SUVA, Fiji -- A California family of three whose yacht sank in the Pacific was recovering today in Suva after spending 25 days adrift and two more days stranded on a sandbar.
Robert Aros, 51, his wife Margaret, 31, and son Christian, 17, were found Monday by an Australian teacher, Leonard Thornson, who had persuaded islanders from Cikobia-i-lau to take him to look at the sandbar and its birdlife. They found the Aros family of Long Beach, Calif. badly sunburned, exhausted and eating seabird eggs to stay alive.
The villagers took them to Cikobia-I-Lau, and a medical team rushed to the island in Fiji's remote Lau group island to treat them.
The Aros were airlifted Tuesday to Suva, 120 miles from Cikobia-i-lau, for treatment at Colonial War Memorial Hospital.
Robert Aros had to be carried from the helicopter to a bed. He looked emaciated and drawn as he drank from a coconut.
Aros described how the 36-ft yacht 'Vamanos' smashed into a reef around midnight Nov. 9. They were three days out from Rarotonga in the Cook Islands, en route to New Zealand.
'We were asleep at the time,' he said. 'We didn't know what was happening.
'The yacht quickly started to break up and we had only half an hour to collect supplies and get off the yacht.'
They struggled with two eight-foot rubber dinghies as yacht timbers flew through the air and, in the confusion, could find only one oar.
Speaking from a wheelchair, and sipping at a coconut, Margaret Aros said: 'We lost a lot of bottles of water, which fell and broke.'
They managed to get about 4 gallons of water aboard the dinghies and a few cans of food.
Margaret Aros estimated that she and her husband each lost about 30 pounds during the ordeal.
'I was all right but my husband was already quite thin to begin with, which was why he was hit the worst,' she said, adding that her son lost about 15 pounds.
The water ran out on about the 20th day at sea. After that, the Aros took moisture from cans of vegetables, but as rough seas slammed the dinghies they lost more food over the side.
At one point it rained non-stop for four days and they had to rig a canopy over the rafts.
By the time they managed to get to the sandbar, hundreds of miles from Rarotonga, their clothes were in rags.
It was Christian Aros who finally ended their ordeal. As they moved into the Lau Island group they passed three tiny coral islets.
They waved and shouted for attention, but strong winds and currents swept them past. When they reached the sandbar Christian swam toward it to anchor their rafts to the reef.
After that they used the strength they had left to row to the sandbar.
'We thought we were going to die and prayed to God for a second chance,' said Christian Aros.
After 48 hours on the sandbar, eating raw eggs, they were finally discovered by the islanders.
'What a way to go on a diet,' Margaret Aros said.
