The Latest: Mother of Hawaii woman found at sea 'delighted'
HONOLULU (AP) - The Latest on the U.S. Navy rescue of two women and their dogs who had been missing at sea for months (all times local):
1:30 p.m.
The mother of one of the two women who were rescued after being lost at sea for months says she never gave up hope that her resourceful daughter would be found.
In this Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2017 photo, sailors from the USS Ashland approach a sailboat with two Honolulu women and their dogs aboard as they are rescued after being lost at sea for several 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 on Tuesday and alerted the U.S. Coast Guard. The women, identified by the Navy as Jennifer Appel and Tasha Fuiaba, lost their engine in bad weather in late May, but believed they could still reach Tahiti. (Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Jonathan Clay/U.S. Navy via AP)
Joyce Appel told The Associated Press Thursday that she got a call from her daughter, Jennifer Appel, more than 5 months after they had last spoke.
The 75-year-old Houston woman said 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.
Appel said her daughter ran into trouble soon after she left Hawaii on the sailboat she had been living on for a couple years: her cellphone was lost overboard just a day after setting sail. Her troubles continued when she lost her engines and sustained damage to her mast, the mother says.
9:55 a.m.
Two Honolulu 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 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 Fuiaba, lost their engine in bad weather in late May but believed they could still reach Tahiti.
After two months 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 by officials on land.
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