Women drift for 3 weeks

Press, 11 September 1985, Page 10

Women drift for 3 weeks

NZPA-Reuter Jakarta Two American women had swallowed toothpaste and drank rainwater to stay alive as they drifted for three weeks aboard an open boat in Indonesia’s treacherous Sunda strait, the United States Embassy said. The two 26-year-old Californians, Rickey Ellen Berkowitz and Judy Gale Schwartz, had been found in good condition, apart from bad sunburn, after they swam ashore on Sunday night. The women and their two Indonesian boatmen had reached land after waves crushed their frail fivemetre outboard-powered boat against the coast of south-west Sumatra near the town of Bintuhan — 270 km from Labban, west Java, where it was chartered. The four disappeared

after setting out on an 80km trip to a remote island game reserve near Krakatau volcano, at the southern end of the Sunda strait, on August 17. Indonesian authorities launched a big rescue effort but failed to find them. The Ujong Kulon reserve, home of the rare Java rhinoceros, attracts scientists and nature-lovers from all over the world but can be reached only by sea. The Labuan police said that the boat was far too small to make the crossing and should never have been allowed to set out into the strait, where treacherous currents and heavy seas can sweep boats out into the Indian ocean. An embassy spokesman said, “They survived on rainwater and spun out four or five days of provisions They must have been very healthy.”