Woman, 57, lost at sea 'knew she'd survive'
After four-and-a-half days adrift in the Andaman Sea, Australian yachtswoman Dominique Courteille could not bear the thought of one night in hospital. Hungry, dehydrated, badly sunburnt - but otherwise fine - the 57-year-old mother of four only wanted to get back to the Phuket marina where she has lived for the past 18 months.
Despite pleading from hospital staff and friends, Courteille was released after tests revealed she was fit to go. Courteille, originally from Belgium but a resident in Perth for many years, told journalists in Phuket her evenings at sea had been "beautiful" and "I never lost faith". "I prayed to my God. I knew I would survive. I knew I would be found," she said in one interview. Late yesterday an Australian consular official was still checking how many days Courteille had drifted - and how far - in a small rubber dinghy before being picked up by a Taiwanese-registered Indonesian fishing boat. The yachtswoman had been sailing from Langkawi Island in Malaysia back to Phuket with two crewmen - "Richie" Neustifter, 24, from the Gold Coast, and Conrad Ohlier, 43, from Switzerland. They were moored 150m off Koh Lipe, off Satun, in the far South. At about 1am on March 2, Courteille tried to get back to her 11m yacht Sonnet without telling her crew. She said yesterday the outboard on her dinghy had failed to work. Swept initially by a strong wind and then occasionally rough seas, she drifted far out to sea. Her crewmen alerted Thai authorities but a search by three vessels and two aircraft failed to find her. It was officially called off late on Sunday. Neustifter said he and Ohlier assumed Courteille was lost at sea. Then, at about 4.30pm on Monday, she was found. A radio message was relayed to Satun - and police in Satun broke the news to her crew. At about 8am yesterday, Indonesian fishermen handed the tired, but delighted Courteille over to police in Phuket. She passed her time, she said, writing notes to her family on the side of the rubber dinghy. "I didn't have any paper so I wrote on my dinghy with a pen. I wrote to my children [but] that's personal," she said to a reporter. On one night the conditions were very rough and she was forced to use her clothes to soak up water out of the dinghy. The head of one Phuket marina said: "Yesterday, we, honestly, had said our goodbyes. She had nothing to eat [while at sea]. It's just incredible." On one side of her dinghy is the tale of her journey - notes written in French to her mother and family, telling them of her love and how much she wanted to live. Jim PollardThe Nation
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