanding officer of the USS Ashland.

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This story corrects the spelling of the last name of survivor Tasha Fuiava.

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Ken Moritsugu in Tokyo contributed to this story.

Caleb Jones, The Associated Press