Ten Degrees of Reckoning (13 page)

Sergeant Dave Palmer was very experienced in the field of search and rescue when he was assigned as officer in charge of the mission to look for
Melinda Lee
on the afternoon of Sunday, November 26. He had participated in many rescue and recovery efforts, both land- and sea-based. Since the Northland area has two thousand miles of coastline and a significant number of recreational vessels, 80 percent of search-and-rescue missions are marine related. In fact, Sergeant Palmer had completed extensive training exercises in the exact area to which he was now being sent. He was to cover the Northland coast in a Cessna four-seater plane flying from Bream Head, the Whangarei Harbor entrance, to the Cavalli Islands, north of the Bay of Islands. He would be accompanied by another member of the police force, Constable Renee Orbon, and the pilot.

Sergeant Palmer had to take the weather conditions into account and work out the drift and leeway factors for wind and current. There had been two days of strong northeasterly winds since the last known contact with the yacht; in that case, he concluded, there was a strong chance the yacht had been blown into Cape Brett, and they would be looking for debris and bodies.

They flew up the coastline from Whangarei, and after forty minutes rounded Cape Brett. It was an uncomfortable flight in a light airplane, with northeast winds still blowing 30 to 40 knots. They flew across Deep Water Cove, and from a distance Sergeant Palmer observed a small white craft on the beach. The turbulence prevented the pilot from flying lower to get a closer look, but Sergeant Palmer noted that there appeared to be two or three people near the boat, and none in distress, so the Cessna continued on. Sergeant Palmer recalled almost immediately that he might have seen another person up from the boat, lying on the ground and not moving. He commented to the pilot that they weren’t too far off track, and he would like to go back for a closer look. As they circled, he could see that the person lying down was still not moving but was now waving something yellow, that the white craft was an inflatable, and that the two people near it were sitting quietly on the bank. Gusty winds buffeted the plane, and an overhead power cable that went from Deep Water Cove to the lighthouse at Cape Brett made it impossible to get any closer. The pilot of the Cessna dipped his wing as he circled, a sign to assure the person waving that he or she was seen. There was a marine radio on the plane, and Sergeant Palmer put out a call for any boats nearby to come into Deep Water Cove to assist.

Sid Hepi and his uncle, Steve Willoughby, were fishing from the family runabout,
Salt Shaker,
in a protected bay not too far from Deep Water Cove when they heard the call for assistance on their radio. They heard the captain of
Tiger Lily 3,
a Fuller’s tour boat, respond to the spotter plane and ask for information. They listened as the
Tiger Lily
’s captain was told there was a sighting of an overturned inflatable in Little Hauai Bay that required investigation. Sid knew the topography of the bay and Deep Water Cove well; he had once worked there for the New Zealand Department of Conservation. Sid and Steve decided to go over to see if they could help. As they approached, they saw that the tour boat couldn’t get into the cove at all because a large swell was running through the little bay. Steve got the aluminum boat in as close as he could to the rocky shore, but it was very rough and he was unable to land. Steve stayed with the boat while Sid jumped out and waded through the water. He made his way through the rocks, up the grass, and over to the ledge where Judy sat, not moving. He sat down beside her and quietly told her his name. She started crying when she saw him. She tried to give him a few details about herself and the family, including her name and the name
Melinda Lee,
but he couldn’t understand her very well.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“I’m so thirsty, do you think you could get me some water?” she mumbled. She was quite incoherent, and Sid had to ask her to repeat herself. It hurt when she talked. Her lips were so cracked and swollen, and the skin felt stretched and raw.

Sid went back to the
Salt Shaker
to retrieve the water bottle and informed Steve Willoughby of the details he had gathered, including Judy’s name. Steve relayed the information to Sergeant Dave Palmer in the Cessna, and when asked how Judy was, Steve responded, “Absolutely gutted.”

This was the first sighting of anyone from the overdue yacht. Only one person was in fact present in the bay, and Sergeant Palmer blamed eyestrain for his report of the two additional people. They called in the find to Inspector John Meads, the New Zealand Police rescue coordinator, who arranged with the Northland Emergency Services Trust to send a helicopter.

Sid returned to Judy and gave her some water. She asked for more, but he was cautious because she looked so weak and dehydrated. He just didn’t know if it would be good for her to have too much. He reassured her that she was safe and that he would stay with her. He gave her small sips of water, and once she felt more comfortable, she started telling Sid what had happened to her and her family. Her speech was still quite garbled, and the story itself seemed incomprehensible to him. Sid thought she must be confused, but he was very upset by the story and very concerned for her, especially as he could tell “she was a foreigner and would feel very alone.”

Sid Hepi is related to everyone in nearby Rawhiti. The
Salt Shaker
was technically owned by Steve Willoughby’s brother Robert, Sid’s uncle, but everyone in Rawhiti considered it a family boat; it was used to ferry those who worked at the Otehei Bay Arts and Craft Centre on Urapukapuka Island, where Steve Willoughby was the manager. Sid and Steve had ferried Lara, Sid’s wife, to Urapukapuka that morning, and they were to pick her up at four P.M. when her shift ended. It was past that now, but Sid and Steve would not leave Judy before the helicopter arrived. They felt responsible for her and knew that Lara would completely understand. Indeed, the
Salt Shaker
would later be used by two other cousins to comb the shoreline up and down for hours and kilometers, searching for the bodies of Judy’s loved ones. They hoped to give her the opportunity to say goodbye in a proper and ceremonial way.

Steve Simpson and Reg Ellwood, the helicopter pilots from the community-funded Northland Emergency Services Trust, didn’t initially know this would be a land-based rescue. They had with them a paramedic and a water-rescue crew member who was prepared to drop by rope ladder into the sea and assist four people in a disabled yacht. As they approached Deep Water Cove, they saw rocks everywhere, making it too difficult to land. “Man, we’re going to catch the blades,” Steve recalls saying. He called Steve Willoughby on the marine radio and asked him if they could take Judy on the
Salt Shaker
to another bay, where the helicopter could land and meet her. Steve Willoughby readily agreed. Sid asked Judy if she thought she could get along to their boat with his assistance.

“I think I broke my back and my neck. I can’t move at all,” Judy whispered. She seemed to be in extreme agony.

Once he learned there was no other option, Steve Simpson managed to guide the helicopter toward the flax and land. When all four of the helicopter team, in their big, puffy, orange survival suits, got out and ran over to Judy, she said, “Are you from Ghostbusters?”

The paramedic did a thorough examination. He determined that Judy had broken her back, sustained a severe blow to her head, and was very dehydrated, but he told her that none of her injuries were fatal. The pilots wanted to look for the rest of the family. They put her on a stretcher, got her strapped safely in the helicopter, and told her of their plans. They assured her that they would keep her as comfortable as possible, but they wanted the opportunity to do a search while there was still daylight.

“It’s no use,” she sobbed, “they’re all dead.”

“You can’t be sure,” Steve replied. “Perhaps you just lost sight of them.”

“I’m sure. I’ll tell you why I’m so sure,” Judy mumbled. “I saw them die. . . .”

The search-and-rescue team was dubious. Judy had been hallucinating as a result of her dehydration. Judy had been barely coherent. But their presence seemed to give her some kind of ethereal resolve, and she shook her head emphatically.

“My family is dead!” she cried.

And then she told them the story she had stayed alive to tell during those terrible hours. For thirty minutes, starting with the position of collision and Ben’s death, she told them everything. The four men were completely mesmerized. She told it with such clarity that Steve Simpson can repeat every detail even today.

Sunday 26 November, 1995

1630 (NZDT)

Log Addendum:

WE HEARD A PLANE HAD SPOTTED AN OVERTURNED VESSEL IN DEEPWATER COVE. WE SUBSEQUENTLY DISCOVERED THAT IT WAS JUDY AND THAT SHE IS BEING FLOWN TO WHANGAREI HOSPITAL.

Twelve

The Moan of Condolences

MAUREEN LULL WAS ECSTATIC. SHE WAS QUITE SURE she was pregnant and was impatient to confirm it at her physician’s office. Maureen had been the first one to offer to have a baby shower for Judy before Annie’s birth, and she couldn’t wait to have her own child. She was in a wonderful mood. Then the phone rang, and the caller identified himself as a member of the Whangarei, New Zealand, police force. At first she thought it was Judy making a prank call.

“Is this Maureen Lull?” the caller repeated. “You have been identified as the emergency contact for Michael and Judith Sleavin.” 

Maureen and Richard Lull had spent two weeks on
Melinda Lee
in the Dominican Republic. It had been such a great time, even though it was the beginning of what Judy called the “move fast” period. They visited a number of anchorages on the north coast, which gave Richard and Maureen the opportunity to learn the night watch routine. Each night, the four adults took advantage of the calmer winds from dusk until dawn to sail to the next bay. The Lulls owned a sailboat, a Shock 35,
Aftershock,
and both were experienced ocean racers. On the southern California coast, there was nowhere to race but offshore. They, too, were contemplating a future cruising life, and the two-week trip on the
Melinda Lee
provided a real education.

Maureen, always a supremely capable and calm individual, felt her stomach churning as she listened to the voice on the phone. It was inconceivable to her that this could happen to the Sleavins, and now, as the emergency contact, she had the distressing task of having to break the news to their families.

Catherine, Mike’s mother, had sailed with the Sleavins on three separate occasions, and she was familiar with life aboard the
Melinda Lee.
In the only interview she gave, to the
Los Angeles Times,
she said, “The children were the most important things in their life. My Michael always thought he was in heaven just to have his children with him twenty-four hours a day.”

From the outset, Catherine’s honesty and concern for Judy set the tone for her other children. They were all suffering. Mike was incredibly popular and loved in that family. They talked about who would go to New Zealand and what else might be done. John, the youngest, was trying to find out exactly what had happened, and he wanted to make sure there would be an investigation.

Letters from the cruising community poured in as the news spread. Many of the letters were posted from faraway ports. Those who had photos of any of the Sleavins, especially of the children, made the effort to develop and send them to Judy. The family on
SeaHawk
wrote from Pago Pago that they had notified Ben’s teacher at the Calvert School. Someone sent Judy a piece of artwork that Annie had done. And another person sent a baseball cap that Ben had worn and passed on to her son. Everyone was concerned that all the tangible remembrances of the family had gone down with the
Melinda Lee.

Letters arrived from all over the world from people who would never think of stepping onto a boat—empathetic and humane strangers who were touched by Judy’s loss and simply wanted to reach out. One man from Singapore sent a kind-hearted letter of support, telling Judy that his wife had died ten years ago, in a terrible accident, after only twenty days of marriage. He said the grief had almost killed him, but he was indeed happy now, a state he once thought impossible. He enclosed one hundred dollars. An English widow of some forty years’ duration sent a tender note with eight dollars, and her apologies: she was on a pension. Isabel Allende, the much-admired author, sent a handmade card with three white birds flying high on the cover, in memory of Mike, Ben, and Annie, she said. It was a warm and beautiful card from a woman still and always in pain from the loss of her daughter, Paula, about whom she wrote a book.

Letters came from across New Zealand offering sympathy and more. A flower arrangement from a couple in Remuera, Auckland, arrived with these sentiments: “My dear lady, if it were possible to erase the last few days for you indeed we would. We offer you support in any way you may require, please don’t hesitate to call us, collect, and know that our home is open to you or any extended family members or friends you may be expecting. God bless you.”

Meanwhile, I knew none of this. I was in Chicago, taking the examinations required to become a board-certified oral and maxillofacial radiologist. During a break, I bumped into Dr. Lars Hollender, my mentor. I expected him to ask how it was going, but instead he told me he had been watching a story on CNN about a sailing family that was hit—I interrupted him. I always enjoyed talking with Lars, a man of considerable wit and intelligence, but I was fatigued and still had one more full day of exams to go.

Two evenings later, at dinner, another colleague introduced the same topic. “Lucky that you and your husband completed your sailing adventure,” he said, as he told me about a story he had read in the
Los Angeles Times.
At first I listened with the detached interest of someone well acquainted with that same rough passage, but who would never actually know sailors to whom this could happen. But Stu was a detail man, and he mentioned the children’s ages and the fact that the mother, who had survived, was a civil engineer. He didn’t recall their names, or wouldn’t tell me, when he saw the look of dread on my face as the story finally sank in.