15. The Robertson Family: The British Family shipwrecked by Whales
In 1971, Douglas Robertson, an experienced British sailor decided to take his family on a holiday with a difference. Using the family’s life savings, Robertson bought a boat the Lucette and the Robertson’s set off on an epic sailing trip around the world. Robertson hoped the trip would prove educational for his teenage son and daughter and his twin nine-year-old sons. It certainly proved to be the case- but not in the way Robertson hoped. For eighteen month into the voyage, two hundred miles from the Galapagos Islands, the Lucetteencountered a pod of killer whales. Within a matter of minutes, the whales had struck the Lucette-and sunk her.
The family scrabbled into a small dinghy that was to be their refuge for the next 38 days. Mrs. Robertson, who was a nurse, collected rain droplets for drinking water. This meager supply was supplemented with turtle blood, which, because it is poisonous if taken orally, she administered in the form of an enema made from the rungs of a ladder. The Robertsons also rendered down turtle fat in the sun to form an oil that they rubbed into their skin to insulate themselves against the cold. Once their basic supply of dried food ran out, they lived on raw flying fish.
In the meantime, Mr. Robertson steered the boat towards South America in the hope of rescue. However, it was not a South American vessel that saved the Robertsons but a Japanese fishing trawler that was heading for the Panama Canal. Robinson, who had been in the royal navy, had previously been sunk by the Japanese during the Second World War. After his ordeal was over, he told his eldest son that the trip had been worthwhile for no other reason that it had enabled him to ‘forgive the Japanese.”