Pair survive shipwreck in shark-infested waters

By ELEANOR BLACK

A relaxing Fijian holiday turned into a real-life survival contest for two New Zealand men who were shipwrecked in shark-infested waters.

Marty Bowers and his father, Earle, were on a reef fishing charter trip about 16km off Malolo Lailai Island when a 9m wave tipped their fibreglass longboat on its nose and threw the occupants on to a coral reef.

Marty, a 35-year-old Rotorua forestry consultant who auditioned for the last series of the television survival programme Treasure Island, managed to avoid being hit by falling debris but his 62-year-old father was knocked on the head and broke four ribs.

A second wave capsized the 7.6m boat and left the two Kiwis and their Fijian skipper stranded on Roro Reef.

Earle Bowers, a retired flight dispatcher, who lives in the Coromandel at Hahei, temporarily lost the use of his legs and became disoriented. He kept trying to swim towards the open sea and his son had to keep a firm grip on him for the hour and a half it took rescuers to find them.

The skipper swam towards the shore, hoping to reach another fishing boat.

Marty grabbed a backpack for flotation. When another wave lifted the boat, several lifejackets came free and Marty put one on his father and another on himself, taking a third to wave for help.

He said the Fijian-made safety devices proved virtually useless, forcing the men on to their faces.

As he became tired, Marty took breaks from swimming, standing on the coral, which cut his feet. He worried that sharks would arrive and thought his father, who had lost consciousness, was dead.

"I knew I'd get home but I wasn't convinced I could get Dad home. I thought, 'I'm going to be the last bugger left alive here and there isn't $25,000 to dig up'."

When Mary Bowers, Earle's wife and Marty's mother, saw the men back at their hotel - limping and sore - she went into shock. "I said the most stupid thing- 'Have you got any fish for tea?"'