Page 8A
NATION/WORLD
East Oregonian
Saturday, October 28, 2017
Sharks and lost hope: Women rescued after 5 months at sea
By CALEB JONES
Associated Press
HONOLULU — Their
engine was crippled, their
mast was damaged, and
things went downhill from
there for two women who
set out to sail the 2,700 miles
from Hawaii to Tahiti.
As their 50-foot sailboat
drifted helplessly in the
middle of the Pacific for
months, their water purifier
conked out, sharks started
ramming their vessel, and
their distress calls and signal
flares went unanswered day
after day.
Some nights they went
to sleep wondering if they
would live to see the sun rise.
Then
their
fortunes
changed on Tuesday: Five and
a half months after Jennifer
Appel and Tasha Fuiava
embarked on a journey that
might normally take about
three weeks, a Taiwanese
fishing vessel spotted their
boat 900 miles off Japan and
thousands of miles in the
wrong direction from Tahiti.
The U.S. Navy sent the USS
Ashland to their rescue.
“I had tears in my eyes,”
said Appel, the Sea Nymph’s
48-year-old captain, who
blew kisses to her rescuers
as they pulled alongside.
She and Fuiava quickly
clambered aboard, followed
by their dogs Zeus and Valen-
tine, who were hoisted up.
“It was actually quite
mind-blowing and incredibly
Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Jonathan Clay/U.S. Navy via AP
In this Wednesday photos, Tasha Fuiaba, an American mariner who had been sail-
ing for five months on a damaged sailboat, climbs the accommodation ladder to
board the amphibious dock landing ship USS Ashland. The Navy ship rescued thw
two Honolulu women and their dogs after they were lost at sea for several months
while trying to sail from Hawaii to Tahiti.
humbling,” she told reporters
during a conference call from
the ship.
All four looked remark-
ably fit, and Appel credited
that to veteran sailors who
had warned them to prepare
well for the voyage. They
had packed enough food for a
year, mostly dried goods like
oatmeal and pasta.
“They said pack every
square inch of your boat
with food, and if you think
you need a month, pack six
months, because you have
no idea what could possibly
happen out there,” Appel
said. “And the sailors in
Honolulu really gave us good
advice. We’re here.”
Appel, who has been
sailing the Hawaiian islands
for 10 years, said she had
been planning the Tahiti
voyage for more than two.
But she acknowledged that
perhaps she and Fuiava, a
novice at sea, weren’t as
ready for the crossing as they
could have been.
“I had no idea what I was
getting myself into,” she said.
“When I asked Natasha, I
told her I have no idea what’s
going to happen out there and
she said, ‘That’s OK, I’ve
never sailed.’”
The two set sail on May
3 and ran into trouble almost
immediately, Appel said,
hitting a storm that pounded
their vessel with 50 to 70
mph winds for three days as
they traveled the Hawaiian
islands.
Their engine went out
toward the end of the month.
They thought they could
continue on with just their
sails, but the rigging on the
57-foot mast was damaged
and they were unable to make
any headway.
So they drifted, sending
out distress signals every day
for 98 days straight. They said
they also tried without success
to hail a number of ships and
fired off 10 signal flares. One
of their cellphones had been
washed overboard early in the
voyage, and they were out of
cell range anyway.
One night, a group of tiger
sharks began attacking the
vessel, and the next morning,
a shark returned and rammed
the boat again, Appel said,
adding, “We were just incred-
ibly lucky that our hull was
strong enough to withstand
the onslaught.”
“There is a true humility
to wondering if today is your
last day, if tonight is your last
night,” she said.
Meanwhile, loved ones
had no idea where they were.
Appel’s mother said she
contacted the Coast Guard
when she hadn’t heard from
her a week and a half into the
voyage.
Still, as the months passed,
Joyce Appel said she never
lost hope that the pair would
be found.
“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,” said Joyce Appel, 75,
who lives in Houston. “So I
knew the same thing would
be true of the boat.”
She finally got a call from
her daughter early Thursday.
“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.”
Despite the ordeal, the
pair said there were positive
moments, such as when they
fixed their broken water puri-
fier and used their long days
adrift to learn more about the
sea and the weather.
“You may as well use the
time you have to do some-
thing beneficial,” Fuiava said.
They said their dogs
helped keep their spirits up.
Although
the
Navy
declared the Sea Nymph
no longer seaworthy, Appel
said she hopes to eventually
recover it and perhaps take it
out again.
“Well, you got to die
sometime,” Appel said. “You
may as well be doing some-
thing you enjoy when you’re
doing it, right?”
BRIEFLY
House backs $4T budget,
faces challenges on tax plan
WASHINGTON — Republicans powered
a $4 trillion budget through the House on
Thursday by a razor-thin margin, a close vote
underscoring the difficulties that lie ahead
in delivering President Donald Trump’s
promise to cut taxes.
For now, Republicans sidestepped divisions
within the party by voting 216-212 to permit
them to begin work on a $1.5 trillion tax cut
without fear of blocking tactics by Democrats.
The legislative landscape is strewn with land
mines, however, as GOP tax-writers pick
winners and losers among interest groups,
business sectors and rank-and-file voters.
The tax bill is the top item on the GOP
agenda and would be Trump’s first big win
in Congress. Republicans hope it would
provide a much-needed jolt for the party’s
political fortunes in advance of next year’s
midterm elections. Republicans view
passage of the upcoming tax measure as a
once-in-a-generation opportunity, and its
importance has only grown since the party’s
debacle on health care.
The goal is a full rewrite of the inefficient,
loophole-laden tax code in hopes of lower
rates for corporations and other businesses
and a burst of economic growth. But
evidence is growing that some of their
hoped-for bold steps — such as eliminating
the deduction for state and local taxes — will
be replaced by half-measures dictated by
politics and a narrow margin for error.
GOP leaders scrambled in recent days to
overcome resistance from House conserva-
tives unhappy about deficits and debt, as well
as opposition by lawmakers from high-tax
states upset about plans to eliminate the state
and local tax deduction. That could mean
higher taxes for many middle-class earners,
and top Republicans like Speaker Paul Ryan
of Wisconsin promise a compromise that
won’t be as costly to middle-class taxpayers.
Trump calls for liberation
from ‘scourge’ of addiction
WASHINGTON (AP) — In ringing and
personal terms, President Donald Trump
pledged that “we will overcome addiction in
America,” declaring opioid abuse a national
public health emergency and announcing
new steps to combat what he described as
the worst drug crisis in U.S. history.
Trump’s declaration, which will be
effective for 90 days and can be renewed,
will allow the government to redirect
resources in various ways and to expand
access to medical services in rural areas. But
it won’t bring new dollars to fight a scourge
that kills nearly 100 people a day.
“As Americans we cannot allow this to
continue,” Trump said in a speech Thursday
at the White House, where he bemoaned an
epidemic he said had spared no segment of
society, affecting rural areas and cities, rich
and poor and both the elderly and newborns.
“It is time to liberate our communities
from this scourge of drug addiction,” he
said. “We can be the generation that ends the
opioid epidemic.”
Deaths have surged from opioids, which
include some prescribed painkillers, heroin
and synthetic drugs such as fentanyl.
Administration officials said they also
would urge Congress, during end-of-the year
budget negotiations, to add new cash to a
public health emergency fund that Congress
hasn’t replenished for years and contains just
$57,000. White House Press Secretary Sarah
Huckabee Sanders on Friday suggested
$45 billion might be a “good number” for
added funding. That’s the same amount as
Republicans had suggested in one of their
failed “Obamacare” replacement bills.
White House disavows
Puerto Rico power contract
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump
administration said Friday it had no
involvement in the decision to award a $300
million contract to help restore Puerto Rico’s
power grid to a tiny Montana company in
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s hometown.
The White House said Friday that federal
officials played no role in the selection of
Whitefish Energy Holdings by the Puerto
Rico Electric Power Authority.
Trump spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee
Sanders said the president had asked Zinke
about the contract and that the cabinet
secretary said he had nothing to do with it.
“He had no role in that contract,”
Sanders said of Zinke. “This was a state and
local decision made by the Puerto Rican
authorities and not the federal government.”
The administration is seeking to distance
itself from the issue amid a growing number
of investigations and a bipartisan chorus of
criticism from Capitol Hill.
Spain cracks down hard after
Catalonian independence
BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — In one of the
most momentous days in recent Spanish history,
Spain fired Catalonia’s regional government
and dissolved its parliament Friday after a
defiant Catalan declaration of independence that
flouted the country’s constitution.
Lawmakers in the Catalan parliament
voted to unilaterally declare independence,
prompting the swift crackdown by the
Spanish government, which also called an
early election in the region.
Hours after Catalonia’s secession move,
the Spanish Senate granted the government
special constitutional powers to stop the
wealthy region’s move toward independence.
Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s
conservative government then called an
urgent Cabinet meeting late Friday, after
which Rajoy emerged to announce the
emergency measures, including regional
elections called for Dec. 21.
U.S. economy shows
resilience with solid quarter
WASHINGTON (AP) — Powered
by businesses and consumers, the U.S.
economy grew at a solid 3 annual pace last
quarter despite two devastating hurricanes
— evidence of economic durability and all
but assuring that the Federal Reserve will
resume raising interest rates late this year.
Friday’s figures from the government
marked the first time in three years that the
economy has expanded at a 3 percent or
more annual rate — historically, a normal
pace for a healthy economy — for two
straight quarters.
More than eight years since the Great
Recession officially ended, the economy
is still posting consistent gains — in the
job market, in business investment, in
consumer spending and corporate earnings.
Unemployment is at a 16-year low.
OUT OF THE VAULT:
Historical Vignettes from the East Oregonian
By Renee Struthers
A second look at the first draft of Umatilla County’s history, from stories of crime
and punishment to natural disasters to the odd and absurd.
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November 9th, 2017 • 5:30 pm - 8 pm
Pendleton Convention Center
1601 Westgate, Pendleton
• Live & Silent Auctions
• See the New PHS Food Truck!
BBQ Tri-Tip, Baked Beans, Hearty Potato Salad,
Fresh Green Salad, Dinner Rolls, Cheesecake
Advance tickets: $25 each
Available at Pendleton Chamber of Commerce,
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+ Frame & from EFP Board Members