AMAZING VOYAGE

Hokitika Guardian, 4 June 1930, Page 3

AMAZING VOYAGE

AUCKLAND TO SAMOA

FAMILY IN SHALL YACHT

AUCKLAND, May 30.

People who say that romance is dead have not heard the story of the Fisher family's amazing voyage across Jio Pacific from Auckland until they were shipwrecked on the reef-bound coast of Tutuila, in the Samoan group.

The four children and their mother were more like Indian famine victims when they were taken ashore from the wreck/ and an unforgettable scene was when the children, immediately they got ashore, dropped on their knees and prayed. Four hundred natives, who had seen the boat come ashore, Hocked down to.the beach, and all knelt and prayed in company with the little children. It was a dramatic end to a remarkable voyage , in a little bit of an auxiliary yacht only 38ft. long, navigated practically, single-handed over 1 GOO miles of ocean,, often storm tossed, by a man who had lost his sextant overboard the day after leaving Auckland, and who had only a schoolboy’s sixpenny atlas for a chart, and bad to find bis iviw over the trackless ocean by the stars

and dead reckoning. Mr Fisher, who was the hero of this astonishing feat, told the story to a “Times” correspondent yesterday, and it was the first time the true account of the voyage was heard. It will he remembered that when Mr Fisher arrived at Apia, he was arrested for wrongfully taking the yacht Maroro from Auckland and onlv yesterday, at the Auckland Police Court, was lie discharged. the prosecution offering no evidence.