Lost at Sea.

Have you ever said something dumb and lived to regret it? Here is one of my monumental beauties. It was the early 80’s and I was a young fellow of about 25, pastoring my first sole charge church in a coastal town in New Zealand. Eric was an elder and a kindred spirit I had found in the church. (He is now in His late 90’s.) It was the early 80’s. Eric owned a large yacht on which I had sailed on occasion. They decided that a holiday circumnavigating New Zealand would be fun. Eric, Winsome (his wife), Doug (his son) and one other friend, whose name alludes me, set out on this great adventure.

In the meantime, a storm erupted in the church, a significant person committed adultery with another significant person. In a small rural church of about 40-50 members this is devastating. I was a young inexperienced minister; I needed Eric’s counsel and he was gone! As providence would have it, he rang me about one month into his trip. I explained what had happened, and then, as a tongue in check statement, I said if you don’t hurry up and come home, I will pray that your boat sinks. I didn’t pray, but it did!

They got caught in a cyclone on the east coast.  Monstrous waves smashed over the boat. They were driven by the storm far from land. During one of the yachts roll overs in the storm the microwave smashed through a window the boat began sinking. They sent out a mayday and quickly got into the life raft. The storm tipped them out of the raft multiple times, but they always managed to scramble back in. Imagine their prayers at this point. I can still remember going down to their mooring site and praying, even though almost a week had passed, I could not believe they were gone.

As the yacht began to sink they had scrambled into the life raft. During this ordeal they were cast from the raft several times but always managed to get back in. On one of these occassions  Doug was cast from the boat and when he re-surfaced he saw the life raft fading into the distance beyond the massive wave crests. He thought his life was over but began to swim towards the life raft anyway. With the first stroke he felt a rope in his hands. It was the guide rope attached to the raft designed to create some stability in such a situation. By some strange miracle Eric had attached the wrong rope and it was twice the normal length. This was the rope now in Doug’s hand and he pulled himself back into the boat.

When the fury had passed, they were still alive, but had only four bottles of water and four apples left. Doug’s fiancé had asked the church to pray.  Aircraft were soon searching in grid patterns until finally they decided there was little hope of finding them alive and gave up. I can remember the Sunday morning when Althea, Doug’s fiancée, rang me crying into the phone, “They have been found alive!” she sobbed.  After five nights in the raft, they were found by a passing cargo ship and returned to land. How we celebrated when we met that dear emaciated family at the wharf in Auckland. God did many miracles throughout that ordeal. He really does exist and does reward those who earnestly seek him. What an emotional reunion that was. Imagine the reunion in heaven, when we are united with our loved ones and the ordeals of this life become distant memories.

PS Apparently, they had discussed my words to Eric on the phone while bobbing about on the ocean and felt sorry for me because I must have been feeling so guilty.