A third man who was in the boat when it left Marshall Islands on April 2 reportedly jumped out of the small boat 17 days into the 42-day open ocean drift.
The two men were transported from isolated Namoluk Atoll earlier this week by the FSM government’s patrol vessel to Weno for medical check ups. The two, Godfrey Capelle and Benjamin Thomas, washed up at Namoluk on May 14 — exactly 42 days since their 20-foot outboard engine boat washed out of Kwajalein Atoll to begin its westward drift.
A section of Route 15 in Mangilao is shown in November 2019. A white gravel road marks the general area where a shooting took place. Katarina Pitto was driving home — after she picked up a cousin from a graveyard shift at work — when she was shot around 1:50 a.m. on Nov. 13, 2019, on Route 15 by someone in another car. Photo by Dontana Keraskes/The Guam Daily Post
Safe after a six-week ocean drift rom Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands to Namoluk Atoll in the Federated States of Micronesia, from left: Godfrey Capelle and Benjamin Thomas. This photo was taken earlier this week after the they arrived on Weno, the capital of Chuuk state. They are awaiting repatriation to the Marshall Islands. Photo provided by Giff Johnson
Godfrey Capelle’s wife Bina was described by residents of her home island of Ebeye as “a woman of faith and perseverance” who would not allow family and friends to hold a funeral for her husband. She continued to believe her husband was alive through the ordeal.
Bina also talked about her first communication by telephone from Weno with Godfrey on May 19. She said he told her that Junior Jarom, the third Ebeye man who was with them on the fishing trip, jumped off boat on April 19. “The sea was rough and my husband kept telling Junior to remain on the boat, but he jumped from the front end of the boat,” she said of her phone call.
No further details of the men’s ill-fated trip were immediately available.
Repatriation to the Marshall Islands is complicated by Covid-19 travel bans that affect both international and domestic travel in the FSM. An option offered by the Marshall Islands of picking up the two Ebeye men with an Air Marshall Islands flight to Pohnpei was unsuccessful.
“The plan for repatriation is if the survivors are healthy enough for a sea voyage from Chuuk to the Marshalls, the FSM patrol boat will take them to Majuro lagoon where they will be transferred onto our own Lomor vessel,” said Marshall Islands Foreign Secretary Anjanette Kattil.
