A three hour tour...the weather started getting rough...

PART ONE: 1962, Fiji Islands, a beautiful place for a layover. The crew set out on a 22 foot sloop for a day of skin diving and fishing. Pan American World Airways Captain John Willis Adriance, Co-Pilot W. Keene Langhorne, Stewardesses Stella Navarro, Gudrun Meisner and Peggy Kircher expect this to be a three hour tour.

The weather started getting rough. The tiny ship was tossed. A gust of wind capsizes the boat. Everyone on board was tossed into the Pacific Ocean, miles from shore.
​
Clinging to the overturned boat, a role call is shouted out. Are we all here? Is anyone hurt? The sun sets, and the dark of night has begun.

PART TWO: Fiji Islands, on layover a Pan American World Airways crew takes a day trip on a 22 foot sloop. But the boat capsizes, and the first search aircraft do not spot them in the dark of night.

The sun rises. Morning role call. Everyone is accounted for - all tied together with a rope the ship's captain had retrieved from the overturned boat they now cling to.
​
A second search plane misses them. A decision is made to swim.

Five hours later, needing at some point to fend off sharks, the crew makes landfall on a deserted island. Twenty-two hours. Burned skin and dehydration. Will another search plane pass overhead?

One does. Pan American World Airways Captain John Willis Adriance, Co-Pilot W. Keene Langhorne, Stewardesses Stella Navarro, Gudrun Meisner and Peggy Kircher, along with the crew of the ship "Levuka" live to tell the tale.

EPILOGUE: Katie Adriance Rippentrop I have never heard about this! Captain Adriance is my father! So interesting! This happened the year that my brother was born...1962! I’m so surprised my mother never told me about this! Maybe he never told her? 😐