BAILEY, Maurice & Maralyn

117 Days Adrift

No one is recorded as having survived adrift as long as did Maralyn and Maurice Bailey after the dramatic sinking of their yacht 'Auralyn'. They spent 118 days in their small life-raft and rubber dinghy, and for most of this time were utterly dependent on the resources that were provided only by the ocean and the sky. The area of the sinking, near the Galapagos Islands in the Eastern Pacific, was naturally full of fish and bird life, but to devise ways of catching these animals, and of living and eating in such an environment required outstanding qualities of ingenuity and determination. Problem succeeded problem. Heat and cold, hunger and thirst, illness, storms, capsize, damage to the raft and loss of equipment, were all faced and overcome. Seven times ships passed by without stopping; their disappearance over the horizon only added to a sense of despair and hopelessness. Finally came rescue by Korean fishermen, at a time when they had virtually resigned themselves to being a part of the ocean for ever.